Sentience is important because it confirms that animals are aware, emotional and feel pain and pleasure. Why does a dog wag it's tail and nuzzle if you stroke or pat it? Why is a bull in a bullring so aggressive, why do birds and other animals deliberately avoid us? A sheep will come willingly to the farmer but won't to a stranger. There are hundreds of ways in which to prove an animal is sentient. As regards the question ,should we keep dogs? I see no harm in that provided they are looked after properly and are happy to be with you. They are mans best friend after all. I know some people have a different view and I respect that. I've been vegan from birth for 79yrs this year and we've always had dogs. I wouldn't have missed their company and enjoyment they gave us for anything. I have a GSD right now who is 14yrs old on 1st June. If I hadn't had him after my wife passed away in 2019 I would have cracked up. He's been amazing. But he is the last dog I will have, as at my age, if I had another one it could outlive me and that wouldn't be fair.
Why is sentience an argument for animal advocates & vegans?
- Thread starter Graeme M
- Start date
Lou
Forum Legend
I'm not sure what the legislatures mean by "sentience". but whatever they think it means, the way the are creating prohibitions against some things and not others is at least inconsistent.
To me it represents a small step. Maybe even a shift. I'm optimistic that more small steps will follow.
Lou
Forum Legend
It's good if "it's just a popular move". That is how legislation in a democracy is supposed to mostly work. The things they prohibited in the bill were pretty much the low hanging fruit. Popular ideas with little economic costs and little opposition.
I guess it's unreasonable of me to hope for more.
Also although it's just "a start", the wording just might open the door wider for animal rights activist.
Lou
Forum Legend
To the original poster: I've seen "sentience" used different ways. As I understand it, "sentient" means the ability to feel... that is, to have subjective experiences. And they cannot do this if they don't have the capacity to be aware of anything.
Animal welfarists (at least some of them) appear to be okay with "using" animals, even to the point of killing and eating them, so long as the animals enjoy life while they are alive and die painlessly. Here's where I differ from them: from my observations of animals- the ones I've known personally, and the ones I've just observed- even insects- animals are sentient (as I used the term just above). I believe they would generally choose to live if they had a conception of "death" and "life". I believe that killing an animal- robbing them of the rest of the experiences they might have had- is harming them, just as surely as inflicting pain would be.
Animal welfarists (at least some of them) appear to be okay with "using" animals, even to the point of killing and eating them, so long as the animals enjoy life while they are alive and die painlessly. Here's where I differ from them: from my observations of animals- the ones I've known personally, and the ones I've just observed- even insects- animals are sentient (as I used the term just above). I believe they would generally choose to live if they had a conception of "death" and "life". I believe that killing an animal- robbing them of the rest of the experiences they might have had- is harming them, just as surely as inflicting pain would be.
I don't think it will go far enough but as you say, it's a small step in the right direction. I too cannot understand why they have omitted some other animals that are clearly sentient. It doesn't make sense unless they are being pressured by the Milk marketing board and other animal dealing organisations. All animals are sentient including most insects, where will they draw the line? If one is sentient then they all are. They would not have survived if they weren't. Instinct is one thing, sentience is totally different.
OP
OP
This is the nub of my curiosity. Sentience, as I understand it, is simply the capacity to experience things. There is something it is like to be something sentient. But sentience doesn't have to BE very much to qualify. As you suggest, insects may very well be sentient. But many if not most insects don't feel pain. Sentience would be a basis for welfare legislation, otherwise we don't need welfare considerations, but not ALL sentience demands ALL possible forms of welfare protection. Luckily when it comes to cows and sheep and pigs we don't have to worry too much as we are fairly confident they have emotions and feel pain and can suffer (to an extent, anyway).
However sentience isn't full blown consciousness of the form humans possess. We are a singular divide away from other animals and can entertain broad and abstract concepts about the world as well as have self-awareness of a particular quality. For me, activists seem to regard "sentience" as almost akin to human consciousness, yet sentience at its simplest probably demands no duty of us at all. I accept sentience as a useful measure for welfare considerations, but it doesn't follow this means that extending welfare to rights is necessary.
That said, someone somewhere else explained to me how rights can emerge even from this simpler definition and that rights have great utility so I think that part of my curiosity is assuaged. Still, I think it's problematic for people to make claims about sentience that are likely not true in the case of other species. For example claiming that one should not kill an animal who wants to live. My guess is that other animals by and large do not even know they are alive, let alone that they can be killed. The issue of "wanting" to live is somewhat moot, as I see it (most organisms including plants have evolved mechanisms for remaining alive, they just don't think abut it). So I can see the value in awarding rights as a way of abstracting welfare considerations into globally applicable standards, but I'm not especially moved by appeals to extensive states of consciousness for other animals.
So I think there is a gulf of meaning between what an animal, especially an insect, actually has in mind and what we have in mind in regard to living and life and death. There is no point worrying at what an insect might choose to do were it human. That isn't the case and not something we need to address.
I suggest you look at What the Health on Netflix.
It covers the this issue and many others.
Animal protein causes disease and the industry is not sustainable for many reasons.
Imagine if animals got COVID 19 and this could infect preople through the food chain!
When thinking about a lot of virus and illnesses come from animal interaction.
Why be a loser and have second quality animal protein when you can have plant based protein
without the diseases that come from animal based protein?
Also the other program called Seaspiracy on Netflix also confirms that fish feel and remember!
Just wish humanity would wake up!
It covers the this issue and many others.
Animal protein causes disease and the industry is not sustainable for many reasons.
Imagine if animals got COVID 19 and this could infect preople through the food chain!
When thinking about a lot of virus and illnesses come from animal interaction.
Why be a loser and have second quality animal protein when you can have plant based protein
without the diseases that come from animal based protein?
Also the other program called Seaspiracy on Netflix also confirms that fish feel and remember!
Just wish humanity would wake up!
I don't think that animals feel is anything new. I've known for nearly 80yrs. And I think most people who eat meat know it too but because they don't see the reality of the meat and dairy industry and only see the product on a supermarket shelf, they ignore what happens behind the scenes. And I genuinely think some people really don't know. Fish have a 7 second memory but can learn from repetition, also they have a herd memory the same as many other animals.
I think this is what makes animal-treatment issues so complicated sometimes. Most of us are probably confident that mammals and birds feel sensations (like pleasure and pain) and sense things very similarly- although of course there are differences: e.g., few animals have hearing as acute as a cetacean's or a bat's. But even insects have nervous systems and senses we can recognize as somewhat similar to ours., and they tend to seek out some stimuli and avoid others.
I disagree that sentience demands no duty of us: this is one of the crucial differences (possibly the main one) between animals and other living things such as plants, fungi, and micro-organisms, and a commonly-stated outlook of animal advocates. I'm not sure if it was Jeremy Bentham who said this and don't know if I have the quote verbatim, but someone said something like: " the question is not whether (animals) think, but whether they can suffer?"... and I would add, "...or feel pleasure?"
Again, I would argue that it is irrelevant that animals do not know that they are alive (although I agree that they can't realize, as Descates did: "I think, therefor I am"... which I think is kinda-sorta your point, although maybe not exactly- i apologize if I'm misinterpreting). I'm arguing that an animal loses something they enjoy when they die, and that killing them does them harm for this reason- whether or not they can intellectually grasp this.
beancounter
The Fire That Burns Within
Lou
Forum Legend
here is some fresh off the press news that is relevant to this disussion.
www.cnn.com
BTW, the law that this article is about does not protect these animals from harvesting or eating but sets up protections for them. So its still ok to eat lobsters but not to boil them alive.
Here are some of the highlights.
Lobsters and crabs are sentient beings and shouldn't be boiled alive, UK report says | CNN
Octopuses, crabs and lobsters are capable of experiencing pain or suffering, according to a review commissioned by the UK government, which has added the creatures to a list of sentient beings to be given protection under new animal welfare laws.
www.cnn.com
BTW, the law that this article is about does not protect these animals from harvesting or eating but sets up protections for them. So its still ok to eat lobsters but not to boil them alive.
Here are some of the highlights.
Octopuses, crabs and lobsters are capable of experiencing pain or suffering.... The report .... looked at 300 scientific studies to evaluate evidence of sentience, and they concluded that cephalopods (such as octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) and decapods (such as crabs, lobsters and crayfish) should be treated as sentient beings.
The report used eight different ways to measure sentience including learning ability, possession of pain receptors, connections between pain receptors and certain brain regions, response to anesthetics or analgesics, and behaviors including balancing threat against opportunity for reward and protection against injury or threat.
It found "very strong" evidence of sentience in octopods and "strong" evidence in most crabs. For other animals in these two groups, such as squid, cuttlefish and lobsters they found the evidence was substantial but not strong.
The recent Netflix documentary "My Octopus Teacher" showcased the unique abilities of octopuses. The brain structure of octopuses is very different from that of humans, but it has some of the same functions as mammal brains, such as learning abilities, including being able to solve problems, and possibly the ability to dream.
OP
OP
Interestingly, this goes some of the way to my original point. Sentience, in the context of capacity to feel pain, is a useful property insofar as welfare is concerned. We should prefer not to cause unnecessary pain and suffering to others, but having the capacity to experience aspects of the world doesn't automatically mean we have a duty to offer more than welfare to lobsters. I suspect that many people equate "sentience" to being something like the conscious world we experience, whereas it is probably the case that many animals simply don't have anything like this going on inside their brains. Legislating to prevent lobsters from being boiled alive and suffering is a worthwhile protection, but whether or not eating them is a wrong is a different question entirely.
If a being is not capable of suffering, there is no suffering to consider when deciding how to treat them. If a being is not capable of feeling, there is no feeling to consider when deciding how to treat them. If a being cannot experience life or enjoy life, or be miserable, what is there to take from them if they would be killed? If a being knows nothing, feels nothing and does not suffer or have any interest in not suffering, there is nothing for them to lose if they are, for example, hit or cut and killed. Destroying a non-sentient “being” that has never suffered or been sentient and will never suffer or be sentient is akin to just destroying or damaging an inanimate object; they have no experiences, no capacity for suffering or for happiness, no capacity to feel, no capacity to think or be aware of anything.
Sentience is a better factor for determining moral value than intelligence in other beings besides nonhuman animals. A person with severe mental disabilities would likely be less intelligent than your average human being, but they still feel and, therefore, certainly have moral value and should not be treated with cruelty any more than anyone else should, and they should instead be treated with compassion and given necessary support and care. I know they would still be human, but it’s similar with animals. If intelligence were to define the moral value of a being in your view, you would treat the person with severe learning disabilities as less equal than someone without learning disabilities. If intelligence were to purely define how much moral value you afford to someone, you might treat a baby as less important than your average adult human.
Also, sapience is not a good enough determiner for how to treat a being. If there was another species that were just as intelligent, caring, emotional and sentient as we are, but they were just not human beings (not sapient), it would not really be moral to treat them with any less compassion or moral value. A dog is not sapient, but they are sentient. They are capable of feeling and thinking. They are capable of suffering. Similarly, a pig, a cow, a chicken, a duck, a goat, a sheep, a turkey, a goose, a rabbit, a wolf or any of most other species of animal are not sapient, but they are still sentient. They are all capable of feeling love, pain, fear and distress. They are all capable of suffering. They are all aware, at least, to some extent. Therefore, all of those species (and all other sentient species) deserve to be loved (or at least respected and treated with kindness and compassion), and to not be treated in any way that unjustly causes them distress, fear, pain or suffering.
Yes, mice, rats, foxes, pigeons, squirrels, seagulls, raccoons, coyotes and other animals classed as “pests” or even “v****n” by humans are all sentient beings. Therefore, they all deserve compassion. I’m not saying we have to live with them, but we can at least treat them humanely and practice humane, non-lethal, safe and effective ways of dealing with them that don’t kill or hurt them…
FlandersOD
Forum Practitioner
I think this makes the point sufficiently;
I would agree that animal friends,generally are some degree of conscious,
& I think sentient is Appropriate in many cases.
I would agree that animal friends,generally are some degree of conscious,
& I think sentient is Appropriate in many cases.
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As an 80yr old Vegan from birth, I believe it all comes down to one thing. "Noblesse Oblige" All creatures are sentient to some degree whether it be automatic chemical reaction to outside stimulus or a personal reaction by the same way. The Panorama prog. the other night shows just how much we need to improve our treatment of all animals regardless of which ones they are. Nature knows best and would not have them on this earth unless they are an integral part of the whole. It is not for us to dictate which animals should live and which to die or which are vermin and which are not. We are part of this earth, it's the only home we have and if we don't listen to Mother Nature, we are all doomed to extinction. We have to look after all creatures who need it, they wouldn't be here if they weren't necessary to the health of this planet.
OP
OP
I came back to this one following Jon's comment above about noblesse oblige. I'm not sure the term quite fits what we have in mind here but I interpret Jon as saying we have an obligation to treat others well. The rest of Jon's argument seems less strong - it's an appeal to nature. Animals are here because they are important and who are we to decide who lives and dies. But nature has made us as part of nature and who else but the animals in nature can choose who lives and dies? Nature requires that we choose who lives and dies because it is the process of animals using and consuming each other that drives evolution and the biosphere. We are in fact evading our role as members of nature to choose not to partake in that system.
This fact goes part of the way to clarify my original question which I don't think was framed well enough.The problem I stated is this:
Nature works by an endless cycle of organisms living and dying as they compete with, cooperate with, consume, and kill other organism. In the process, some organisms became sentient (that is, they can have "qualitative feelings" about their relations with the world that allow them to adapt behaviours on the fly or as an outcome of memory and learning. Veganism, and probably animal rights theory, seems to depend on the idea that some animals have these qualitative feelings - they are sentient. If other animals didn't have feelings we wouldn't need to worry about them.
Vegans tend to think of "feelings" as meaning "can feel pain and suffer", but sentience is a little broader than that. It really means that there is something it is like to be a sentient being. That is, a sentient being can hear sounds (there is a qualitative property to hearing such as middle C), they can see (there is a qualitative property to seeing, say red), they can experience emotions (there is a qualitative property to feeling good such as happiness). Pain is just one such qualitative property.
So if pain and suffering is all we care about, then wanting not to hurt other animals by not using them or eating them is a good vegan aim. But that reduces to welfarism. We don't eat other animals because we don't want to cause them to experience the qualitative property of pain, but nothing in that says we ought not eat them, just that we ought not hurt them in the process. Veganism in that context is welfarism.
On the other hand, maybe vegans don't want to use, own, exploit or harm animals because they are actually sentient beings. If they weren't sentient, like a potato is not, then we wouldn't care. But they ARE sentient. They are subjects of a life and have some experience of the world, even if it doesn't always include pain. Veganism in that context is more about bodily rights. A sentient being has a right to the use of its own body and to live its own life without being used by us in ways that might thwart its desires for the good life. Veganism in this context is rights/duties based and depends upon the animal being sentient (unless you want to argue that just being alive is sufficient grounds for the protections of veganism).
My question really is this. Given that treating animals well to avoid harm firstly depends on an animal feeling pain and us wanting not to hurt them, and that desire reduces to welfarism, then veganism isn't really saying anything new. If however extending rights to animals because they are sentient - whether or not that includes pain - is the distinguishing thing about veganism, I want to know why. What IS the reason that sentience in another animal demands from us some special obligation not to use them. If a grasshopper sees, hears, feels the world, remembers some facts about the world, can learn from experiences and adapt its behaviour accordingly, it is sentient. Why then do we owe that individual grasshopper some special duty beyond preventing unnecessary harm?
What is the reason that sentience demands a moral obligation (rights or duties) beyond minimising harm to it (welfare)?
This fact goes part of the way to clarify my original question which I don't think was framed well enough.The problem I stated is this:
Nature works by an endless cycle of organisms living and dying as they compete with, cooperate with, consume, and kill other organism. In the process, some organisms became sentient (that is, they can have "qualitative feelings" about their relations with the world that allow them to adapt behaviours on the fly or as an outcome of memory and learning. Veganism, and probably animal rights theory, seems to depend on the idea that some animals have these qualitative feelings - they are sentient. If other animals didn't have feelings we wouldn't need to worry about them.
Vegans tend to think of "feelings" as meaning "can feel pain and suffer", but sentience is a little broader than that. It really means that there is something it is like to be a sentient being. That is, a sentient being can hear sounds (there is a qualitative property to hearing such as middle C), they can see (there is a qualitative property to seeing, say red), they can experience emotions (there is a qualitative property to feeling good such as happiness). Pain is just one such qualitative property.
So if pain and suffering is all we care about, then wanting not to hurt other animals by not using them or eating them is a good vegan aim. But that reduces to welfarism. We don't eat other animals because we don't want to cause them to experience the qualitative property of pain, but nothing in that says we ought not eat them, just that we ought not hurt them in the process. Veganism in that context is welfarism.
On the other hand, maybe vegans don't want to use, own, exploit or harm animals because they are actually sentient beings. If they weren't sentient, like a potato is not, then we wouldn't care. But they ARE sentient. They are subjects of a life and have some experience of the world, even if it doesn't always include pain. Veganism in that context is more about bodily rights. A sentient being has a right to the use of its own body and to live its own life without being used by us in ways that might thwart its desires for the good life. Veganism in this context is rights/duties based and depends upon the animal being sentient (unless you want to argue that just being alive is sufficient grounds for the protections of veganism).
My question really is this. Given that treating animals well to avoid harm firstly depends on an animal feeling pain and us wanting not to hurt them, and that desire reduces to welfarism, then veganism isn't really saying anything new. If however extending rights to animals because they are sentient - whether or not that includes pain - is the distinguishing thing about veganism, I want to know why. What IS the reason that sentience in another animal demands from us some special obligation not to use them. If a grasshopper sees, hears, feels the world, remembers some facts about the world, can learn from experiences and adapt its behaviour accordingly, it is sentient. Why then do we owe that individual grasshopper some special duty beyond preventing unnecessary harm?
What is the reason that sentience demands a moral obligation (rights or duties) beyond minimising harm to it (welfare)?
