Forms of Sentience in Early Modernity by Timothy Michael Harrison A
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"Higher" Cognition. Animal Sentience
Animal Sentience 2017.030: Vallortigara on Marino on Thinking Chickens Sentience does not require “higher” cognition Commentary on Marino on Thinking Chickens Giorgio Vallortigara Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences University of Trento, Italy Abstract: I agree with Marino (2017a,b) that the cognitive capacities of chickens are likely to be the same as those of many others vertebrates. Also, data collected in the young of this precocial species provide rich information about how much cognition can be pre-wired and predisposed in the brain. However, evidence of advanced cognition — in chickens or any other organism — says little about sentience (i.e., feeling). We do not deny sentience in human beings who, because of cognitive deficits, would be incapable of exhibiting some of the cognitive feats of chickens. Moreover, complex problem solving, such as transitive inference, which has been reported in chickens, can be observed even in the absence of any accompanying conscious experience in humans. Giorgio Vallortigara, professor of Neuroscience at the Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento, Italy, studies space, number and object cognition, and brain asymmetry in a comparative and evolutionary perspective. The author of more than 250 scientific papers on these topics, he was the recipient of several awards, including the Geoffroy Saint Hilaire Prize for Ethology (France) and a Doctor Rerum Naturalium Honoris Causa for outstanding achievements in the field of psychobiology (Ruhr University, Germany). r.unitn.it/en/cimec/abc In a revealing piece in New Scientist (Lawler, 2015a) and a beautiful book (Lawler, 2015b), science journalist Andrew Lawler discussed the possible consequences for humans of the sudden disappearance of some domesticated species. -
Dharma Dogs: a Narrative Approach to Understanding the Connection of Sentience Between Humans and Canines Anna Caldwell SIT Study Abroad
SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Fall 2016 Dharma Dogs: A Narrative Approach to Understanding the Connection of Sentience Between Humans and Canines Anna Caldwell SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Community-Based Learning Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, and the Sociology of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Caldwell, Anna, "Dharma Dogs: A Narrative Approach to Understanding the Connection of Sentience Between Humans and Canines" (2016). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 2500. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/2500 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dharma Dogs A Narrative Approach to Understanding the Connection of Sentience Between Humans and Canines Cadwell, Anna Academic Director: Decleer, Hubert and Yonetti, Eben Franklin and Marshall College Anthropology Central Asia, India, Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsala Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Nepal: Tibetan and Himalayan Peoples, SIT Study Abroad, Fall 2016 Abstract India has the highest population of stray dogs in the world1. Dharamsala, a cross-cultural community in the north Indian Himalayan foothills, is home to a number of particularly overweight and happy canines. However, the street dogs of Dharamsala are not an accurate representation of the state of stay dogs across India. -
Misadventures of Sentience: Animals and the Basis of Equality
animals Article Misadventures of Sentience: Animals and the Basis of Equality Federico Zuolo Department of Classics, Philosophy and History, University of Genova, via Balbi 30, 16126 Genova, Italy; [email protected] Received: 31 October 2019; Accepted: 27 November 2019; Published: 29 November 2019 Simple Summary: Equal moral worth in animal ethics is an elusive moral notion not only because of the notorious human prejudice but also because grounding equal moral worth requires attending to the problem of the basis of equality. How can we ground equality given that all human and nonhuman individuals vary in all the morally considerable features? John Rawls claimed that we can use range properties, namely properties that are equally possessed by all people who pass a certain threshold of moral relevance (e.g., the age of majority gives equal right to vote). In this paper, I critically discuss two different attempts to defend an egalitarian theory in animal ethics: Alasdair Cochrane’s and Peter Singer’s. The former seeks to eschew the problem of range properties by appealing to a binary property naturally possessed by all sentient beings (the property of having interests). His attempt fails because this property has the same problems as range properties. The latter dispenses with equal moral worth altogether by defending the principle of equal consideration of interests. I argue that this principle has weak egalitarian credentials. I conclude by outlining the conditions that a sound theory in animal ethics should meet. Abstract: This paper aims to put in question the all-purposes function that sentience has come to play in animal ethics. -
Ethics Beyond Sentience Matthew Ip Analto Eastern Kentucky University
Volume 1 Nature's Humans Article 6 2016 Ethics Beyond Sentience Matthew iP analto Eastern Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: https://encompass.eku.edu/tcj Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Pianalto, Matthew (2016) "Ethics Beyond Sentience," The Chautauqua Journal: Vol. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://encompass.eku.edu/tcj/vol1/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Encompass. It has been accepted for inclusion in The hC autauqua Journal by an authorized editor of Encompass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pianalto: Ethics Beyond Sentience MATTHEW PIANALTO ETHICS BEYOND SENTIENCE To whom—or what—do we owe basic acknowledgment, respect, and consideration? To whom—or what—do we have those basic obligations? These are the questions I wish to probe in this essay. They are questions that can seem to require the drawing of lines, the identification of criteria that make some beings “morally considerable” while other beings do not warrant this kind of special moral attention. Such questions have received a great deal of attention from moral philosophers, and have generated many very different responses, ranging from views that regard human beings as sole possessors of this special property of moral considerability to views that attribute this feature to every corner of existence. Views of the latter sort will strike some as silly—overly romantic perhaps, and because of this, largely impractical. I am nevertheless often attracted to such views for the potential power they have to stimulate moral imagination. Such views ask us to move beyond human-centered ways of thinking about ethics and obligations, to see our responsibilities extending beyond the effects of our actions on our fellow humans. -
Fish Pain: a Painful Topic
Safina, Carl (2016) Fish pain: A painful topic. Animal Sentience 3(41) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1076 This article has appeared in the journal Animal Sentience, a peer-reviewed journal on animal cognition and feeling. It has been made open access, free for all, by WellBeing International and deposited in the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Animal Sentience 2016.066: Safina Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Fish pain: A painful topic Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Carl Safina Marine & Atmospheric Sciences Stony Brook University Abstract: If fish cannot feel pain, why do stingrays have purely defensive tail spines that deliver venom? Stingrays’ ancestral predators are fish. And why do many fishes possess defensive fin spines, some also with venom that produces pain in humans? These things did not evolve just in case sentient humans would evolve millions of years later and then invent scuba. If fish react purely unconsciously to “noxious” stimuli, why aren’t sharp jabbing spines enough? Why also stinging venom? Carl Safina [email protected] is the inaugural endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel is Carl’s seventh book. http://safinacenter.org/about-carl-safina/ Key (2016) seems an excellent neurobiologist, but he is less convincing as a logician. He launches with the seemingly inarguable truism that to address whether fish can feel pain, “it is necessary to first understand the neural basis of pain in humans, since it is the only species able to directly report on its feelings.” But no logic supports this conflation of pain and human speech. -
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddying the Waters
Sneddon, Lynne U.; Lopez-Luna, Javier; Wolfenden, David C.C.; Leach, Matthew C.; Valentim, Ana M.; Steenbergen, Peter J.; Bardine, Nabila; Currie, Amanda D.; Broom, Donald M.; and Brown, Culum (2018) Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1317 This article has appeared in the journal Animal Sentience, a peer-reviewed journal on animal cognition and feeling. It has been made open access, free for all, by WellBeing International and deposited in the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sneddon, Lynne U.; Lopez-Luna, Javier; Wolfenden, David C.C.; Leach, Matthew C.; Valentim, Ana M.; Steenbergen, Peter J.; Bardine, Nabila; Currie, Amanda D.; Broom, Donald M.; and Brown, Culum (2018) Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1317 Authors Lynne U. Sneddon, Javier Lopez-Luna, David C.C. Wolfenden, Matthew C. Leach, Ana M. Valentim, Peter J. Steenbergen, Nabila Bardine, Amanda D. Currie, Donald M. Broom, and Culum Brown This article is available in Animal Sentience: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ animsent/vol3/iss21/1 Animal Sentience 2018.115: Sneddon et al. on Sentience Denial Call for Commentary: Animal Sentience publishes Open Peer Commentary on all accepted target articles. Target articles are peer-reviewed. Commentaries are editorially reviewed. There are submitted commentaries as well as invited commentaries. Commentaries appear as soon as they have been reviewed, revised and accepted. Target article authors may respond to their commentaries individually or in a joint response to multiple commentaries. Instructions: animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/guidelines.html Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters Lynne U. -
Science, Sentience, and Animal Welfare
WellBeing International WBI Studies Repository 1-2013 Science, Sentience, and Animal Welfare Robert C. Jones California State University, Chico, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ethawel Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, and the Nature and Society Relations Commons Recommended Citation Jones, R. C. (2013). Science, sentience, and animal welfare. Biology and Philosophy, 1-30. This material is brought to you for free and open access by WellBeing International. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Science, Sentience, and Animal Welfare Robert C. Jones California State University, Chico KEYWORDS animal, welfare, ethics, pain, sentience, cognition, agriculture, speciesism, biomedical research ABSTRACT I sketch briefly some of the more influential theories concerned with the moral status of nonhuman animals, highlighting their biological/physiological aspects. I then survey the most prominent empirical research on the physiological and cognitive capacities of nonhuman animals, focusing primarily on sentience, but looking also at a few other morally relevant capacities such as self-awareness, memory, and mindreading. Lastly, I discuss two examples of current animal welfare policy, namely, animals used in industrialized food production and in scientific research. I argue that even the most progressive current welfare policies lag behind, are ignorant of, or arbitrarily disregard the science on sentience and cognition. Introduction The contemporary connection between research on animal1 cognition and the moral status of animals goes back almost 40 years to the publication of two influential books: Donald Griffin’s The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience (1976) and Peter Singer’s groundbreaking Animal Liberation (1975). -
PDF of Dixie: Orchards to Industry by Kathleen A. Hicks
Dixie: Orchards to Industry Kathleen A. Hicks DIXIE: ORCHARDS TO INDUSTRY is published by The Friends of the Mississauga Library System 301 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Mississauga, Ontario L5B 3Y3 Canada Copyright © 2006 Mississauga Library System Dixie: Orchards to Industry All rights reserved. II ISBN 0-9697873-8-3 Written by Kathleen A. Hicks Edited by Michael Nix Graphic layout by Joe and Joyce Melito Cover design by Stephen Wahl Front cover photos - The Region of Peel Archives Back cover photo by Stephen Wahl No part of this publication may be produced in any form without the written permission of the Mississauga Library System. Brief passages may be quoted for books, newspaper or magazine articles, crediting the author and title. For photographs contact the source. Extreme care has been taken where copyright of pictures is concerned and if any errors have occurred, the author extends her utmost apology. Care has also been taken with research material. If anyone encounters any discrepancy with the facts contained herein, please send Upper Canada Map (Frederick R. Bercham) your written information to the author in care of the Mississauga Library System. Dixie: Orchards to Industry (Kathleen A. Hicks) (Kathleen Other Books by Kathleen Hicks III The Silverthorns: Ten Generations in America Kathleen Hicks’ V.I.P.s of Mississauga The Life & Times of the Silverthorns of Cherry Hill Clarkson and Its Many Corners Meadowvale: Mills to Millennium Lakeview: A Journey From Yesterday Cooksville: Country to City VIDEO Riverwood: The Estate Dreams Are Made Of Dedication IV dedicate this book to all the people I know and have known who have hailed from Dixie, whom I have shared many inter- esting stories with over the years and have admired tremen- dously for their community dedication: William Teggart, the Kennedys, Dave and Laurie Pallett, Jim McCarthy, Colonel IHarland Sanders, Gord Stanfield, Mildred and Jack Bellegham and Dave Cook to mention a few. -
1982 Ontario PA.Pdf
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS, 1981-82 MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD Hon. Dennis R. Timbrell, Minister Hon. Lome C. Henderson, Minister DETAILS OF EXPENDITURE Voted and Special Warrant Salaries and Wages ($42,036,618) Listed below are the salary rates of those employees on the staff at March 31, where the annual rate is in excess of $30,000. D. M. Allan Deputy Minister 67,000 Abraham, F. R., 32,375; W. T. Abraham, 33,000; C. Allen, 33,000; W. R. Allen, 35,750; D. K. Alles, 35,750; E. T. Andersen, 46,825; J. A. Anderson, 33,000; J. B. Arnold, 33,000; P. S. Arri, 31,211; J. S. Ashman, 42,600; C. S. Baldwin, 35,750; A. Beauchesne, 33,000; S. J. Beckley, 34,950; C. M. Bell, 34,200; H. I. Bell, 33,000; R. E. Bell, 33,000; H. E. Bellman, 33,000; H. U. Bentley, 33,000; B. D. Binnington, 39,000; N. A. Bird, 33,000; W. D. Black, 33,000; T. J. Blom, 31,868; H. Blum, 42,600; G. B. Boddington, 39,800; M. R. Bolton, 33,000; J. Boluk, 37,500; K. G. Boyd, 35,750; W. R. Bradford, 33,000; H. E. Braun, 39,000; J. H. Brimner, 35,750; W. R. Broadworth, 33,000; D. Broome, 45,600; R. H. Brown, 35,750; J. E. Brubaker, 41,000; A. R. Brunet, 37,250; D. Buth, 32,375; K. D. Cameron, 33,000; J. E. Canning, 30,150; R. W. Carbert, 35,900; S. D. Carlson, 35,900; M. T. -
Cognitive Evidence of Fish Sentience
Balcombe, Jonathan (2016) Cognitive evidence of fish sentience. Animal Sentience 3(2) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1059 This article has appeared in the journal Animal Sentience, a peer-reviewed journal on animal cognition and feeling. It has been made open access, free for all, by WellBeing International and deposited in the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Animal Sentience 2016.008: Balcombe Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Cognitive evidence of fish sentience Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Jonathan Balcombe Institute for Science and Policy Humane Society of America Abstract: I present a little-known example of flexible, opportunistic behavior by a species of fish to undermine Key’s (2016) thesis that fish are unconscious and unable to feel. Lack of a cortex is flimsy grounds for denying pain to fish, for on that criterion we must also then deny it to all non- mammals, including birds, which goes against scientific consensus. Notwithstanding science’s fundamental inability to prove anything, the precautionary principal dictates that we should give the benefit of the doubt to fish, and the state of the oceans dictates that we act on it now. Jonathan Balcombe [email protected] is Director for Animal Sentience at the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy in Washington, DC. He has published over 50 scientific papers on animal behavior and animal protection. Jonathan has written four books, with the most recent, What a Fish Knows, scheduled for publication in 2016. www.jonathanbalcombe.com In January 2014 at Schroda Dam, a man-made lake in Limpopo Province, South Africa, scientists documented on film something remarkable and surprising. -
Broom Fish Brains Pain
Pre-publication copy Broom, D.M. 2016. Fish brains and behaviour indicate capacity for feeling pain. Animal Sentience, 2016.010 (5 pages). Fish brains, as well as fish behaviour, indicate capacity for awareness and feeling pain Donald M. Broom Centre for Anthrozoology and Animal Welfare Department of Veterinary Medicine University of Cambridge Madingley Road Cambridge CB3 0ES U.K. [email protected] http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?dmb16 Keywords pain sentience welfare fish feelings emotions brain behaviour Abstract Studies of behaviour are of major importance in understanding human pain and pain in other animals such as fish. Almost all of the characteristics of the mammalian pain system are also described for fish. Emotions, feelings and learning from these are controlled in the fish brain in areas anatomically different but functionally very similar to those in mammals. The evidence of pain and fear system function in fish is so similar to that in humans and other mammals that it is logical to conclude that fish feel fear and pain. Fish are sentient beings. Key (2015) is scornful about evidence from studies of fish behaviour indicating that fish are aware and feel pain but presents a thorough explanation of the pain system in the human brain and concludes that fish could not feel pain, or have any other feelings, as they do not have the brain structures that allow pain and other feelings in humans. Section 2 of his paper emphasises “the cortical origins of human pain” and states that “structure determines function”, eXplaining the functions of the five layers of the human cortex. -
The Core Argument for Veganism
Philosophia (2015) 43:271–290 DOI 10.1007/s11406-015-9595-5 The Core Argument for Veganism Stijn Bruers1 Received: 11 November 2014 /Revised: 16 March 2015 /Accepted: 23 March 2015 / Published online: 4 April 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract This article presents an argument for veganism, using a formal-axiomatic approach: a list of twenty axioms (basic definitions, normative assumptions and empirical facts) are explicitly stated. These axioms are all necessary conditions to derive the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty. The presented argument is a minimalist or core argument for veganism, because it is as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the narrowest definitions, the most reliable empirical facts and the minimal assumptions necessary to reach the conclusion. If someone does not accept the conclu- sion, logical consistency requires that s/he should be able to point at axiom(s) on which s/ he disagrees. The argument exposes hidden assumptions and provides a framework for an overview of the philosophical literature on animal rights and vegetarianism / veganism. Keywords Veganism . Speciesism . Animal ethics . Sentience Is veganism a moral duty? This article is an attempt to present a most logical argument for veganism,1 using a formal-axiomatic approach: all axioms (premises such as basic definitions, normative assumptions and empirical facts), as well as the logical steps from those axioms to the conclusions, will be stated as explicitly as possible. This axiomatic approach has three advantages. First, it allows us to directly and efficiently study the question: if people want to continue eating animal products, which of the assumptions do they reject? Everyone who wants to justify the consumption of animal products should be able to indicate at least one of the axioms that s/he rejects.