Sentience and Consciousness as Bases for Attributing Interests and Moral Status: Considering the Evidence and Speculating Slightly Beyond

Abstract

Sentient beings are capable of having pleasant or unpleasant experiences and therefore have interests, which I assume to be necessary and sufficient for moral status. But which animals are sentient? While sentience is sufficient for having interests, maybe it is not necessary. Perhaps some creatures are conscious---having subjective experience---yet are not sentient because their consciousness contains nothing pleasant or unpleasant. If so, do they nevertheless have interests and moral status? This chapter addresses both questions. After identifying several methodological assumptions, it proceeds to consider the state of the evidence for sentience in mammals and birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, cephalopods, and arthropods (in particular, crustaceans and insects). It then takes up the possibility that insects are conscious yet not sentient. In exploring the mental life of insects, the discussion considers the possibility of robots who are conscious but not sentient, eliciting implications for moral status.