How not to move the line drawn on pain

Abstract

In this second commentary I outline the inadequacy of Key's responses to the many peer critiques of his thesis that have so far appeared in Animal Sentience. I illustrate with examples drawn from his response to my first commentary. Bjorn Merker gyr694c@tninet.se is a neuroscientist with longstanding interest in brain mechanisms of consciousness: He has worked on subcortical mechanisms of orienting behavior in rodents and cats, mirror self-recognition in gibbons, and structural principles intrinsic to the neural organization of a conscious state. Fjälkestadsv. 410-82, SE-29194 Kristianstad, Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Björn_Merker In his target article "Why fish do not feel pain, " Key (2016) presents the thesis that fish nocifensive behavior is not attended by pain of any kind. In answering his many critics Key typically points to the various ways in which they have violated the premises on which his argument is built or have ignored the purported facts on which it relies. Such a manner of proceeding is unexceptionable when those premises and facts themselves are unexceptionable — i.e., when they represent uncontroversial and secure assumptions and facts.