Animal cognition and ethics

Animal cognition and ethics (door Bernice Bovenkerk)

Animal ethics deals with the questions of what the moral status of (nonhuman) animals is and how we should treat them.

In order to answer these questions, animal ethicists need to take into account advances in cognitive science and thinking in the philosophy of mind.

Why is this the case?

Most animal ethics approaches are capacity-based. Capacity-based approaches in animal ethics have the following general form: an entity belongs to the moral community if it has morally relevant capacity x. This is because if it has capacity x it has interests. All equal interests should be treated equally. The primary question of course is 'what is capacity x?'. According to most animal ethicists x is sentience, subjectivity, having conscious strivings, or the ability to have experiential welfare. All these assume a form of consciousness or 'mindedness'.

This raises the general question whether animals are minded and a host of other questions about the consequences of such mindedness.

Questions that need to be answered are, for example, (1) 'What reasons are there for doubt or scepticism about animal consciousness and more in particular about animal suffering? (2)

'What should we make of the difference between 'sensing pain' and 'minding pain'? (3)

'Could there be a 'hierarchy of consciousness', which would for example mean that it would be better to use animals with less complex cognition than those with more complex cognition in animal experiments?'