![]() Īll decapods should be in Category 1 and so receive "protection.". Previously, in 2005, the EU’s European Food Safety Authority published their Scientific Opinion on the “Aspects of the biology and welfare of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes”. We recommend that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient. The report had been commissioned by the UK Government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). In November 2021, the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) published a report titled "Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans". "Where there are threats of serious, negative animal welfare outcomes, lack of full scientific certainty as to the sentience of the animals in question shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent those outcomes.” This idea is sometimes referred to as The Precautionary Principle: In other words, we don't need to be 100% sure an animal is sentient to believe they are morally relevant, and to take actions to prevent their suffering. If there is a non-negligible chance that an animal is sentient, we should consider their interests when deciding how to treat them. ![]() Instead we should take into account how likely we think an animal is sentient. sentience in a shrimp is likely very different from sentience in a human, which in turn is likely very different from sentience in an octopus).Īdditionally, we don’t need to be in a position to state with complete certainty whether an animal is sentient. Often the conversation around sentience is framed as if sentience is an “on/off switch”, but sentience may vary significantly among species (i.e. It’s worth discussing degrees and likelihood of sentience. But note that this isn’t a disagreement in the facts, but around the meanings of words. For example, someone might claim that an animal can't feel pain because that person associates the word pain with human pain, and they are emphasising the difference between what a human experiences and what an non-human experiences. whether an animal can experience these positive or negative states), but rather around our understanding of the words we are using. The crux of disagreement around whether an animal is sentient (or can feel pain) often isn't around the facts (i.e. Sentience differs from self-awareness, which refers to awareness of awareness - or rather, awareness of your own sentience **. ![]() A simple way to capture this idea is to ask: “ Does it feel like something to be this individual?”. An individual can have other positive or negative experiences such as warmth, boredom, contentment, frustration or joy *. But these aren’t the only experiences that matter. These may include feelings such as pleasure or pain. Sentience (from the Latin sentire, to feel) is the capacity to have feelings.
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