5. Sentience Flashcards
What is sentience?
An animal having the capacity to experience positive and negative feelings such as pleasure, joy, pain and distress that matter to the individual.
What issues surround sentience?
Has implications for all areas of human-animal interaction. If animals can have feelings both their physical and mental welfare needs must be taken into account.
It is very important to respect laws, policies and peoples behaviour relating to animals. A sentience Bill (UK) is currently in draft form to recognise animal sentience
How do humans impact sentient animals?
- what we eat
- what we wear
- how we travel
- the houses and roads we build
- what we buy
materials we use and items we throw out - the way we treat animals
What does it mean to be sentient in the real world?
- the nervous system would have to be complex enough to process sensory inputs and create a subjective experience. eg pain = distress
- if endorphins are released in a response to pain, therefore the animal is aware of the pain and is suffering
- behaviours indicating pain (yelping in dogs) or joy (laughing in rats)
What are direct impacts of sentience?
eg- letting an active dog off of the leash in a wood and allowing them to disturb wildlife
punishing a cat for using the litter box
What are indirect impacts of sentience?
Less immediately obvious- buying cheaper meat and eggs over higher welfare, collecting ‘pug’ memorabilia which normalises animals with welfare issues
What is the harm-benefit assessment?
The (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 regulates animal research and weighs the likely harms to the animals against the potential benefits from the work.
What does ‘harms’ mean?
the adverse effects that the animals are likely to experience in terms of pain, suffering or distress.
consider housing, repeat injections, marking for identification
What does ‘benefits’ mean?
how far, humans, animals, plants and the environment may potentially benefit a project.
consider- health and disease, safety of substances
