Citation
Lamey, Andy (2016) Subjective experience and moral standing. Animal Sentience 9(7)
Commentary Type
Open Commentary
Thread
Colin Klein and Andrew B. Barron, Insects have the capacity for subjective experience
Abstract
Klein & Barron’s analysis focuses on the capacity for any subjective experience at all. It does not seek to demonstrate that insects can experience pleasure and pain in particular. This would be something of which insects have not traditionally been thought capable. If further research were to demonstrate that one or more insect species turn out to be conscious, yet incapable of experiencing pleasure and pain, it would give rise to a philosophical question that ethicists have yet to answer: Would a creature that is conscious, but lacks the capacity to feel pain, have moral standing?
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1136
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