Citation

Author Website

https://patrickbutlin.com

Commentary Type

Invited Commentary

Thread

Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, and Jonathan Birch, Sentience in decapod crustaceans: A general framework and review of the evidence

Abstract

When presented with evidence that Crump et al.’s criteria are satisfied for the animals in some taxon, a sceptic could reasonably continue to suspend judgement about whether those animals are sentient. This is because the criteria refer to abilities which are associated with sentience in humans, but it is not clear that sentience is necessary for these abilities. The criteria could be strengthed by requiring evidence of a contrast in performance between cases in which information is carried by felt and unfelt states.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Patrick Butlin is a philosopher and Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford. His research interests include agency and sentience in animals and artificial systems. Website

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1741