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Ethics Of Uncertain Sentience
The ethics of uncertain sentience refers to questions surrounding the treatment of and moral obligations towards individuals whose sentience—the capacity to subjectively sense and feel—and resulting ability to experience pain is uncertain; the topic has been particularly discussed within the field of animal ethics, with the precautionary principle frequently invoked in response. Views Animal ethics David Foster Wallace in his 2005 essay "Consider the Lobster" investigated the potential sentience and capacity of crustaceans to experience pain and the resulting ethical implications of eating them. In 2014, the philosopher Robert C. Jones explored the ethical question that Wallace raised, arguing that " en if one remains skeptical of crustacean sentience, when it comes to issues of welfare it would be most prudent to employ the precautionary principle regarding our treatment of these animals, erring on the side of caution". Maximilian Padden Elder takes a similar view re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Consciousness
Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within a non-human animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, qualia, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. The topic of animal consciousness is beset with a number of difficulties. It poses the problem of other minds in an especially severe form because animals, lacking the ability to use human language, cannot tell us about their experiences. Also, it is difficult to reason objectively about the question, because a denial that an animal is conscious is often taken to imply that it does not feel, its life has no value, and that harming it is not morally wro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics Of Science And Technology
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Issues In Environmental Ethics
Issue or issues may refer to: Publishing * ''Issue'' (company), a mobile publishing company * ''Issue'' (magazine), a monthly Korean comics anthology magazine * Issue (postal service), a stamp or a series of stamps released to the public * ''Issues (American Council for Judaism)'', a Jewish magazine * ''Issues in Science and Technology'' a public policy peer reviewed journal pertaining to science, engineering, and medicine Computers * Issue (computers), a unit of work to accomplish an improvement in a data system ** Issue tracking system, a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of bugs, etc. * Issue log, a documentation element of software project management Music * Issues (band), a metalcore band from Atlanta, Georgia ** ''Issues'' (Issues album), 2014 * ''Issues'' (Korn album), 1999 * ''Issues'', a 2000 R&B album by Somethin' for the People * ''Issue VI'', a 2005 thrash metal album by Dew-Scented * "Issues" (Escape the Fate song), 2010 * "Issues" (T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Issues In Animal Ethics
Issue or issues may refer to: Publishing * ''Issue'' (company), a mobile publishing company * ''Issue'' (magazine), a monthly Korean comics anthology magazine * Issue (postal service), a stamp or a series of stamps released to the public * ''Issues (American Council for Judaism)'', a Jewish magazine * ''Issues in Science and Technology'' a public policy peer reviewed journal pertaining to science, engineering, and medicine Computers * Issue (computers), a unit of work to accomplish an improvement in a data system ** Issue tracking system, a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of bugs, etc. * Issue log, a documentation element of software project management Music * Issues (band), a metalcore band from Atlanta, Georgia ** ''Issues'' (Issues album), 2014 * ''Issues'' (Korn album), 1999 * ''Issues'', a 2000 R&B album by Somethin' for the People * ''Issue VI'', a 2005 thrash metal album by Dew-Scented * "Issues" (Escape the Fate song), 2010 * "Issues" (T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consciousness Studies
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scientists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or soul explored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society (what decisions are "good" or "bad" and why) and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine ( "the ethics of the ordinary"), ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health. Etymology The term ''Bioethics'' (Greek , life; , behavior) was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in an article about a "b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentiocentrism
Sentiocentrism, sentio-centrism, or sentientism is an ethical view that places sentient individuals (i.e., basically conscious beings) at the center of moral concern. Both humans and other sentient individuals have rights and/or interests that must be considered. Sentiocentrists consider discrimination between sentient beings of different species to be speciesism, an arbitrary discrimination. Coherent sentiocentrist belief respects all sentient beings. Many self-described humanists see themselves as "sentientists" where the term ''humanism'' contrasts with ''theism'' and does not describe the sole focus of humanist concerns. Sentiocentrism stands in opposition to the philosophy of anthropocentrism. History The 18th-century utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham was among the first to argue for sentiocentrism. He maintained that any individual who is capable of subjective experience should be considered a moral subject. Members of species who are able to experience pleasure a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pain In Invertebrates
Pain in invertebrates is a contentious issue. Although there are numerous definitions of pain, almost all involve two key components. First, nociception is required. This is the ability to detect noxious stimuli which evokes a reflex response that moves the entire animal, or the affected part of its body, away from the source of the stimulus. The concept of nociception does not necessarily imply any adverse, subjective feeling; it is a reflex action. The second component is the experience of "pain" itself, or suffering—i.e., the internal, emotional interpretation of the nociceptive experience. Pain is therefore a private, emotional experience. Pain cannot be directly measured in other animals, including other humans; responses to putatively painful stimuli can be measured, but not the experience itself. To address this problem when assessing the capacity of other species to experience pain, argument-by-analogy is used. This is based on the principle that if a non-human animal' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pain In Cephalopods
Pain in cephalopods is a contentious issue. Pain is a complex mental state, with a distinct perceptual quality but also associated with suffering, which is an emotional state. Because of this complexity, the presence of pain in non-human animals, or another human for that matter, cannot be determined unambiguously using observational methods, but the conclusion that animals experience pain is often inferred on the basis of likely presence of phenomenal consciousness which is deduced from comparative brain physiology as well as physical and behavioural reactions. Cephalopods are complex invertebrates, often considered to be more "advanced" than other invertebrates. They fulfill several criteria proposed as indicating that non-human animals may be capable of perceiving pain. These fulfilled criteria include having a suitable nervous system and sensory receptors, opioid receptors, reduced responses to noxious stimuli when given analgesics and local anaesthetics used for verteb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pain In Amphibians
Pain is an aversive sensation and feeling associated with actual, or potential, tissue damage. It is widely accepted by a broad spectrum of scientists and philosophers that non-human animals can perceive pain, including pain in amphibians. Pain is a complex mental state, with a distinct perceptual quality but also associated with suffering, which is an emotional state. Because of this complexity, the presence of pain in non-human animals cannot be determined unambiguously using observational methods, but the conclusion that animals experience pain is often inferred on the basis of likely presence of phenomenal consciousness which is deduced from comparative brain physiology as well as physical and behavioural reactions. Amphibians, particularly anurans, fulfill several physiological and behavioural criteria proposed as indicating that non-human animals may experience pain. These fulfilled criteria include a suitable nervous system and sensory receptors, opioid receptors a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pain In Animals
Pain negatively affects the health and welfare of animals. "Pain" is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." Only the animal experiencing the pain can know the pain's quality and intensity, and the degree of suffering. It is harder, if even possible, for an observer to know whether an emotional experience has occurred, especially if the sufferer cannot communicate. Therefore, this concept is often excluded in definitions of pain in animals, such as that provided by Zimmerman: "an aversive sensory experience caused by actual or potential injury that elicits protective motor and vegetative reactions, results in learned avoidance and may modify species-specific behaviour, including social behaviour." Nonhuman animals cannot report their feelings to language-using humans in the same manner as human communication, but obs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
