Argumentative Essay On Animal Consciousness

Abstract

Throughout history, there has been substantial debate over whether or not animals experience consciousness and to what extent they are sentient. Exploring the merits of this discussion involves studying different animal species varying in anatomical, physiological, and behavioral characteristics. Many observational and experimental studies on various different types of animals have reached similar conclusions about animal consciousness and sentience; they generally posit that animals live some type of a subjective experience. However, the understanding of an animal’s mind and thoughts is incomplete and past research has uncovered the difficulties in making any concrete hypotheses. Furthermore, consciousness in animals is also important

Initially, researchers conducted studies on animal welfare because of the ethical concerns about animals’ quality of life. However, the topic dates back to ancient times. Philosophers of that time, such as Aristotle, believed that only humans had rational souls, while animals only had the instincts suited to survival and reproduction. Descartes, philosopher of modern western times, asserted that certain animal behavior could be explained by innate reflexes rather than by some sort of consciousness (Allen & Trestman, 2016). The late 18th century brought about more experimental approaches to explaining animal behavior. As more research was conducted, even more discoveries were made in relation to consciousness. In doing so, the interpretation of what constitutes a moral subject evolved in light of consequent research. In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer rejected the ideas that were founded on the basis that having the faculty of reasoning and self-consciousness is necessary to be attributed as a moral subject. Singer argued that sentience, the ability to feel pain and other emotions, is what defines what a moral subject is. Therefore, any sentient living being, which includes both human and non-human animals, need to be deemed or examined as moral subjects that should receive that same moral considerations as humans (Singer,

For example, we might ask (a) whether keeping a bird in a cage reduces its welfare by depriving it of the pleasure of flying, or (b) whether prolonging the life of a sick dog reduces its welfare because its suffering outweighs its enjoyment of living. or (c) whether keeping a cow in a barn improves its welfare because the protection from cold, hunger and possible injury outweighs the frustration and other negative experiences caused by confinement. These questions about animal welfare are indeed questions about the animal's subjective experience, but in these cases scientists are unable to provide empirical answers. This inability arises because there is not yet any accepted method to quantify the pleasure experienced by an animal (example a), or because there is no purely empirical means to balance suffering against enjoyment (example b) or to combine different negative states into overall indices (example c)

The net result for animal welfare science is much the same as in subsection 2: moral concern about the quality of life of animals arises because of the animals' capacity for subjective experience, but the study of subjective experience will not provide all the necessary