Sentience

The Emotional Experiences of Other Animals

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Animal sentience - the ability of animals to feel, experience emotions, and suffer - carries profound moral implications.

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Anyone who has ever loved a dog or cat knows that animals have rich emotional lives. Even within the same species, animals display unique personality traits, preferences, behaviors, and social bonds. Once dismissed as anthropomorphism, these observations are now indisputably supported by science. 

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MODERN DISCONNECTION:

Out of Our Sight, But Not Out of God's

Today, most of the animals who suffer because of our actions - whether for food, fashion, or convenience - are hidden from our sight. 

When people do encounter animal suffering - like a mouse screaming in a glue trap, a bird fiercely defending their young, or a cow desperately trying to escape slaughter - their sentience becomes undeniable. Their invisibility in our daily lives doesn’t lessen our responsibility to protect them. If anything, it makes it more urgent that we seek to understand their experiences and respond accordingly.

We are always capable of going out of ourselves towards the other. Unless we do this, other creatures will not be recognized for their true worth.”

— Pope Francis, Laudato Si’

Milestones in Recognizing Animal Sentience

In recent years, several pivotal developments have accelerated our understanding of animal sentience:

SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS

Over 2,500 studies conducted by universities, nonprofits, and independent ethologists confirm animal sentience. Over the years, researchers have come together to highlight the importance of these findings, as well as the need for policies and societal changes that reflect our understanding of animal sentience.

  • Leading neuroscientists signed this landmark declaration affirming that non-human animals - including mammals, birds, and marine life - possess consciousness and are capable of feeling, helping establish sentience as mainstream.

  • Commissioned by the UK government and conducted by the London School of Economics, this review examined over 300 studies and concluded that octopuses, crabs, and lobsters are sentient. The UK government committed to incorporating these findings into future policy decisions.

  • More than 500 scholars and researchers in philosophy from 40 countries signed onto this declaration, stating that today’s animal exploitation is fundamentally unjust and must change.

  • First presented at a conference at New York University, this declaration was signed by 40 researchers and points to scientific support for attributions of consciousness to different species. The declaration also states, “…When there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal.”

In ethology and neurobiology, it is well established that mammals, birds, fish, and many invertebrates are sentient – i.e., capable of feeling pleasure, pain and emotions. These animals are conscious subjects; they have their own perspective on the world around them. It follows that they have interests: our behaviors affect their well-being and can benefit or harm them.”

- Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation

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  • “We are asked, in theory, to believe that all these other beings in our midst dumbly traipse and dart and swim and fly about, preprogrammed to forage, hunt, and mate, denied even the smallest share in the world’s gifts and griefs – a dreary, self-centered assumption that goes against everything we know about the Programmer himself, the Lord of Life who has made each one with care, counted them all, and delivered them into our hands.”

    - Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

  • “Only when people understand the facts of industrial animal farming and move towards a plant based diet, only when there is wider acceptance that farm animals are sentient and often sapient, can we hope to end these barbaric practices.”

    – Jane Goodall

  • “When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals' emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.” 

    - Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter

  • “Sentience is the bedrock of ethics. The capacity for another being to feel means that they have interests, and that their wellbeing has moral weight.”

    - Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.

BOOKS:

OTHER RESOURCES:

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