---
# System prepended metadata

title: What is the place of consciousness science in legal and societal discussions regarding the treatment of non-human animals?
tags: [ethics, welfare, consciousness]

---

What is the place of consciousness science in legal and societal discussions regarding the treatment of non-human animals?
===

###### tags: `consciousness` `welfare` `ethics`

:::info
- **Reading:** [core reading 1](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S8kLiHI8nIhfH7EkoZNEf2TGMg22olAblPMxuWAlwPQ/edit?usp=sharing)
- **Date:** Sep 12, 2022 13:00 PM (ASSC; AMSTERDAM)
- **Hosts:** Timo Stein & Matan Mazor
- **Attendees:**
    - William James' ghost 
    - Abhik Chowdhury
:::

- [name=William] Before building a bridge from consciousness science to ethics, we want to ask whether ethics really needs consciousness science at all. In the reading materials we saw that different scientists and philosophers don't agree on an answer. What do you think?
In the code reading for this part we had excerpts from:
    A. Biologist Marian Dawkins, 1988
    B. Biologist Marian Dawkins (same one!), 2021
    C. Philosopher Jonathan Birch, 2022

I didn't understand:
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- [name=William] clarification questions here


I found this argument convincing:
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- [name=William] did some arguments in the reading materials seem more convincing?
- [name=Matan] I found Marian Dawkins 2021 more convincing. I wouldn't want to wait until we understand sentience/consciousness before changing the animal-human status quo.

I didn't find this argument convincing:
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- [name=William] did some arguments in the reading materials seem less convincing?
- [name=François Stockart] Arguing that we should define animal welfare without defining consciousness (Dawkins, 2021). Welfare seems to be meaningless to me without mention of consciousness (this is coming from a utilitarian perspective I guess).

I wanted to discuss together:
---
- [name=William] points for discussion
- [name=Max] Regardless of whether ethics eventually needs consciousness science, it seems like if we apply consciousness science *as it is now* - mostly with human subjects - there is a risk of too much of Brian Key's approach where we only value human-style consciousness.
- what about humane endpoint as the alternate to suffering?

- There is a tradition (Darwin, Panksepp etc) in evolutionary biology that there are certain emotions that are ubuiquitous to many animals. This theory is based on facial expressions and emotional communication in social animals but evolutionary biologists discuss also the limbic brain as a source of emotions. Would idea like this (observing emotions being expressed in animals for example with customised facial action coding system for different species) be able to inform laws about cruelty to animals without havign to discover the nature of the animal's consciousness. Maybe this is equivalent to theory light           methods.
 

## Notes 
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