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2: What Are (Some) Animals Like? Animal Minds and Harms to Animals

  • Page ID
    31042
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    If any animals have minds, and thus are conscious, then they can be harmed, and thus how they are treated raises moral issues. And, arguably, there are moral obligations towards animals only if they have minds, so questions about animal ethics very much depend on what animals are like. This Chapter we will get an overview of the scientific and philosophical literature on whether any animals are conscious, whether any are sentient (i.e., capable of sensation or feeling, especially of pleasures and pains), and so whether various species of animals have minds and, if so, what their mental, psychological and/or emotional lives might be like. We will discuss how anyone could know or reasonably believe some claim about animals’ minds.


    This page titled 2: What Are (Some) Animals Like? Animal Minds and Harms to Animals is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Nathan Nobis (Open Philosophy Press) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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