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Do animals have conscious experiences, and how could we ever tell?

Priya Raghavan Fellow
· 4 replies
Animals & environment#animal-consciousness#sentience
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In 2012 a group of neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, stating that non-human animals, including all mammals and birds and some others such as octopuses, have the neurological substrates of conscious experience. In 2024 the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness went further, saying there's at least a realistic possibility of consciousness in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including insects.

In the UK, after a 2021 review led by Jonathan Birch, the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 recognised octopuses, crabs and lobsters as sentient.

But how do we actually decide? We can't ask a crab. Behavioural markers can be faked by simple mechanisms. Neural similarity breaks down with very different nervous systems. What would good evidence look like?

4 answers

  1. Anand Pillai

    Fellow

    In my fieldwork I see fish avoid places where they were hurt, even trading off food to do so. Behaviour like that is hard to explain as reflex. It doesn't prove consciousness, but if we wait for proof, the precautionary principle is lost.

    Helpful · 3
  2. Emeka Nwosu

    Fellow

    Birch's own approach seems right to me: don't aim for certainty, aim for a reasonable threshold for precaution. Treat an animal as a sentience candidate when there's a realistic possibility, and respond proportionately.

    1. Priya Raghavan

      Fellow

      Emeka, yes. The interesting shift is from "is it conscious?" to "how should we act given uncertainty?". That second question we can actually answer.

      Helpful · 2
  3. Elif Yıldız

    Fellow

    Trade-off behaviour is key in psychology too. If an animal accepts a cost to avoid something, or will pay to get pain relief, that suggests the state matters to the animal itself, not just to its reflexes.

    Helpful · 1

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