Mellor David J
Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics Centre, School of Veterinary Science, Massey University, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand.
Animals (Basel). 2019 Jul 13;9(7):440. doi: 10.3390/ani9070440.
The focus of this opinion is on the key features of sentience in animals which can experience different states of welfare, encapsulated by the new term 'welfare-aligned sentience'. This term is intended to exclude potential forms of sentience that do not enable animals in some taxa to have the subjective experiences which underlie different welfare states. As the scientific understanding of key features of sentience has increased markedly during the last 10 to 15 years, a major purpose here is to provide up-to-date information regarding those features. Eleven interconnected statements about sentience-associated body functions and behaviour are therefore presented and explained briefly. These statements are sequenced to provide progressively more information about key scientifically-supported attributes of welfare-aligned sentience, leading, in their entirety, to a more comprehensive understanding of those attributes. They are as follows: (1) Internal structure-function interactions and integration are the foundations of sentience; (2) animals posess a capacity to respond behaviourally to a range of sensory inputs; (3) the more sophisticated nervous systems can generate subjective experiences, that is, affects; (4) sentience means that animals perceive or experience different affects consciously; (5) within a species, the stage of neurobiological development is significant; (6) during development the onset of cortically-based consciousness is accompanied by cognitively-enhanced capacities to respond behaviourally to unpredictable postnatal environments; (7) sentience includes capacities to communicate with others and to interact with the environment; (8) sentience incorporates experiences of negative and positive affects; (9) negative and positive affective experiences 'matter' to animals for various reasons; (10) acknowledged obstacles inherent in anthropomorphism are largely circumvented by new scientific knowledge, but caution is still required; and (11) there is increasing evidence for sentience among a wider range of invertebrates. The science-based explanations of these statements provide the foundation for a brief definition of 'welfare-aligned sentience', which is offered for consideration. Finally, it is recommended that when assessing key features of sentience the same emphasis should be given to positive and negative affective experiences in the context of their roles in, or potential impacts on, animal welfare.
本观点的重点在于动物感知能力的关键特征，这些特征能使动物体验到不同的福利状态，新术语“与福利相符的感知能力”对其进行了概括。该术语旨在排除某些潜在的感知形式，这些形式无法让某些分类群中的动物产生构成不同福利状态基础的主观体验。在过去10到15年里，随着对感知能力关键特征的科学认识显著增加，这里的一个主要目的是提供有关这些特征的最新信息。因此，提出并简要解释了11条关于与感知相关的身体功能和行为的相互关联的陈述。这些陈述按顺序排列，以逐步提供更多关于与福利相符的感知能力的关键科学支持属性的信息，从而全面理解这些属性。它们如下：（1）内部结构 - 功能的相互作用和整合是感知能力的基础；（2）动物具有对一系列感官输入做出行为反应的能力；（3）更复杂的神经系统能够产生主观体验，即情感；（4）感知能力意味着动物有意识地感知或体验不同的情感；（5）在一个物种内，神经生物学发育阶段很重要；（6）在发育过程中，基于皮层的意识的出现伴随着认知增强的能力，能够对不可预测的出生后环境做出行为反应；（7）感知能力包括与其他个体交流以及与环境互动的能力；（8）感知能力包含负面和正面情感体验；（9）出于各种原因，负面和正面情感体验对动物“至关重要”；（10）拟人化中固有的公认障碍在很大程度上被新的科学知识所规避，但仍需谨慎；（11）越来越多的证据表明更广泛的无脊椎动物也具有感知能力。对这些陈述基于科学的解释为“与福利相符的感知能力”的简要定义提供了基础，该定义供大家参考。最后，建议在评估感知能力的关键特征时，应在其对动物福利的作用或潜在影响的背景下，对正面和负面情感体验给予同等重视。
