ABOUT BOOK

Given that there is currently no consensus as to exactly which animals are ~sentient, how should we make moral decisions when we are uncertain as to ~which of the animals influenced by that decision are sentient? And how relevant ~is evidence from the neurosciences for making these decisions? In this chapter, I ~outline three different approaches toward incorporating uncertainty about sentience ~into moral decision-making: what I call precise, precautionary, and probabilistic ~approaches to sentience. I suggest that neuroscientific evidence has ~different relevance for each of these accounts. Precautionary approaches should ~be adopted to provide basic protections for animals even when we are uncertain ~about their sentience, but probabilistic accounts are more relevant for decisions ~where we need to carefully weigh positive and negative consequences of different ~possible decisions. Precise accounts can be useful for providing guidance but are ~not directly relevant for making decisions or guiding policy.