This is Part 2 of a conversation with Dr Michaela Hempen in which we consider the question: What is consciousness? What is the mind? And how do our answers effect how we assess animal welfare, or even should we bother to consider welfare issues for the animals under human care?

In this episode Michaela continues a discussion of different ways in which to categorize or define consciousness. “Phenomenal consciousness” along with sentience is defined. This form of consciousness is most relevant to a discussion of the ethics of animal care.

Self consciousness, while interesting, is less so. We discuss various tests which appeared to demonstrate self awareness or insight, but experiments done by behavior analysts showed that there were other explanations.

That brings us again to the great divide between the cognitive ethologists and the behaviorists. The question again is: “What is the mind?”. These two schools of thought bring us to very different answers.

Michaela argues that the discussions about animal consciousness are not relevant in the assessment of animal welfare. What you need to ask is: can they suffer? Can they enjoy? You only need to establish that which is contained in the term “sentience” to have a moral obligation of treating animals well.

So included in this episode is a discussion of the five freedoms model. But it is freedom from: freedom from hunger, etc. so this is all about avoiding unpleasant consequences. Welfare assessments are moving towards a more positive model.

We want to provide animals not only with the conditions that they need to survive, but we also want them to thrive and enjoy their lives. Which is, of course, why all this discussion of “what is the mind?” is relevant because what does that mean and how do you assess it?

This is the very complex topic that Michaela is helping us to understand better.

In this episode we begin with a discussion of sentience and animal welfare assessments.

For a list of the references discussed visit equiosity.com for the full show notes for this episode.