[en] A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one's own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics-the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness.
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
Mazor, Matan ; Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London. ; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University
Brown, Simon ; Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University.
Ciaunica, Anna; Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon.
Demertzi, Athina ; Université de Liège - ULiège > GIGA > GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging - Physiology of Cognition
Fahrenfort, Johannes; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam. ; Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit.
Faivre, Nathan ; Centre for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, ; University Grenoble Alpes, University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC.
Francken, Jolien C; Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University.
Lamy, Dominique; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. ; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University.
Lenggenhager, Bigna; Department of Psychology, University of Zurich.
Moutoussis, Michael; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University ; Max Planck-University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and
Nizzi, Marie-Christine ; Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Department of Psychiatry & ; Cognitive Science Program, Dartmouth College. ; Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Chapman
Salomon, Roy; Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Centre, Bar-Ilan University.
Soto, David; Basque Centre on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain. ; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.
Stein, Timo; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam.
Lubianiker, Nitzan; School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University. ; Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Medical Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Allen C. Trestman M. (2020). Animal consciousness. In Zalta E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/consciousness-animal/
American Psychiatrist Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).
Animal Health and Welfare. (2005). Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) on a request from the Commission related to the aspects of the biology and welfare of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes. EFSA Journal, 3(12), 292. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2005.292
Animals in Science Regulation Unit. (2015). The harm-benefit analysis process: New project licence applications. UK Home Office. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/487914/Harm_Benefit_Analysis__2_.pdf
Banner M. (2003). Review of cost-benefit assessment in the use of animals in research. The Animal Procedure Committee.
Barron A. B. Klein C. (2016). What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 113(18), 4900–4908. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1520084113
Bastian B. Loughnan S. (2017). Resolving the meat-paradox: A motivational account of morally troublesome behavior and its maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(3), 278–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868316647562
Bastian B. Loughnan S. Haslam N. Radke H. R. M. (2012). Don’t mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(2), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211424291
Bateson P. (1986). When to experiment on animals. New Scientist, 109(1496), 30–32.
Ben-Haim M. S. Monte O. D. Fagan N. A. Dunham Y. Hassin R. R. Chang S. W. C. Santos L. R. (2021). Disentangling perceptual awareness from nonconscious processing in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 118(15), Article e2017543118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017543118
Bentham J. (1789/1996). The collected works of Jeremy Bentham: An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. Clarendon Press.
Birch J. Ginsburg S. Jablonka E. (2020). Unlimited Associative Learning and the origins of consciousness: A primer and some predictions. Biology & Philosophy, 35(6), Article 56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-020-09772-0
Birch J. Schnell A. K. Clayton N. S. (2020). Dimensions of animal consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(10), 789–801. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.07.007
Campbell G. L. (2014). The Oxford handbook of animals in classical thought and life. Oxford Handbooks.
Carpenter A. D. (2018). Illuminating community: Animals in classical Indian thought. In Adamson P. Edwards G. F. (Eds.), Animals: A history (pp. 63–86). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199375967.003.0005
Carruthers P. (2007). Invertebrate minds: A challenge for ethical theory. The Journal of Ethics, 11(3), 275–297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-007-9015-6
Carruthers P. (2019). Human and animal minds: The consciousness questions laid to rest. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198843702.001.0001
Clayton N. S. Dickinson A. (1998). Episodic-like memory during cache recovery by scrub jays. Nature, 395(6699), 272–274. https://doi.org/10.1038/26216
Costello K. Hodson G. (2014). Explaining dehumanization among children: The interspecies model of prejudice. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53(1), 175–197. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12016
Crane S. (2015). Medieval animal studies: Dogs at work. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935338.013.103
Danaher J. (2020). Welcoming robots into the moral circle: A defence of ethical behaviourism. Science and Engineering Ethics, 26(4), 2023–2049. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00119-x
Daston L. Galison P. (2010). Objectivity. Zone books.
De Lafuente V. Romo R. (2006). Neural correlates of subjective sensory experience. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1698–1703. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1587
Finnigan B. (2017). Buddhism and animal ethics. Philosophy Compass, 12(7), Article e12424. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12424
Gallup G. G. Anderson J. R. (2018). The “olfactory mirror” and other recent attempts to demonstrate self-recognition in non-primate species. Behavioural Processes, 148, 16–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2017.12.010
Giacino J. T. Fins J. J. Laureys S. Schiff N. D. (2014). Disorders of consciousness after acquired brain injury: The state of the science. Nature Reviews Neurology, 10(2), 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2013.279
Glover J. (2006). The sanctity of life. In Kuhse H. Singer P. (Eds.), Bioethics: An anthology (pp. 266–275). Blackwell.
Graziano M. S. Webb T. W. (2015). The attention schema theory: A mechanistic account of subjective awareness. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 500. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500
Grimm H. Olsson I. A. S. Sandøe P. (2019). Harm-benefit analysis—What is the added value? A review of alternative strategies for weighing harms and benefits as part of the assessment of animal research. Laboratory Animals, 53(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023677218783004
Heath M. (2008). Aristotle on natural slavery. Phronesis, 53(3), 243–270. https://doi.org/10.1163/156852808X307070
Heider F. Simmel M. (1944). An experimental study of apparent behavior. The American Journal of Psychology, 57(2), 243–259. https://doi.org/10.2307/1416950
Hofstadter D. R. (2007). I am a strange loop. Basic Books.
Hollis F. Kabbaj M. (2014). Social defeat as an animal model for depression. ILAR Journal, 55(2), 221–232. https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar/ilu002
Jena N. P. (2019). Moral dilemmas of Buddhism on animal suffering. Asian Philosophy, 29(3), 248–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/09552367.2019.1662589
Johnson L. S. M. Fenton A. Shriver A. (2020). Neuroethics and nonhuman animals. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-31011-0
Jozefowiez J. Staddon J. E. R. Cerutti D. T. (2009). Metacognition in animals: How do we know that they know? Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 4, 29–39. https://doi.org/10.3819/ccbr.2009.40003
Kammerer F. (2019). The normative challenge for illusionist views of consciousness. Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 6. https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.12405314.0006.032
Kant I. (2002). Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals. In Pasternack L. (Ed.), Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals in focus (pp. 17–98). Routledge. (Original work published 1785)
Kirlic N. Young J. Aupperle R. L. (2017). Animal to human translational paradigms relevant for approach avoidance conflict decision making. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 96, 14–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2017.04.010
Kitcher P. (2003). Science, truth, and democracy. Oxford University Press.
Koch C. Massimini M. Boly M. Tononi G. (2016). Neural correlates of consciousness: Progress and problems. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(5), 307–321. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.22
Kohda M. Hotta T. Takeyama T. Awata S. Tanaka H. Asai J. Jordan A. L. (2019). If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and self-awareness testing in animals? PLOS Biology, 17(2), Article e3000021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000021
Kozak M. N. Marsh A. A. Wegner D. M. (2006). What do I think you’re doing? Action identification and mind attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4), 543–555. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.543.
Kwok S. C. Cai Y. Buckley M. J. (2019). Mnemonic introspection in macaques is dependent on superior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but not orbitofrontal cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience, 39(30), 5922–5934. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0330-19.2019
Lagercrantz H. (2014). The emergence of consciousness: Science and ethics. Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, 19(5), 300–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.siny.2014.08.003
LeDoux J. E. (2021). What emotions might be like in other animals. Current Biology, 31(13), R824–R829. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.005
Lee A. Y. (2019). Is consciousness intrinsically valuable? Philosophical Studies, 176(3), 655–671. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1032-8
Le Neindre C. Bernard E. Boissy A. Boivin X. Calandreau L. Delon N. Deputte B. Desmoulin-Canselier S. Dunier M. Faivre N. Giurfa M. Guichet J.-L. Lansade L. Larrère R. Mormède P. Prunet P. Schaal B. Servière J. Terlous C. (2017). Animal consciousness. European Food Safety Author. https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.2903/sp.efsa.2017.EN-1196
Leopold D. A. Logothetis N. K. (1996). Activity changes in early visual cortex reflect monkeys’ percepts during binocular rivalry. Nature, 379(6565), 549–553. https://doi.org/10.1038/379549a0
Levy N. (2014). The value of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 21, 127–138.
Longino H. E. (2020). Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691209753
Maier S. F. (1984). Learned helplessness and animal models of depression. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 8(3), 435–446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-5846(84)80032-9
Mill J. S. (2015). On liberty, utilitarianism, and other essays. Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1863)
Nieder A. Wagener L. Rinnert P. (2020). A neural correlate of sensory consciousness in a corvid bird. Science, 369(6511), 1626–1629. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb1447
Nozick R. (1974). Anarchy, state and Utopia. Basic Books.
Nuffield Council on Bioethics. (Ed.). (2005). The ethics of research involving animals. Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Oreskes N. (2021). Why trust science? Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691222370
Oreskes N. Conway E. M. (2011). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Panoz-Brown D. Iyer V. Carey L. M. Sluka C. M. Rajic G. Kestenman J. Gentry M. Brotheridge S. Somekh I. Corbin H. E. Tucker K. G. Almeida B. Hex S. B. Garcia K. D. Hohmann A. G. Crystal J. D. (2018). Replay of episodic memories in the rat. Current Biology, 28(10), 1628–1634.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.006
Plotnik J. M. de Waal F. B. M. Reiss D. (2006). Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 103(45), 17053–17057. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0608062103
Posner M. I. (1994). Attention: The mechanisms of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 91(16), 7398–7403. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.91.16.7398
Prior H. Schwarz A. (2008). Mirror-induced behavior in the magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of self-recognition. PLOS Biology, 6(8), Article e202. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202
Redinbaugh M. J. Phillips J. M. Kambi N. A. Mohanta S. Andryk S. Dooley G. L. Afrasiabi M. Raz A. Saalmann Y. B. (2020). Thalamus modulates consciousness via layer-specific control of cortex. Neuron, 106(1), 66–75.e12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2020.01.005
Ribot T. H. (1889). Psychologie De L’attention [The psychology of attention]. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan
Rosenthal D. (2005). Consciousness and mind. Clarendon Press.
Sachidhanandam S. Sreenivasan V. Kyriakatos A. Kremer Y. Petersen C. (2013). Membrane potential correlates of sensory perception in mouse barrel cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 16, 1671–1677. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3532
Shepherd J. (2018). Consciousness and moral status. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315396347
Sherman G. D. Haidt J. (2011). Cuteness and disgust: The humanizing and dehumanizing effects of emotion. Emotion Review, 3(3), 245–251. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911402396
Siewert C. (1998). The significance of consciousness. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400822720
Smith J. A. Andrews P. L. R. Hawkins P. Louhimies S. Ponte G. Dickel L. (2013). Cephalopod research and EU Directive 2010/63/EU: Requirements, impacts and ethical review. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 447, 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2013.02.009
Solvi C. Al-Khudhairy S. G. Chittka L. (2020). Bumble bees display cross-modal object recognition between visual and tactile senses. Science, 367(6480), 910–912. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay8064
Sorabji R. (2018). Animal minds and human morals: The origins of the western debate. Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501717888
Strawson G. (2018). The consciousness deniers. The New York Review, March 13. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20strangest%20things,%2C%20in%20fact%2C%20an%20illusion.&text=What%20is%20the%20silliest%20claim%20ever%20made%3F
Suddendorf T. Corballis M. C. (2007). The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(3), 299–313. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X07001975
Sunstein C. R. Nussbaum M. C. (2004). Animal rights: Current debates and new directions. Oxford University Press.
Taschereau-Dumouchel V. Michel M. Lau H. Hofmann S. G. LeDoux J. E. (2022). Putting the “mental” back in “mental disorders”: A perspective from research on fear and anxiety. Molecular Psychiatry, 27, 1322–1330. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01395-5
Tulving E. (2005). Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human? In Terrace H. S. Metcalfe J. (Eds.), The missing link in cognition: Origins of self-reflective consciousness (pp. 3–56). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161564.003.0001
Vugt B. van Dagnino B. Vartak D. Safaai H. Panzeri S. Dehaene S. Roelfsema P. R. (2018). The threshold for conscious report: Signal loss and response bias in visual and frontal cortex. Science, 360(6388), 537–542. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar7186
Wada M. Takano K. Ora H. Ide M. Kansaku K. (2016). The rubber tail illusion as evidence of body ownership in mice. The Journal of Neuroscience, 36(43), 11133–11137. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3006-15.2016
Willner P. (2017). The chronic mild stress (CMS) model of depression: History, evaluation and usage. Neurobiology of Stress, 6, 78–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2016.08.002
Yuki S. Okanoya K. (2017). Rats show adaptive choice in a metacognitive task with high uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 43(1), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1037/xan0000130
