I’ve seen people cite this declaration and appeal to it as authoritative on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, it is presented as though it represents some kind of expert consensus, when the people involved may not even be experts on the topic, and hardly represent any kind of consensus.
Yet, while I would want to suggest that we consult philosophers of mind, even they seem drawn to what strike me as dubious, intuition-based reasons for presuming animals are conscious in ways analogous to humans with what strikes me as far too low of standards for drawing such inferences.
My impression early on is that something like Dennett’s approach was likely to win out eventually, even if Dennett’s early account was superseded by more comprehensive and accurate accounts. The resistance to Dennett’s views, which often consists of dismissive, uncharitable caricatures, is also quite alarming.
I’d check out Dennett’s paper, “Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why”:
I’ve seen people cite this declaration and appeal to it as authoritative on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, it is presented as though it represents some kind of expert consensus, when the people involved may not even be experts on the topic, and hardly represent any kind of consensus.
Yet, while I would want to suggest that we consult philosophers of mind, even they seem drawn to what strike me as dubious, intuition-based reasons for presuming animals are conscious in ways analogous to humans with what strikes me as far too low of standards for drawing such inferences.
My impression early on is that something like Dennett’s approach was likely to win out eventually, even if Dennett’s early account was superseded by more comprehensive and accurate accounts. The resistance to Dennett’s views, which often consists of dismissive, uncharitable caricatures, is also quite alarming.
I’d check out Dennett’s paper, “Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why”:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971115?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents