The introduction of the 2017 draft Animal Welfare (Sentencing and Recognition of Sentience) Bill recognised such strength of feeling. Not withstanding the fact that there was some genuine confusion about the Government’s legislative intentions and acknowledgement of animal sentience, that outcry evidenced how strongly the British public feels about perceived insults to animal welfare. In 2017 there was widespread public outcry at the prospect of the Government failing to transpose the recognition of animal sentience from European to British legislation via the Withdrawal Bill. That human-animal interaction is something which is of increasing concern to British society. Our understanding of sentience is central to the ever-evolving relationship between humans and animals, the importance of which (in terms of zoonoses, climate change and human wellbeing) has become more apparent than ever during the Covid pandemic.
Increasing concern in the UK and the need for new legislation Whereas protections of animals (such as they were) had previously been derived from the fact that animals were treated and protected as someone’s property, from the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act onwards animals were legally afforded protections for their own sake, because of their perceived ability to suffer. That concern has underwritten the development of subsequent British animal welfare legislation. Societal concern about animal sentience has been evident since at least 1789, when Jeremy Bentham suggested that what mattered from a moral point of view was not whether animals could reason, nor whether they could talk, but simply whether they could suffer. The definition made by the Global Animal Law Project and adopted by BVA reflects all of these aspects: ‘Sentience shall be understood to mean the capacity to have feelings, including pain and pleasure, and implies a level of conscious awareness.’ How do you define sentience?ĭefinitions of sentience are complex and nowadays incorporate not only the ability to suffer (both physically and psychologically), but also to experience one’s own life at some conscious level. All of this has given me ample opportunity to ponder not only the role of sentience in twenty-first century animal ethics, but also why the recognition of animal sentience in law is so important.
It surfaced during discussions whilst I was on BVA’s Brexit working group it was a crucial consideration when I was writing a book chapter about why humans treat some animals differently from others the relevance of animal sentience to ethical research was something on which I was asked to speak at a conference and most recently BVA’s Ethics and Welfare Advisory Panel which I chair has been working on BVA’s position statement on animal sentience. The issue of animal sentience has permeated my working life in recent years.
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