New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness

The last ten years has seen a huge development in research on consciousness in animal species that has until recently been overlooked—including reptiles, amphibians and insects—so Jonathan Birch, Jeff Sebo, and I thought it was time to ask whether there is a scientific consensus about the likelihood of consciousness in these species. We met with 39 scholars, including neuroscientists, animal cognition researchers, and philosophers, and hammered out this declaration. If you agree that there is strong evidence of consciousness in mammals and birds, and a realistic possibility of consciousness in fish, cephalopods, decapods, insects, amphibians, and reptiles, and you have an advanced degree or other expertise in this area, we invite you to join us by signing the declaration…

Why a Declaration rather than a review paper? A review paper only reflects the views of the authors, but with a Declaration we were able to show that there is a broad agreement on this fairly conservative position. The text reads:

Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? While much uncertainty remains, some points of wide agreement have emerged.

First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.

Second, the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).

Third, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.

What we conclude is not that insects etc. obviously are conscious, but that research on insect and other invertebrate consciousness is warranted, and that we should take precautions when working with such animals given the possibilities for causing harm.

I hope that the NY Declaration will inspire more scientists to study consciousness, including possible differences in behavior between unconscious and conscious behavior, in their study subjects. I developed an argument that treating all animals as conscious will provide exactly the kind of evidence we need if we are able to develop a secure theory of consciousness in my recent Mind & Language paper. With more study we might find that some of these species are not conscious, but we cannot draw that conclusion until we ask the question!

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