Animal Consciousness: Behavioral Flexibility is Ubiquitous |
Ample comparative research shows that the biodiversity of consciousness is large and expanding.
Nonhumans exhibit intentional behavioral flexibility.
Humans are neither exceptional nor the only truly conscious beings.
Being conscious basically means being awake, aware, and able to perceive one's thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. It represents what is called a "first-person" subjective experience. Behavioral flexibility—the ability to change your response when things inside of you and around you change—is a sign of awareness, or what scientists call a mark of consciousness. This shows that you're thinking and acting with intention, not instinct.
Behavior flexibility means an individual is evaluating their situation, considering past experiences, and deciding what to do based on the present moment and imagined future interactions. It is closely aligned with being sentient which means being aware of and feeling what is happening to them and around them and changing their behavior.
A large body of scientific evidence stemming from studies of diverse species clearly shows that many nonhuman animals (animals) are conscious sentient beings.1 Some have gone as far as to argue that consciousness is coterminous with life. In his book The First Minds: Caterpillars, Karyotes, and Consciousness, Dr. Arthur Reber argues "sentience emerged with life itself."2
These studies also show that the biodiversity of consciousness and sentience is large and expanding, and insects are finding themselves living well within these arenas as members of the consciousness/sentience club. Research shows that the cognitive lives of insects are richer than many of us have ever imagined—not just in bees, but also in flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites.3,4
A growing number of people, academics and non-academics, are very interested in what animals think and feel. Two recent posts—"The Eclectic Father of Cognitive Ethology" about Donald Griffin's seminal work in which he emphasized the importance of behavioral flexibility for assessing animal consciousness and an interview with Jonathan Birch titled "The Edge of Sentience: Why Drawing Lines Is So Difficult"—have generated a lot of contacts asking me to say more about the study of animal minds (cognitive ethology) and animal consciousness.
I became very interested in learning more about some of the progress made in cognitive ethology during the past two decades, so I analyzed the references in the 2007 edition of my book on animal emotions and in the highly revised and updated 2024 edition of The Emotional Lives of Animals for which I added around 300 additional references. I noted a strong trend that more researchers are accepting data that clearly showed that many different animals have rich and deep emotional lives and are conscious and sentient. Furthermore, not a single reference among those I added to the new edition led to the conclusion that we are doing all we can for the animals. We can always do more.
It’s Time to Stop Wondering If Animals Are Conscious and Exhibit Intentional Behavioral Flexibility—They Clearly Are and They Do
I know some people will respond with something like, “We really don’t know whether nonhumans are really conscious"—really meaning conscious like us. However, it’s time to recognize that this sort of skepticism is unwarranted given the evidential database we now have for a wide array of nonhumans. Some people contrive definitions of consciousness that not only exclude nonhumans but also some humans.
Let's stop bickering and pretending that we don’t know this or that about animal consciousness or intentional behavioral flexibility. There are far too many examples to conclude we are exceptional and the only truly conscious beings. While we persist in pondering the obvious, ignoring what we already know and have long known, countless nonhumans continue to be abused by humankind.
There are no substitutes for rigorous research and detailed analyses of subtle and flexible behavior patterns that often go unnoticed. What we think about the nature of all sorts of animal minds truly matters for their well-being, and it should matter to us.
Interdisciplinary input is necessary for us to gain a broad view of animal consciousness. Regarding animal minds, when philosophers share what they think, they need to be clear. Those who study animal behavior need to share with philosophers and others about what they have learned and the progress being made.
The general public is closely following what science says about animal minds, and we must give them the latest and most reliable information available. We also need to listen to their stories because citizen science can guide research and inform how we interpret and explain the inner lives of other animals along with consciousness and behavioral flexibility.
It's anti-science to claim that nonhumans aren't conscious and sentient. It’s not anti-science to say we must use what we know on their behalf and must stop pretending we need more data.
An essay titled "Animal sentience: history, science, and politics" by Andrew Rowan and his colleagues is an excellent state-of-the-art summary of what we know and don’t know about animal consciousness and sentience.
So far, however, there has been little evidence that the various declarations that animals are sentient in other countries and regions have had much direct impact on animal protection legislation or how animals are actually being treated. Nevertheless, it is very unlikely that incorporating animal sentience language in legislation would be harmful to the interests of animals in any way.
So far, however, there has been little evidence that the various declarations that animals are sentient in other countries and regions have had much direct impact on animal protection legislation or how animals are actually being treated.
Nevertheless, it is very unlikely that incorporating animal sentience language in legislation would be harmful to the interests of animals in any way.
Studying animal consciousness isn't easy. Future data from comparative analyses of animal cognition, emotions, and sentience along with existing information, should help us along in developing what some people think the field of cognitive ethology needs: namely, an integrative model or theory. Perhaps it was the lack of an integrative theory of cognitive ethology and the presence of one in evolutionary biology that led many people to dismiss tenuous cognitive ethological explanations while accepting often equally tenuous evolutionary stories.
We can, and we must do better. Solid science, evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, and a dose of common sense can lead the way. Surely, it's time to stop wondering if other animals are conscious—they clearly are.
1) Why Animal Sentience Must Be Used to Reform Constitutions; It’s Time To Stop Wondering if Animals Are Sentient—They Are; The Emotional Lives of Dogs and Wolves and Why They Matter; The Lives of Sea Turtles and Why They Matter; The Emotional Lives of Animals and Why They Matter; The Fascinating Complex Minds of Bees and Why They Matter; Animal Emotions, Animal Sentience, and Why They Matter; Mindful Anthropomorphism Works, So Let's Stop the Bickering; The State of Animal Consciousness, Sentience, and Emotions; Liv Baker et al. Rethinking Animal Consciousness Research to Prioritize Well-Being, Cambridge Corp, October 28, 2024. Also see: Granting Rights to Animals Doesn't Undermine Human Rights.
2) He writes, "The most primitive unicellular species of bacteria are conscious, though it is a sentience of a primitive kind. They have minds, though they are tiny and limited in scope. Hints that cells might be conscious can be found in the writings of a few cell biologists but a fully developed theory has never been put forward before."
3) A recent and detailed review of the evidence by Matilda Gibbons and her colleagues titled “Can insects feel pain? A review of the neural and behavioural evidence" makes it plausible that various insects are sentient and feel pain.
4) Darwin himself thought this! In 1872, he wrote that insects “express anger, terror, jealousy, and love.”