Not to hijack this thread, but sentience is merely one of several uni-criterial properties-based approaches to moral standing. The problem with all of them is that they lack definitional clarity and are difficult to demonstrate empirically. The philosophical concept known as the argument from marginal cases exposes the trouble that inheres in attempting to promote a single ontological property that justifies moral concern when it might not even apply to some humans (ie mentally incapacitated, those with congenital birth defects, etc.). While animal rights are often tethered to sentience, intelligence, or autonomy, the rights of nature are philosophically and legally premised on an entirely different set of considerations. We should strive for consistency.
I suggest a more complex, relational approach to moral and legal standing in my book, Rights for Robots: Artificial Intelligence, Animal and Environmental Law (Routledge 2020) derived from critical environmental law and sensitive to non-Western and Indigenous worldviews. The book is free to download via open access here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9780429288159/rights-robots-joshua-gellers Best, Josh Joshua C. Gellers, PhD Associate Professor Dept. of Political Science + Public Admin. University of North Florida 1 UNF Drive Jacksonville, FL 32224 Sent from my iPhone On Sep 24, 2021, at 4:36 AM, georgette matthews <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Henrik, Perhaps I would use this documentary review in The Guardian before exposing the students to the complex and raw issues presented in the documentary: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/29/faroes-whale-hunts-the-islands-and-the-whales-mike-day<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffilm%2F2018%2Fmar%2F29%2Ffaroes-whale-hunts-the-islands-and-the-whales-mike-day&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872492426%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=XGVnuCcDtVSZvmxk3AFXpuuwfPunSOP07OtXg3sXJ%2BA%3D&reserved=0> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/15/horror-at-the-faroes-dolphin-slaughter-is-only-human-but-it-risks-hypocrisy<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2021%2Fsep%2F15%2Fhorror-at-the-faroes-dolphin-slaughter-is-only-human-but-it-risks-hypocrisy&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872502424%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=RGmwNRoVi1%2BKvx9i27k5mc7ZsKSsAOoBztaHr93l%2BcM%3D&reserved=0> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/17/faroes-pm-pledges-dolphin-hunt-review-amid-outcry-at-carnage<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fsep%2F17%2Ffaroes-pm-pledges-dolphin-hunt-review-amid-outcry-at-carnage&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872502424%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=PdBcNhVrjqRQKCA67S7QrlBh%2Bq7TJbGQ%2FFISTvSFE%2Fk%3D&reserved=0> I am the 176,927th person to sign the petition, and my great-grandfather was born in Streymoy. Best wishes, Georgette We all have a variety of understandings and thresholds for the degrees of sentience of life forms. There is also a quite evolved plant sentience in spite of their greater invisibility and lesser charisma (than the one we grant to the dolphins and whales). Every life form is witnessing our (as human beings) 'criminal' acts as individuals and collectivities on a daily basis for millennia, in the name of survival or tradition or other human values. Perhaps we could start our dialogue with students on the above issues, with animal and plant sentience as presented by Eduardo Kohn in “How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human”? https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520956865/html<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.degruyter.com%2Fdocument%2Fdoi%2F10.1525%2F9780520956865%2Fhtml&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872512415%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ii2MrbXttRFXNEprg0c2REj2ckoWvOMiu3gJ5%2Fjt5S8%3D&reserved=0> Georgette Matthews PhD Candidate, International Relations & Casual Academic Physics, University of Sydney [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> On Fri, 24 Sept 2021 at 11:24, Selin, Henrik <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: And if you do, this documentary can also add to class discussions: https://theislandsandthewhales.com/about<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheislandsandthewhales.com%2Fabout&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872512415%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=m3I246qc5L1QF9uDNYZ4iTN%2BqXOz6IX0sH2xFvIZLpA%3D&reserved=0> Henrik On Sep 23, 2021, at 8:24 PM, HARRIS, Paul [SSC] <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear GEP-Ed Colleagues, If your teaching involves discussion of whale and dolphin "hunting" in the Faroe Islands, this "Open letter to Faroe Islanders" may be useful for classroom discussion/debate: https://blog.ecologicalcitizen.net/2021/09/23/open-letter-to-faroe-islanders-please-stop-the-slaughter-of-whales-and-dolphins/?utm_source=sendfox&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=open-letter-to-faroe-islanders-please-stop-the-slaughter-of-whales-and-dolphins<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.ecologicalcitizen.net%2F2021%2F09%2F23%2Fopen-letter-to-faroe-islanders-please-stop-the-slaughter-of-whales-and-dolphins%2F%3Futm_source%3Dsendfox%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dopen-letter-to-faroe-islanders-please-stop-the-slaughter-of-whales-and-dolphins&data=04%7C01%7Cjosh.gellers%40unf.edu%7Ceb023c65edf04c77db7c08d97f3640bf%7Cdf29b2fa8929482f9dbb60ff4df224c4%7C1%7C0%7C637680693872522410%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=l8g6rPb9vlrcl3Rm9pVr6us1DXsXhNFk0W9sEoVVtZ0%3D&reserved=0> Kind regards, Paul NOTICE: The Hong Kong 'national security law' is in effect globally. 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