Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Do fish consciously feel pain? Addressing this question, Key (2016) asks whether the neural mechanisms underlying conscious pain reports in humans can be identified in fish. This strategy fails in three ways. First, non-mammalian consciousness — if it exists — may depend on different mechanisms. Second, accumulating neurophysiological and behavioural evidence, evolutionary considerations, and emerging Bayesian brain theories suggest that if fish can feel at all, they can feel pain. Finally, the qualitative nature of pain and suffering obliges us, via the precautionary principle, to accommodate the possibility of its existence where doubt remains.
Source: Animal Sentience
Author: Anil K. Seth
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2199601787