From Denis Watkins
Donald Griffin says he doesn’t really know why many scientists “are suffering
from `mentophobia’ that belittles non-human animals and robs them of any
possible claim to consciousness”. I think I can help. First, the discovery of
consciousness in any non-human animal would lead to inconvenient questions about
the way we currently inflict suffering, death and extinction on other species on
a gargantuan scale. Second, such a finding would undermine our cherished sense
of being unique.
If there are any reasons apart from these I would be interested to hear them.
We are, after all, only talking about investigating the possibility of animal
consciousness, so why the outrage about it?
Pembrokeshire
