1 00:00:00,460 --> 00:00:04,270 So let's talk today is actually part of a project that Russell are currently working on. 2 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:10,030 And this project and my talk today focuses on critters that don't often make an appearance in technical analysis. 3 00:00:10,690 --> 00:00:15,070 Critters such as spiders, insects and molluscs. 4 00:00:16,690 --> 00:00:18,250 I'm a philosophy of science by training. 5 00:00:18,670 --> 00:00:25,180 I became interested in invertebrates when I was looking into how the concept of simplicity may have shaped approaches to the study of animal models. 6 00:00:27,110 --> 00:00:32,600 Insects and spiders like the tiny jumping spider might appear to be paradigm examples of simple systems. 7 00:00:32,990 --> 00:00:36,980 And so one might expect that their behaviour can be explained by equally simple mechanisms. 8 00:00:38,210 --> 00:00:39,770 Until that is, you look closer. 9 00:00:40,190 --> 00:00:47,480 It turns out that many of their behaviours which have been replicated in experiments with those of more sophisticated vertebrates. 10 00:00:52,670 --> 00:00:56,810 Bioethics has had a lot to say about the treatment of vertebrates, 11 00:00:57,230 --> 00:01:00,680 but has yet to make contact with the growing scientific evidence of invertebrate life. 12 00:01:01,250 --> 00:01:07,940 And that's the subject of today's talk, especially as it concerns their treatment in scientific and biomedical research, 13 00:01:08,990 --> 00:01:11,450 how invertebrates account for the vast majority of animals. 14 00:01:12,020 --> 00:01:17,810 On some estimates, invertebrates account for or invertebrate animals account for roughly 90% of all animal species. 15 00:01:18,290 --> 00:01:25,700 They range from the sessile and brainless C sponge to social learners such as bumblebees to flexible problem solvers like octopuses. 16 00:01:26,270 --> 00:01:30,559 And yet, despite this diversity and despite their great numbers, 17 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:37,130 invertebrates as a group are generally excluded from all analysis and as a consequence, from experimental welfare protections. 18 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:42,560 And this is so despite the fact that invertebrates are dramatically overrepresented as research animals. 19 00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:46,340 A recent exception has actually been made in some quarters for octopuses. 20 00:01:46,340 --> 00:01:53,720 But even this moral accolade, in fact, betrays invertebrates centric analysis of approaches to animal welfare. 21 00:01:54,750 --> 00:01:58,160 To the extent that invertebrates are considered at all in ethics. 22 00:01:58,550 --> 00:02:01,310 This is limited primarily to the conservation context, 23 00:02:01,730 --> 00:02:06,440 where their value is regarded as instrumental in terms of the ecological services that they provide. 24 00:02:08,520 --> 00:02:11,880 And the exclusion of invertebrates as a category would be rational. 25 00:02:12,150 --> 00:02:16,370 Were all invertebrates mindless biological automata? 26 00:02:16,390 --> 00:02:23,879 Were they clearly ineligible for that reason for moral concern? But this is inconsistent with the evidence which presses us to consider what a more 27 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:28,140 comprehensive and scientifically engaged animal ethics and policy might look like. 28 00:02:29,820 --> 00:02:34,770 So I'll start today by showing that the vertebrate invertebrate distinction that is traditionally 29 00:02:34,770 --> 00:02:39,720 drawn in ethics and policy is evolutionarily unsound and possibly morally pernicious. 30 00:02:40,710 --> 00:02:45,660 Next on Review the status of invertebrates in public policy and philosophical ethics. 31 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:51,299 And I'm going to suggest that this near-total exclusion of invertebrates is due to a combination of factors, 32 00:02:51,300 --> 00:03:00,030 including cognitive biases which distort moral judgements about invertebrate welfare and false beliefs about the capabilities of tiny brains. 33 00:03:00,390 --> 00:03:01,110 And finally, 34 00:03:01,110 --> 00:03:08,190 I'll consider some normative worries that bringing invertebrates into the moral community could stretch the concept of moral standing too thin, 35 00:03:08,550 --> 00:03:18,770 or that it could be too demanding of moral agents. The term vertebrate is biologically sound. 36 00:03:19,490 --> 00:03:22,700 It refers to a group of animals that comprise a pilot vertebrate, 37 00:03:23,090 --> 00:03:27,830 which are then characterised by segments, spinal column and cranium and close friends. 38 00:03:28,490 --> 00:03:34,970 Given this, one might be forgiven for expecting its rhetorical counterpart invertebrates to be biologically sound as well. 39 00:03:35,870 --> 00:03:44,060 This, you might not be surprised, is not the case. In fact, invertebrates are neither a proper clade nor a proper morphological brain. 40 00:03:45,410 --> 00:03:51,620 They are not a proper clade because they don't share a single common ancestor that is not also shared with vertebrates. 41 00:03:51,950 --> 00:03:56,510 For instance, the kind of terms such as sea stars and sea urchins, which are classic invertebrates, 42 00:03:56,990 --> 00:04:00,440 are more closely related to vertebrates than they are to other invertebrates. 43 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:05,510 And so the category invertebrate doesn't pick out a natural evolutionary group. 44 00:04:07,100 --> 00:04:11,720 The category invertebrate also doesn't represent a proper morphological grade of complexity. 45 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:19,880 All animals, vertebrates and invertebrates show the same amount of cellular differentiation and thus of complexity in their part. 46 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,660 Neither does the category reflect brain complexity. 47 00:04:23,660 --> 00:04:31,940 Great features of the vertebrate body plants, just spines and craniums are not preconditions for complex breaks. 48 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:38,180 Some insects, spiders and crustaceans as well as molluscs lack these features, but they are both relatively large, 49 00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:42,380 modular and fairly interconnected brains, depending on which animal we're talking about. 50 00:04:43,130 --> 00:04:47,930 With a brain, differences between vertebrates and invertebrates make a world difference is a separate question, 51 00:04:47,930 --> 00:04:55,970 and this is one that I'll get into shortly. So in short, the vertebrate invertebrate distinction fails as a biological concept. 52 00:04:56,180 --> 00:04:56,960 Worse still, 53 00:04:57,290 --> 00:05:06,680 it loads the vast diversity of non vertebrate animal life into a single category grouping creatures like the behaviourally flexible paperweights 54 00:05:07,190 --> 00:05:15,500 whose tiny body contains complex centralised brain with filter feeding sea spiders that lack nervous and motor capacities altogether. 55 00:05:16,310 --> 00:05:21,410 And this lemming indicates that the vertebrate invertebrate distinction might also fail as a moral concept. 56 00:05:23,270 --> 00:05:26,810 And this leads into a deeper worry about the vertebrate invertebrate extinction, 57 00:05:27,470 --> 00:05:33,620 namely its potential to distort moral analysis and policy, especially in the context of biomedical experimentation. 58 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:38,030 Now, a very general lesson emerging from the philosophical literatures on race, 59 00:05:38,870 --> 00:05:46,639 gender and disability disease is that biological categories often carry implicit normative connotations that shape moral 60 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:54,620 judgement and the vertebrate invertebrate contradistinction frames invertebrate animals in terms of what they are not. 61 00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:02,600 That is animals like us, animals that have moral standing, that occupy a high position in a scale of natura, 62 00:06:02,690 --> 00:06:08,690 which is an archaic progressive picture of the history of life, which hopefully you can see in the photo here. 63 00:06:09,740 --> 00:06:13,730 And so the worry is that some vertebrate invertebrate distinction, 64 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:20,570 the distinction rather falsely signals not only biological and ecological significance, but also moral significance. 65 00:06:20,990 --> 00:06:29,270 Whereas biology has long since moved on from this outdated value laden classification, bioethics is still very much encumbered by it, 66 00:06:30,500 --> 00:06:34,460 and these moral connotations have likely shaped the philosophy and policy of invertebrates. 67 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:43,370 With respect to policy, international animal care news committees are epoxies therefore generally known which govern. 68 00:06:43,370 --> 00:06:47,990 The treatment of animals in science and medicine have been slow to develop guidelines for invertebrate animals. 69 00:06:48,530 --> 00:06:57,410 Major scientific ranking agencies in the US, such as, for example, the NIH only requests information about the proposed use of vertebrate animals. 70 00:06:57,860 --> 00:07:03,830 European Union rules regarding the use of animals in scientific research likewise covers only vertebrates in other states, 71 00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:10,280 with a single exception for simplified models such as octopuses, squid and cuttlefish. 72 00:07:11,940 --> 00:07:20,579 And perhaps most ironically, efforts to replace research animals with more ethically sound alternatives known as the three R's approach that is, 73 00:07:20,580 --> 00:07:22,050 replacement reduction refinement. 74 00:07:24,030 --> 00:07:30,540 Have actually led some researchers to replace vertebrates not with human tissue or computer models, but with invertebrate animals. 75 00:07:31,860 --> 00:07:36,450 And philosophical accounts of animal welfare have done little to challenge this policy dichotomy. 76 00:07:37,170 --> 00:07:46,780 Most accounts are focussed on mammals and most recently, birds, and perhaps on occasion officials, bioethicist, bioethics have. 77 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:53,130 Most have almost entirely avoided critical engagement with invertebrates and to the extent that invertebrates are discussed at all. 78 00:07:53,370 --> 00:07:58,320 This is largely limited to the instrumental contributions they make to the health and stability of ecosystems. 79 00:08:01,790 --> 00:08:07,579 Plus, there are some signs, meanwhile, have recently begun to explore implications of invertebrate behaviour in neurobiology, 80 00:08:07,580 --> 00:08:15,050 core theories of cognition and consciousness. But when it comes to articulating the ethical implications of this work, they have typically demurred. 81 00:08:17,410 --> 00:08:23,770 One of the only explicit philosophical treatments of the moral standing of invertebrate animals is due to the philosopher of science, 82 00:08:23,770 --> 00:08:32,710 Peter Carruthers. His ethical analysis was not ethical, rather his that his analysis of the science is solid. 83 00:08:33,730 --> 00:08:39,670 I'm going to say that his ethics leaves much to be desired, according to Carruthers. 84 00:08:40,030 --> 00:08:46,570 Some invertebrates, such as honeybees and giant spiders, likely possess a belief, desire or psychology similar to our own. 85 00:08:47,380 --> 00:08:53,860 This, in turn, generates morally significant interests and as a consequence makes them prima facia subjects of moral concern. 86 00:08:54,760 --> 00:09:01,990 However, he argues, we are under know all things considered, obligation to care about their welfare precisely because they are invertebrates. 87 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:07,990 In other words, their status as invertebrates is adequate grounds for their moral exclusion. 88 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:12,460 He concludes that the invertebrate case presents a problem for traditional animal ethics, 89 00:09:13,510 --> 00:09:20,229 which must either extend moral consideration to invertebrates which he takes to be absurd or rescind it from non-human animals, 90 00:09:20,230 --> 00:09:23,559 which is his preferred conclusion. So, in effect, 91 00:09:23,560 --> 00:09:27,760 Carruthers seems to suggest that the invertebrate case serves as a kind of reductio 92 00:09:28,060 --> 00:09:31,600 against the leading accounts of moral standing for all non-human animals. 93 00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:39,790 I have a quote here that I can read later. Oh, I'm sorry. The slides don't appear to be don't appear as they ought to. 94 00:09:39,950 --> 00:09:45,310 But I think that extending moral consideration to some invertebrates is intuitively absurd. 95 00:09:46,450 --> 00:09:53,500 And why should this counterintuitive application require that we reject an otherwise coherent and well-worked out theory of moral standing? 96 00:09:54,670 --> 00:09:58,150 Carruthers offers no real sustained defence of these conclusions. 97 00:09:58,780 --> 00:10:06,040 But when a moral theory conflicts with a moral judgement, there's an open question as to which one even modifies our theory of moral 98 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:09,670 standing rather than our specific judgements about invertebrates in this case. 99 00:10:11,660 --> 00:10:19,310 One context in which we should opt to reject specific moral judgements rather than to discard or modify an established moral theory. 100 00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:24,350 Because when we have reason to think that the specific judgements are vulnerable to distorting influences. 101 00:10:24,980 --> 00:10:30,890 Indeed, there are a number of cognitive biases that are likely to distort ethical intuitions about the moral standing of invertebrates. 102 00:10:31,580 --> 00:10:35,330 And these call into question the basic moral intuitions on which Carruthers, 103 00:10:35,330 --> 00:10:41,000 as he rests, namely that extending world ending to invertebrates is patently absurd. 104 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:48,320 Now, although, CARRUTHERS This ethical analysis is unpersuasive, and I will have more to say about this later. 105 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:56,450 If you do, in fact, reflect the attitudes toward invertebrate welfare among the general population, including bioethicists and policymakers, 106 00:10:57,230 --> 00:11:02,600 to many, it is simply self-evident that invertebrates are not the kinds of animals about whom we have to care morally. 107 00:11:03,680 --> 00:11:12,830 But I think that this common intuition may stem from a combination of moral cognitive biases, false empirical beliefs. 108 00:11:16,660 --> 00:11:22,360 And worries about extending extending moral standing to certain invertebrates. 109 00:11:23,530 --> 00:11:25,570 So let's turn to the cognitive biases first. 110 00:11:26,320 --> 00:11:31,750 I suspect that a range of biases may have caudally influenced judgements about the moral standing of invertebrates, 111 00:11:32,140 --> 00:11:36,370 and thus have played a causal role in their exclusion from subject centred moral consideration. 112 00:11:37,780 --> 00:11:41,140 Now it's well known that empathy modulates moral judgement. 113 00:11:43,430 --> 00:11:52,760 That's to say, reciprocity. Individuals tend to morally favour those with whom they contingently empathise over those with whom they do not. 114 00:11:53,390 --> 00:11:58,760 And people tend to empathise with individuals who look more like them, who are judged to be more attractive. 115 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:06,530 I've Hope Hicks over there, with whom they have a history of reciprocity and whom they consider to be members of the in-group. 116 00:12:07,070 --> 00:12:12,470 By contrast, people tend to have less empathy for those who are less familiar, less subjectively attractive, 117 00:12:12,740 --> 00:12:22,129 or who are who belong to an active group such as a separate race or ethnicity or nationality, song and empathy, or more accurately, 118 00:12:22,130 --> 00:12:26,000 its absence is likely to influence judgements about moral standing, 119 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:31,520 which helps to explain widespread moral attitudes toward invertebrates invertebrates 120 00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:34,700 who are low on the human empathy attribution scale for a number of reasons. 121 00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:41,330 First, the vast majority of invertebrates are rarely considered attractive, cute or cuddly, like the jumping spider on your right. 122 00:12:42,620 --> 00:12:47,090 And for this reason, their needs tend not to elicit much empathetic concern. 123 00:12:47,750 --> 00:12:50,390 Second, invertebrates, such as arthropods and molluscs, 124 00:12:50,930 --> 00:12:57,440 have almost maximally dissimilar are almost maximally dissimilar from tetrapod vertebrates like ourselves. 125 00:12:58,070 --> 00:13:02,210 Features of invertebrate body plants are radically all like those of vertebrates. 126 00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:12,110 Distinct larval phases are common to invertebrates, but alien to us, as are certain forms of society, like caste based sociality or swarm behaviour. 127 00:13:13,610 --> 00:13:14,030 And indeed, 128 00:13:14,030 --> 00:13:22,909 these characteristics may trigger other cognitive biases that then reinforce moral exclusion and this overall morphological and behavioural alien. 129 00:13:22,910 --> 00:13:26,300 This makes empathy particularly difficult to bridge. 130 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:34,340 It may be tempting to treat this empathy gap as a legitimate source of moral intuitions or grounding for moral judgements. 131 00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:38,360 As Carruthers and some by conservative ethicists seem to do. 132 00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:42,170 I'm thinking here we are cats. But this will be problematic for several reasons. 133 00:13:43,070 --> 00:13:47,840 First, the human empathetic response evolved to home in on human psychology. 134 00:13:48,260 --> 00:13:55,910 And so it may be a poor guide to understanding non-human animals, either particularly for non mammalian and especially non vertebrate animals. 135 00:13:56,690 --> 00:14:05,209 Human beings have well-known tendencies to favour faces with certain kinds of features large expressive camera type eyes and inviting smile, 136 00:14:05,210 --> 00:14:08,810 symmetrical features and so on, and to find these attractive and disarming. 137 00:14:09,470 --> 00:14:14,450 But humans tend to express negative moral attitudes about subjectively unattractive beings. 138 00:14:14,900 --> 00:14:18,560 Beyond this, humans are highly committed to subtle changes in facial expression, 139 00:14:18,890 --> 00:14:25,490 and our many facial muscles are capable of broadcasting a wide range of beliefs, desires and evolution and emotions. 140 00:14:26,030 --> 00:14:26,910 As a consequence, 141 00:14:27,010 --> 00:14:35,150 we find ourselves used when confronted with an impassive or an expressive face on an animal that evolution did not equipped with such abilities. 142 00:14:36,780 --> 00:14:45,230 Fishers fall into this category, as would insects, to the extent that there are large enough for us humans to see their faces. 143 00:14:46,380 --> 00:14:53,940 Faces that are adorned by large companies that are unlikely to garner the cuteness responses that typically trigger empathy. 144 00:14:56,350 --> 00:15:03,220 When it comes to sparsely haired, slimy, squishy, scurrying, swarming animals, 145 00:15:03,730 --> 00:15:11,110 the empathy gap may run deeper than for merely unattractive animals provoking not apathy, but disgust. 146 00:15:13,530 --> 00:15:20,160 The disgust response in humans probably first evolved to help early humans avoid pathogens and infectious agents. 147 00:15:20,820 --> 00:15:24,150 But there's evidence that it was later co-opted to mediate social interactions. 148 00:15:25,230 --> 00:15:32,820 In particular, disgust appears to modulate moral judgement and even more fundamentally, judgements about moral standing. 149 00:15:34,350 --> 00:15:39,060 Disgust appears to play an important role in driving moral, exclusionary norms and behaviours. 150 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:45,059 And indeed, nativist and racist propaganda draws explicitly on the disgust response in 151 00:15:45,060 --> 00:15:49,230 portraying immigrants and other races or ethnicities as disease bearing vermin, 152 00:15:49,230 --> 00:15:53,310 or as insects like cockroaches or as parasitic free riders. 153 00:15:55,020 --> 00:15:56,580 Although the science is not yet settled, 154 00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:05,010 it is quite plausible that disgust responses can distort moral judgements and policies as they appear to have done in cases like interracial marriage, 155 00:16:05,010 --> 00:16:08,010 homosexuality, GMOs and so on. 156 00:16:09,090 --> 00:16:16,169 We don't know exactly how disgust features in moral exclusion, but it's highly plausible that disgust has served to reinforce bigoted moral 157 00:16:16,170 --> 00:16:21,330 judgements and institutions and made it harder to subject them to critical scrutiny. 158 00:16:21,930 --> 00:16:24,300 And this is likely to be true for invertebrates as well. 159 00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:31,740 If invertebrates score low in the empathy scale, they earn high marks on the scale of disgust. 160 00:16:33,450 --> 00:16:37,650 Most insects and spiders tend to provoke a really strong disgust response in humans. 161 00:16:38,190 --> 00:16:43,200 So much so that splash and pictures of arthropods are sometimes preceded by a trigger warning. 162 00:16:44,550 --> 00:16:58,130 At least in the US. Crying for disgust has been shown experimentally to to increase the moral disapproval directed at human agents. 163 00:16:58,850 --> 00:17:02,629 And we might expect it to operate similarly, if not more intensely, 164 00:17:02,630 --> 00:17:08,540 when directed in beings like invertebrates that are themselves the direct objects of the disgust. 165 00:17:10,010 --> 00:17:15,230 In addition, many arthropods map genetically altered categories that are associated with parasite. 166 00:17:15,830 --> 00:17:23,960 In other, others are dropped onto categories associated with other physical dangers, although in fact, very few of them, in fact, represent a danger. 167 00:17:24,290 --> 00:17:28,370 And because of this, they often provoke over generalised aggression and avoidance. 168 00:17:28,970 --> 00:17:32,870 This type of response might be an adaptive heuristic for managing evolutionary risk. 169 00:17:33,380 --> 00:17:38,870 But it's not a legitimate basis for scriptural moral standing, and in fact is likely to distort such judgements. 170 00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:44,720 The opposite of the disgust response is what Sherman and Hape called the cuteness response. 171 00:17:46,180 --> 00:17:49,600 Q just promotes the desire for increased social engagement with a cute thing. 172 00:17:49,810 --> 00:17:56,500 Whereas disgust leads to avoidance and disengagement from the discussed proroguing being and disengaging from discuss 173 00:17:56,500 --> 00:18:01,930 provoking things correlates with failing to attribute or else under attributing mental states to those beings. 174 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:05,350 This, in turn, could subjectively justify moral disengagement. 175 00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:10,540 In contrast, the cuteness response enhances the tendency to infer mental states. 176 00:18:10,780 --> 00:18:15,100 And this, in turn, feeds back into empathetic concern leading to moral inclusion. 177 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:22,390 Even if empathy and discuss are not polar opposite emotions, they do appear to have opposite effects on moral judgement and inclusion. 178 00:18:23,470 --> 00:18:29,710 Empathy tends to motivate a positive engagement with empathise, whereas discussed tends to result in disengagement. 179 00:18:30,130 --> 00:18:34,060 And so it shouldn't be surprising that I discussed provoking animals like arthropods and 180 00:18:34,060 --> 00:18:38,380 invertebrates will tend to be excluded from any morality that relies on empathetic concern. 181 00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:48,760 Now there are several other cognitive biases that are likely to shape ethical attitude toward invertebrates. 182 00:18:50,050 --> 00:18:56,440 Devices might not be limited to the invertebrate issue. But there's reason to think that they're especially salient in the invertebrate case. 183 00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:02,730 And the first is what we might call a size threshold bias. Consider the lobster. 184 00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:10,530 The less behaviourally and neuro anatomically sophisticated than the jumping spider or bumblebee. 185 00:19:11,100 --> 00:19:14,460 The cluster often appears as an appropriate subject of moral concern. 186 00:19:16,140 --> 00:19:19,320 We feel empathy toward the cluster, but not the spider. 187 00:19:20,550 --> 00:19:23,400 One reason for this might be that we eat lobsters, but not spiders, 188 00:19:24,300 --> 00:19:29,010 which might make us reflect more on our actions regarding the lobster but not the spider. 189 00:19:30,330 --> 00:19:35,720 Still, I think something more appears to drive our intuitions here, and this might be a difference in size. 190 00:19:36,770 --> 00:19:45,650 Animals that fall below a certain size threshold tend to fall off the moral radar, so to speak, and apparently below the threshold of moral standing. 191 00:19:46,700 --> 00:19:51,379 The size threshold bias might be a useful moral heuristic if there were an actual 192 00:19:51,380 --> 00:19:55,550 relationship between size and the characteristics that give rise to moral standing. 193 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,020 For example, if size below a certain threshold were to guarantee the absence of, say, 194 00:20:00,560 --> 00:20:06,980 phenomenal consciousness cognition, then we might have a reason to use size as a proxy for moral standing. 195 00:20:07,940 --> 00:20:13,040 And one might think that size checks moral standing, because small body size indicates small brains. 196 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:17,120 And tiny brains, it might be thought cannot in principle support cognition or sentience. 197 00:20:17,930 --> 00:20:21,610 But this fact expectation doesn't seem to be borne out by the evidence. 198 00:20:21,620 --> 00:20:30,590 It's all discussed in the moment. And so the size threshold bias is properly characterised as moral bias rather than as a useful moral heuristic. 199 00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:36,020 Another size bias relates not to individuals, but to populations. 200 00:20:37,100 --> 00:20:41,150 And this is the tendency to value individuals less when they're members of a numerous class. 201 00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:47,810 You may not know this, but ants alone account for roughly 20% of the animal biomass on Earth. 202 00:20:48,950 --> 00:20:55,310 So these large numbers may lead to the erroneous judgement that each member of the group is therefore replaceable. 203 00:20:58,170 --> 00:21:05,910 For conservation purposes. The judgement may be correct, but this of course glosses over the subject centred moral value of the animals themselves, 204 00:21:06,690 --> 00:21:12,510 which is obviously unrelated to the size of populations they comprise or how they interact ecologically with other species. 205 00:21:12,930 --> 00:21:16,260 And this is as true of the case of ants as it is with elephants. 206 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:25,290 The population size bias is related to a distinct from another potential bias, which we might call the D individualisation bias. 207 00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:31,319 And this is the tendency to see some individual insects as parts of a larger individual, 208 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:36,690 the colony which outlives them, rather than has agents that are eligible for moral concern in their own right. 209 00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:42,420 This leads to another possible source of moral bias the less than threshold bias. 210 00:21:43,570 --> 00:21:49,210 Some invertebrates live very short lives about 1 to 3 years in the case of the common octopus. 211 00:21:49,660 --> 00:21:57,850 A bit less for house raised jumping spider and a fleeting 30 or so days for the summer work for honeybee folk. 212 00:21:57,850 --> 00:22:03,620 Moral intuitions may suggest that animals with so little time left make comparably smaller world claims. 213 00:22:05,350 --> 00:22:10,360 Even if this were so. Moral standing itself cannot depend on the amount of time one has left. 214 00:22:10,900 --> 00:22:15,940 If it did, then moral standing of humans would change as people grew older or when they felt terminally ill. 215 00:22:16,930 --> 00:22:19,900 Nor does lifespan easily track relative moral status. 216 00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:28,880 Many mammals, for instance, live comparatively shorter lives in other vertebrates, such as, for example, crocodiles and tuna. 217 00:22:29,450 --> 00:22:36,110 But this does not affect the higher moral status attributed to them. And of course, trees and giant clams live for many generations. 218 00:22:36,830 --> 00:22:47,790 And at least one jellyfish is immortal. Perhaps instead less than serves as a heuristic this that beings which fall below a certain 219 00:22:47,790 --> 00:22:52,230 less than threshold are unlikely to possess the mental properties around moral standing. 220 00:22:52,950 --> 00:22:59,399 Here's how that argument might go. An adapted strategy for short lived animals might be to develop rigid behavioural 221 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:02,790 routines rather than cognitive machinery that is needed for learning. 222 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,280 This might be because learning is time intensive and such animals have very little time. 223 00:23:09,090 --> 00:23:13,380 Thus, short lived animals might be unlikely to evolve complex cognitive machinery, 224 00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:18,900 making the lesson by us in fact a useful heuristic for identifying morally relevant characteristics. 225 00:23:20,060 --> 00:23:24,330 Because you might be intuitively plausible, but it also runs afoul of the evidence to which I now turn. 226 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:34,400 There you go. So we've seen that there are a number of cognitive biases that might distort judgement about invertebrates. 227 00:23:35,420 --> 00:23:40,219 But the most defensible rationale for their moral exclusion is the belief that they lack the properties of 228 00:23:40,220 --> 00:23:45,800 mind that generate psychological interests and which are then thought to be preconditions for moral standing. 229 00:23:47,860 --> 00:23:53,890 But the assumption that tiny brains can't sustain complex thought is problematic for several reasons, and I'll go into that. 230 00:23:54,340 --> 00:23:59,110 First of all, measurements of absolute brain size tell us much less than is often assumed. 231 00:24:00,430 --> 00:24:06,850 The ratio of brain to body size known as the supposed Asian quotient or IQ is more informative because it 232 00:24:06,850 --> 00:24:12,340 indicates that there has been differential evolutionary investment in the metabolically costly brain tissue. 233 00:24:13,900 --> 00:24:19,570 And this, in turn suggests that the fitness payoff must be especially high to sustain these costs. 234 00:24:20,350 --> 00:24:26,320 And the payoff presumably is paid out in cognitive functionality that the increased brain power provides. 235 00:24:27,370 --> 00:24:34,960 But even if IQ is predictive of cognitive ability, then things like things like total neurone number, 236 00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:42,790 modularity, connectivity, metabolic rate, micro structural features and so on are actually more predictive. 237 00:24:44,230 --> 00:24:47,590 And crucially, these features do not scale linearly with size, 238 00:24:47,590 --> 00:24:53,890 which suggests that even tiny brains may possess the absolute raw material for their own form of thought and feeling. 239 00:24:55,360 --> 00:25:00,669 We can see how factor factors like neurone number are more predictive than actually brain size. 240 00:25:00,670 --> 00:25:08,290 If we look at the case of avian brains, birds such as Paris and crows are capable abstract thinkers and problem solvers. 241 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,640 But behavioural events where the cognitive sophistication was long greeted with scepticism. 242 00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:20,020 For two reasons. First, our brains are very small, and second, they lack a structure that physically resembles the mammalian neocortex, 243 00:25:20,530 --> 00:25:25,870 which was long thought necessary for any form of complex cognitive punishment or complex thought or even consciousness. 244 00:25:26,830 --> 00:25:31,510 It's only recently that researchers have come to understand exactly how maybe not exactly the wrong word, 245 00:25:31,510 --> 00:25:38,740 but just how in your brain solved the engineering problem of fitting substantial computational power into a very small package, 246 00:25:39,340 --> 00:25:44,260 which of course is crucial for birds, since flight is metabolically and mechanically costly. 247 00:25:45,370 --> 00:25:52,150 It turns out that bird brains contain a much larger number of densely packed neurones compared with similarly sized mammalian brains. 248 00:25:53,430 --> 00:26:00,870 And these densities are especially high in a region associated with complex cognition, which is the functional equivalent of mammalian neocortex. 249 00:26:01,650 --> 00:26:07,830 Not only are neurones more densely configured, but they're also smaller. And this allows more neurones to fit into a smaller volume. 250 00:26:08,310 --> 00:26:14,160 This gives birds increased pound for pound computational potential beyond the capacity of monkeys, 251 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,390 which have much larger brains, but who aren't subject to the biomechanical constraints of flight. 252 00:26:20,230 --> 00:26:24,280 Like birds, many invertebrates have to deal with significant size constraints. 253 00:26:25,120 --> 00:26:30,999 And these constraints are severe for insects and arachnids. This is due to the nature of the body plants and the laws of physics. 254 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:36,190 So first of all, they can grow beyond a certain size. Lustig collapsed under the weight of their own exoskeleton. 255 00:26:37,120 --> 00:26:41,080 And second, they have these organs for respiration that are distributed throughout the body. 256 00:26:42,130 --> 00:26:46,870 And because volume increases faster than surface area, this presents yet another scaling constraint. 257 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:52,900 And these constraints place upper limits on the size, their body of their bodies and therefore of their brains. 258 00:26:53,650 --> 00:27:01,170 And so we might ask. Evolution has found a way to pack a large amount of computational power into the small brains of birds. 259 00:27:01,740 --> 00:27:05,130 Might it have done thing for the absolutely tiny brains of arthropods? 260 00:27:06,970 --> 00:27:14,340 There is, in fact, evidence for such solutions. First neural network model suggests that some forms of cognition may actually be 261 00:27:14,580 --> 00:27:19,080 computationally inexpensive and can be accomplished with only a small number of neurones, 262 00:27:19,500 --> 00:27:23,250 something that can easily be handled by the pint sized brains of insects and spiders. 263 00:27:23,940 --> 00:27:28,589 Such models offer a kind of proof of concept. So as Jeremy Piven in last check to point out, 264 00:27:28,590 --> 00:27:32,879 it's hard to imagine that millions upon millions of generations of evolution would 265 00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,570 not have arrived at solutions that were arrived at by models that they run. 266 00:27:37,860 --> 00:27:41,280 And in fact, the brains of many insects, spiders, 267 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:47,310 cephalopods do appear to possess structural characteristics that might support sophisticated forms of cognition. 268 00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:52,470 For example, insects, spiders and octopuses have central processing regions. 269 00:27:54,150 --> 00:27:58,800 These receive and integrate information from various peripheral systems and insects and spiders. 270 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,070 These are called mushroom bodies and octopuses. 271 00:28:02,490 --> 00:28:08,310 These are called the vertical loaves. And these regions are connected by so-called re-entry pathways. 272 00:28:12,330 --> 00:28:15,380 This permit the ongoing bi directional exchange of signals. 273 00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:22,040 These give animals centralised control over the bodies interactions and in fact smaller 274 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:25,340 size may actually confer certain advantages that aren't available to larger brains. 275 00:28:25,970 --> 00:28:29,120 For example, smaller breaks tend to have smaller and denser neurones. 276 00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:34,160 We saw how this works with birds, and this means that they also have shorter distances between neurones. 277 00:28:35,450 --> 00:28:40,370 Why is this important? Well, it trims the distance that information has to travel and it reduces conduction delays. 278 00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:48,070 A lot for faster thinking. Now, smaller brains also impose constraints on cognition, 279 00:28:48,070 --> 00:28:53,200 but the point for now is that just like it is with computers, bigger is not necessarily better. 280 00:28:56,010 --> 00:28:59,880 Still brain tissue is extremely metabolically costly. 281 00:29:00,540 --> 00:29:02,700 And so we should expect to see increases. 282 00:29:04,300 --> 00:29:09,300 We should expect increased brain size to bring with it a substantial behavioural and cognitive payoff as well. 283 00:29:10,020 --> 00:29:16,560 And there is now a fair amount of behavioural evidence showing how at least some invertebrates put these brains to good use in the interest of time. 284 00:29:16,590 --> 00:29:20,340 I will move through this a bit quickly, but I'm happy to return to it in Q&A. 285 00:29:21,060 --> 00:29:24,110 So for example. Among insects. 286 00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,529 Honeybees appear to be capable of cross motor learning. 287 00:29:27,530 --> 00:29:35,660 So that is they're capable of transferring a role like sameness indicates reward that was learned in a visual context to a different, 288 00:29:35,870 --> 00:29:37,130 say, olfactory contest. 289 00:29:38,690 --> 00:29:47,360 Paper wasps recognise faces of their specifics and this allows them to navigate dynamic social hierarchies that other insects don't face. 290 00:29:49,070 --> 00:29:53,930 Bumblebees engage in social learning and can learn complex and highly non instinctive tasks 291 00:29:54,260 --> 00:29:57,740 like string pulling and actually have a video if anybody is interested in doing that. 292 00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:04,790 During the Q&A of a bumblebee pulling out a reward and ants appear to pass the 293 00:30:04,790 --> 00:30:10,070 mirror self-recognition test which human infants only pass around month 22, 294 00:30:12,740 --> 00:30:16,310 several of park molluscs everyone's favourite invertebrate such as octopuses. 295 00:30:16,430 --> 00:30:19,580 Cuttlefish have excellent spatial navigation abilities. 296 00:30:19,910 --> 00:30:25,969 Octopuses excel at problem solving and they may even use rudimentary tools among arachnids. 297 00:30:25,970 --> 00:30:32,209 The tiny, tiny, tiny spider rapidly and flexibly switches from stopping its prey by crouching behind 298 00:30:32,210 --> 00:30:37,730 a leaf to executing a long detour to an ambush location located just above its prey. 299 00:30:38,900 --> 00:30:43,700 This detouring ability suggests that jumping spiders might be using mental maps. 300 00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:48,110 If so, then they are capable of surprisingly sophisticated, representational thinking. 301 00:30:48,890 --> 00:30:52,760 What's more, the jump in Spider, Portia, Africana and you're on your right over there. 302 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:57,170 Can distinguish between one, two and many. 303 00:30:57,910 --> 00:31:00,740 So these are numerous any abilities again at the level of human events. 304 00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:08,430 So researchers were initially sceptical that such flexible behaviours could be generated by the tiny brains of insects and spiders, 305 00:31:09,060 --> 00:31:14,280 and thus they operated on the assumption that there must be simpler, non-cognitive causes of this behaviour. 306 00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:21,059 Well. The combined weight of the neuroscientific and behavioural evidence I think suggests 307 00:31:21,060 --> 00:31:24,810 that complex cognition may be much more broadly distributed in the tree of animal life. 308 00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:33,310 And as we will see, some forms of cognition may implicate consciousness, while others may be necessary for forming stable preferences. 309 00:31:34,180 --> 00:31:38,140 If so, then some forms of cognition might implicate morally protectable interests. 310 00:31:40,780 --> 00:31:46,420 But cognitive ability alone may be insufficient for moral standing if there is no subject of experience. 311 00:31:46,660 --> 00:31:48,520 Nothing. It is like to be that system. 312 00:31:49,210 --> 00:31:56,140 Then, even if the organism has psychological interests, in some sense those interests cannot be said to matter to it. 313 00:31:57,100 --> 00:32:05,470 And thus its interests cannot be said to matter. Morally phenomenal consciousness, in other words, seems to be a precondition for moral standing, 314 00:32:05,950 --> 00:32:08,590 for having well-being in any meaningful psychological sense. 315 00:32:09,970 --> 00:32:18,940 So are any invertebrates phenomenally conscious or do they are they just sophisticated biological zombies? 316 00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:25,430 There is, of course, no agreement about just how to define or operationalise consciousness. 317 00:32:26,350 --> 00:32:29,350 On some accounts, consciousness is a continuous. 318 00:32:30,460 --> 00:32:34,750 Faisal property of brains, including invertebrate brain, for example, 319 00:32:34,990 --> 00:32:39,459 to analyse information integration theory of consciousness holds that phenomenon. 320 00:32:39,460 --> 00:32:45,730 Consciousness just is the integration of information. That's it. The more information the integrated system, the more conscious that system is. 321 00:32:46,660 --> 00:32:51,670 If this view is right, then even organisms with very simple nervous systems are conscious, 322 00:32:52,300 --> 00:32:55,150 albeit to minimal degrees, that are of questionable moral import. 323 00:32:56,860 --> 00:33:01,600 Others have argued that there are two fundamental abilities that implicate phenomenal consciousness. 324 00:33:04,090 --> 00:33:10,540 One perceptual and one motivational. And there's evidence that some invertebrates like insects, spiders, might have both. 325 00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:18,159 These are sensory binding, which is the ability to perceive disparate elements of a perceptual scene as a single, 326 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:23,040 coherent whole and directed attention. That is, the ability to direct one's perceptual focus. 327 00:33:23,110 --> 00:33:25,990 Well, the evidence for these abilities is broad based. 328 00:33:26,890 --> 00:33:32,860 First, it may be computationally cheaper and so more accessible to tiny brains to perceive objects as discrete holes, 329 00:33:32,860 --> 00:33:38,260 rather than to detect many individual features of objects, and then to keep track of their ever changing relationships. 330 00:33:40,290 --> 00:33:41,790 At the neurobiological level. 331 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:48,420 The same re-entered pathways that allow for information integration may also support sensory binding and directed attention. 332 00:33:49,230 --> 00:33:56,970 And these are also present in insects and psychopaths. Another line of support comes from the evolutionary hypothesis that phenomenal consciousness 333 00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,710 emerged as an adaptive response to information processing challenges of active lifestyles. 334 00:34:02,190 --> 00:34:10,020 For example, mobile animals need to transform dynamic multi-sensory inputs into a coherent scene as distinct from the animal's movements. 335 00:34:10,590 --> 00:34:14,220 And they also need to pick out relevant cues from heterogeneous environments. 336 00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:22,320 And thus, on this view, all mobile animals, unlike their distant, sessile cousins, should be expected to have some degree of animal consciousness. 337 00:34:24,370 --> 00:34:28,330 But therefore our consciousness may not be sufficient for moral standing. 338 00:34:29,860 --> 00:34:35,349 As got the Hanan Giuliani. So let's to point out in a joint article because objectivity is probably not 339 00:34:35,350 --> 00:34:39,850 sufficient to generate psychological interests if an organism has moral standing, 340 00:34:40,030 --> 00:34:48,670 that organism must presumably be capable of judging in some very rudimentary sense that this state of affairs are desirable and others undesirable. 341 00:34:49,510 --> 00:34:54,970 And this is where affective states come into the picture. What then, can we say about the effect of worlds of invertebrates? 342 00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:01,290 Again, the scientific study of affect among invertebrates is still fairly new, 343 00:35:01,530 --> 00:35:07,620 but emerging findings suggest that some insects and perhaps spiders have emotion like states, 344 00:35:07,980 --> 00:35:14,190 and that in some invertebrates these emotions are mediated by dopamine, which is the same hormone that regulates emotion in humans. 345 00:35:15,450 --> 00:35:23,130 For example, bumblebees tend to interpret ambiguous stimuli more optimistically after being exposed to a pleasant stimulus, 346 00:35:23,700 --> 00:35:25,710 which is just what humans do when we're happy. 347 00:35:26,750 --> 00:35:34,520 And both fruit flies and bees respond more pessimistically after exposure to an aversive stimulus, something like vigorous shaking. 348 00:35:35,710 --> 00:35:38,920 And again, this is something that humans do when we're sad or stressed. 349 00:35:39,730 --> 00:35:43,930 And just this perceptual binding is a pervasive feature of some arthropods and molluscs. 350 00:35:44,470 --> 00:35:46,690 So too is what we might call semantic binding. 351 00:35:48,140 --> 00:35:55,100 Where in objects are classified in real time into ecologically relevant categories such as predator prey, mate, obstacle and so on. 352 00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,520 And appropriate effective balances are attached to these categories. 353 00:35:59,030 --> 00:36:03,890 In other words, the world of these animals is at least in a very rudimentary sense, meaningful. 354 00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:14,140 But of all affective states, what's perhaps most at the centre of moral analysis is pain perception. 355 00:36:15,070 --> 00:36:21,190 Many invertebrates have receptors called Nociceptors, which allow for the rapid detection and response to noxious stimuli. 356 00:36:21,790 --> 00:36:25,540 But pain detection is not conclusive evidence of pain perception. 357 00:36:26,590 --> 00:36:30,850 The leading adaptive explanation is that pain perception facilitates instrumental learning. 358 00:36:32,090 --> 00:36:36,350 And this helps animals to avoid future exposure to noxious animals, not just to run away immediately. 359 00:36:37,310 --> 00:36:39,500 If pain teaches animals, which situations to avoid, 360 00:36:39,500 --> 00:36:46,160 then an animal that is capable of instrumental learning might also be expected to be capable of experiencing pain. 361 00:36:46,940 --> 00:36:52,040 And there is some evidence of instrumental learning among invertebrates, including some molluscs and insects. 362 00:36:53,370 --> 00:36:57,749 Other markers of pain perception include behaviours like grooming of injured body 363 00:36:57,750 --> 00:37:01,889 parts of has been shown to shrink as well as what is known as motivational trade-off. 364 00:37:01,890 --> 00:37:08,070 For example, hermit crabs are apparently willing to withstand a mild electric shock in order to obtain a more desirable shell, 365 00:37:08,430 --> 00:37:11,220 but not a stronger shot or a less desirable shell. 366 00:37:12,660 --> 00:37:17,850 In addition, endogenous opioids which modulate pain perception in humans have also been found in invertebrates. 367 00:37:19,860 --> 00:37:28,139 But on the other hand, some insects appear to engage in normal feeding and mating behaviours, even after sustaining severe injury such as this number. 368 00:37:28,140 --> 00:37:35,190 In the case of the mantis, either these animals don't mind the pain or else they judge it to be a fair price for the encounter. 369 00:37:36,720 --> 00:37:43,380 So it is possible that some invertebrates do not experience pain in the way that vertebrates typically do. 370 00:37:44,850 --> 00:37:50,670 But even if this is the case, they might still have rich, phenomenal and effective worlds, 371 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:56,070 and this world could plausibly give rise to morally protectable psychological interests. 372 00:37:56,730 --> 00:38:06,030 So we might not want to be so quick as to infer from differential pain, phenomenology and responses that invertebrates are mere zombie automata. 373 00:38:07,230 --> 00:38:13,710 In this way, the case of invertebrate pain perception might process to reconsider traditional approaches to nonhuman animal moral standing. 374 00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:20,130 To the extent that these have typically centred around vertebrate centric understandings of pain and as behavioural parlance. 375 00:38:22,820 --> 00:38:27,110 This elder suggests that some invertebrates may have characteristics that ground moral standing. 376 00:38:28,370 --> 00:38:32,000 But a reliable evidence base requires reliable, inferential strategists. 377 00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:39,020 And drawing reliable inferences about invertebrate cognition is especially challenging given how alien their brains, 378 00:38:39,020 --> 00:38:41,630 their bodies, their lifeways, their evolutionary histories are. 379 00:38:42,020 --> 00:38:47,780 So there's bound to be greater uncertainty about the future of morally relevant cognitive properties among invertebrates. 380 00:38:50,830 --> 00:38:57,390 The science of comparative cognition tends to cope with uncertainty by erring on the side of avoiding false positives that is, 381 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:03,750 avoiding wrongly ascribing sophisticated cognition to or consciousness, for that matter, to animals. 382 00:39:04,380 --> 00:39:06,090 This may or may not be a good approach, 383 00:39:06,570 --> 00:39:12,360 but this could be a problem if the ethics takes its cues about the existence of morally relevant properties from science. 384 00:39:13,290 --> 00:39:19,290 Because the kind of burden of proof that might be warranted on the side of ethics is different from the burden of proof that's warranted in science. 385 00:39:20,390 --> 00:39:25,219 One way that bioethicists deal or at least might deal with this is by implementing a sort of 386 00:39:25,220 --> 00:39:30,200 precautionary approach or some other approach that airs on the side of winning false negatives. 387 00:39:30,830 --> 00:39:35,720 But there are limits to the plausibility and desirability of precaution as an action guiding heuristic. 388 00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:43,540 And one thing that we might do if we want to develop a scientifically engaging animal ethics is I'm sorry, 389 00:39:43,550 --> 00:39:48,920 one thing that we need to do is to justify and reconcile these competing error of what and strategies. 390 00:39:50,310 --> 00:39:53,350 Finally, let's turn to one last reason for the exclusion of invertebrates. 391 00:39:54,580 --> 00:40:01,060 Earlier, I suggested that the fact that people don't empathise with invertebrates is not sufficient grounds. 392 00:40:02,060 --> 00:40:09,500 To deny the moral standing, as for others wants to do. The idea that there's a tight connection between empathy and moral standing is quite 393 00:40:09,500 --> 00:40:13,880 obviously inconsistent with prevailing subject centre counts of moral standing. 394 00:40:14,660 --> 00:40:20,360 These accounts aren't grounded in our tendency to empathise with individuals of a particular sort or for that matter, 395 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:27,140 in any other relational property. Instead, these are grounded in the possession of certain morally relevant psychological properties. 396 00:40:27,860 --> 00:40:33,980 Different psychological capabilities might confer different moral statuses or moral standards of different ways, 397 00:40:34,610 --> 00:40:40,010 and these might give rise to more expansive or more truncated sets of rights and or morally protectable interests. 398 00:40:40,890 --> 00:40:44,790 But the point that Carruthers style objections miss is that any plausible account of moral 399 00:40:44,790 --> 00:40:50,190 standing can't be premised on contingent sociological patterns of empathetic concern, 400 00:40:51,630 --> 00:40:55,800 especially when those concerns might be distorted by cognitive biases and false beliefs. 401 00:40:57,230 --> 00:41:00,290 We might contingently sympathise with individuals of different races. 402 00:41:01,410 --> 00:41:04,530 Different ethnicities, different genders, there's different animal taxa. 403 00:41:05,100 --> 00:41:10,230 Or we might not. We might include some individuals in our cooperative groups, or we may not. 404 00:41:10,710 --> 00:41:18,150 But our contingent sympathies, reciprocity, relations, other non subjects that are facts cannot be the source of moral protection. 405 00:41:19,530 --> 00:41:26,640 Okay. But suppose that the scientist said, and that we're confident that some invertebrates do have morally protectable interests. 406 00:41:26,670 --> 00:41:34,190 Now what? Suppose also that this leads us to accept that some invertebrates have moral standing, at least on our best theory of moral standing? 407 00:41:34,790 --> 00:41:39,860 Could we still have defensible reasons for excluding invertebrates for the moral calculus? 408 00:41:41,420 --> 00:41:46,520 Well, one reason for excluding them might be that extending moral standing to invertebrates 409 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,740 could make morality overly demanding and hence ultimately implausible. 410 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:59,150 There are good reasons to think that moral theories must be minimally psychologically realistic for beings like us, as Owen Flanagan argues. 411 00:41:59,720 --> 00:42:07,670 And the worry is that requiring that the requirements of this new and more inclusive morality would grind life to a relatively halt, 412 00:42:08,690 --> 00:42:12,230 people would be morally accountable for every insight that meets its end on average. 413 00:42:13,310 --> 00:42:16,640 Every spider that failed to rescue from the bathtub, every squashed mosquito, 414 00:42:16,970 --> 00:42:20,300 every population of fleas sacrificed for the comfort of a companion animal, 415 00:42:20,930 --> 00:42:27,680 people would have to effectively sweep the floor before them in smocks so as to avoid stepping on scurrying beetles and ants. 416 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,220 And so to say nothing of biting and driving up worse. 417 00:42:32,060 --> 00:42:35,390 The entire modern agricultural system would be morally suspect. 418 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:40,760 This is given us no holds barred battle with property, insects, and of course, 419 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:48,410 biomedical benefits to humans could potentially be foregone if invertebrates are afforded even minimal protections in clinical and basic research. 420 00:42:49,700 --> 00:42:56,180 People would have to either submit to a radical change in lifestyle or to count as their role in the suffering of trillions of things. 421 00:42:56,930 --> 00:42:59,030 The first option would be too difficult in practice. 422 00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:05,900 The second would impose psychological burden that is too heavy, too alienating for personal projects for most people to bear. 423 00:43:06,770 --> 00:43:10,460 And so the extension of moral standing to invertebrates should be rejected. 424 00:43:11,550 --> 00:43:15,350 Or so the argument goes. Well, the first reply. 425 00:43:16,810 --> 00:43:20,440 Is that extending basic protections to invertebrates in the research context, 426 00:43:20,650 --> 00:43:27,100 which is the primary focus of this talk, is unlikely to require a dramatic overhaul of common practices. 427 00:43:28,430 --> 00:43:31,490 Especially because the framework for this is already in place for vertebrates. 428 00:43:32,240 --> 00:43:37,310 Subsuming invertebrates into this framework is unlikely to significantly impede or increase the cost of research. 429 00:43:38,330 --> 00:43:42,170 And it's important that we don't lose focus here. For example, 430 00:43:42,170 --> 00:43:47,090 we can't talk about constraints on our treatment of vertebrates in scientific research without resolving other moral 431 00:43:47,090 --> 00:43:52,670 questions like how we should deal with rodent incursions in our home or deer that went right to the highway and so on. 432 00:43:53,480 --> 00:44:00,230 Well, so too, we can keep the focus on the ethical treatment of invertebrates in experimental settings without settling all the other moral questions. 433 00:44:01,670 --> 00:44:06,050 Still, one may worry that extending invertebrates more regard, even in this limited, 434 00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:11,480 safe sense, could have ramifications well beyond the experimental context. 435 00:44:12,620 --> 00:44:17,240 But there are two reasons to think that the overindebtedness concern in this case may be misplaced. 436 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:18,890 First, 437 00:44:19,610 --> 00:44:26,870 I think we should be careful not to assume that even significant inconveniences of abiding by moral theory should count against that moral theory. 438 00:44:27,870 --> 00:44:34,409 After all, moral progress in the form of inclusion has often inconvenienced those who have had to cede some real 439 00:44:34,410 --> 00:44:38,940 or perceived advantage in order to make room for the flourishing of previously marginalised others. 440 00:44:39,540 --> 00:44:46,319 As Buchanan and Russell Powell argue in the forthcoming book Seconds and in this case, more importantly, 441 00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:54,450 it's just not obvious that moral consideration of invertebrates would in fact lead to impossible to discharge moral obligations, 442 00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:59,650 or that it would lead to repugnant moral conclusions. For several reasons. 443 00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:07,560 First. While invertebrates vastly outnumber vertebrates, the number of invertebrate species with moral standing may turn out to be very small. 444 00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:17,970 Second, the fact that an invertebrate animal has moral standing does not entitle that individual to equal treatment or confer equal moral status. 445 00:45:18,930 --> 00:45:20,160 How weighty the interests are, 446 00:45:20,460 --> 00:45:26,370 how we should balance them against competing moral claims depends on unresolved questions about how to reconcile moral interests, 447 00:45:26,370 --> 00:45:32,760 conflicts and and aggregation issues among beings with different moral stances. 448 00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,480 And these problems are not, of course, unique to invertebrate ethics. 449 00:45:37,470 --> 00:45:46,410 But the point, I think, is that the de minimis problem should be diffused through the resolution of interest conflicts and not by discarding 450 00:45:46,410 --> 00:45:52,440 our best accounts of moral standing or by arbitrarily excluding these alien beings from our moral community. 451 00:45:53,570 --> 00:45:53,930 Thank you.