The Problem of Sentience
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216275%3A25210%2F25%3A39921902" target="_blank" >RIV/00216275:25210/25:39921902 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-024-09994-7" target="_blank" >https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-024-09994-7</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-09994-7" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11097-024-09994-7</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Problem of Sentience
Original language description
Sentience, as the capacity to feel pleasure and pain, is often understood as a property of an organism, and the main problem is to determine whether an organism possesses this property or not. This is not just an armchair worry. Sentient ethics grounds its normative prescriptions on sentience, so assessing if an organism possesses sentience is crucial for ethical reasoning and behaviour. Assessing if it is the case is far from simple and there is no stable agreement about it. This is the problem of sentience. In this paper, I argue that there is a problem intrinsic to the problem of sentience. I call it the "metaproblem of sentience". I claim that the assumptions that underlie the concept of sentience are what create the "problem of sentience". In the first part of the paper, I list and describe these assumptions and show how they create the problem of sentience in sentient ethics. In the second part, I offer enactive and pragmatist tools, namely real doubt and loving epistemology, for tackling the problem of sentience. I advance a participatory account of sentience and show of relevance of the transcendental argument in ethical discourse. My own contribution is that the transcendental argument should be understood in a relational manner, from the experience of participatory sentience. So it is not just that life can be known only by life. Life can be cared for only by life. So, as in sentient ethics, it is out of my concern for sentient begins that I need to care for them. But, distinct from sentient ethics, may approach to participatory sentience would push to known sentience from how I care for sentient begins, from how I engage with them, from how I take part in their life. I conclude by stressing the significance of a participatory ethics of sentience.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60302 - Ethics (except ethics related to specific subfields)
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EH22_008%2F0004595" target="_blank" >EH22_008/0004595: Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
ISSN
1568-7759
e-ISSN
1572-8676
Volume of the periodical
2024
Issue of the periodical within the volume
1
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
21
Pages from-to
nestránkováno
UT code for WoS article
001242199600002
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85195389539