The problem of sentience
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences June 7, 2024 Laura Candiotto 7 citations
The capacity to feel pleasure and pain, sentience, is typically treated as a property that an organism either has or lacks, and determining which organisms possess it is crucial for ethical reasoning. However, there is no stable agreement on how to assess sentience. This paper argues that the assumptions underlying the concept of sentience themselves create this problem, calling it the metaproblem of sentience. Drawing on enactive and pragmatist ideas, including Peirce's real doubt and loving epistemology, the author proposes a participatory account of sentience. The key move is that the transcendental argument—that life can be known only by life—should be understood relationally: life can be cared for only by life. Thus, sentience is known through engagement and care, not detached assessment, leading to a participatory ethics.