About the Book
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the
womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings in miniature models of the human brain, grown from human stem cells? And what about AI?These are questions about
the edge of sentience, and they are subject to enormous, disorienting uncertainty. We desperately want certainty, but it is out of reach. The stakes are immense, and neglecting the risks can have terrible costs. We need to err on the side of caution, yet it's often far from clear what 'erring on the side of caution' should mean in practice. When are we going too far? When are we not doing enough?The Edge of Sentience presents a comprehensive precautionary
framework designed to help us reach ethically sound, evidence-based decisions despite our uncertainty. The book is packed with specific, detailed proposals intended to generate discussion and debate. At no point,
however, does it offer any magic tricks to make our uncertainty go away. Uncertainty is with us for the long term. We must manage our uncertainty by taking precautions that are proportionate to the risks. It's time to start debating what those steps should be.
Table of Contents:
Summary of the framework and proposals
1: A walk along the edge
2: The concept of sentience
PART I: The Zone of Reasonable Disagreement
3: The mind-body problem
4: Ethics and religion
5: The science of consciousness and emotion
PART II: A Precautionary Framework
6: Converging on precautions
7: Involving the public
8: Debating proportionality
PART III: Sentience and the Human Brain
9: People with disorders of consciousness
10: Foetuses and embryos
11: Neural organoids
PART IV: Sentience in Other Animals
12: The clearest candidates
13: Pushing the boundaries
14: Frontiers of proportionality
PART V: Preparing for Artificial Sentience
15: Against complacency
16: Large language models and the gaming problem
17: The run-ahead principle
Stepping back
About the Author :
Jonathan Birch is a Professor of Philosophy at the LSE and Principal Investigator on the 'Foundations of Animal Sentience' project, a European Union-funded project aiming to develop better methods for studying the feelings of animals and new ways of using the science of animal minds to improve animal welfare policies and laws. In 2021, he led a review for the UK government that shaped the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. In 2022-23, he was part
of a working group that investigated the question of sentience in AI.
Review :
Scientific, political and ethical questions about sentience are complex and often mired in deep-seated uncertainty. Which animals possess consciousness? Can sentience develop in neural organoids? Does cognitive-motor disruption render someone no longer sentient? In The Edge of Sentience, philosopher Jonathan Birch delivers a nuanced analysis of these and other major quandaries--plus a set of proposals to guide neuroscientists and policymakers toward fact-based, ethically sound answers.
Edge of Sentience is a masterclass in public-facing philosophy. At each step, Birch is lucid and perfectly calibrated in the strength of his assertions. His analysis is thoughtful and circumspect, and always poised for revision. He elevates his readers. His sourcing is generous and wide-ranging. The book also takes pains to set itself up as a manual for policy, with each chapter providing a summary. Birch works hard and, in my opinion, succeeds in writing a highly topical book of deep philosophy. Any thinking person can profit from it, provided that they have a stomach for uncertainty.
Birch's ultimate message in The Edge of Sentience is that a massive shift in how we view beings with a questionable sentience status should be made. And we should ideally make this change now, rather than waiting for scientific research to infallibly determine who and what is sentient. ... It seems excruciatingly unlikely that the entire world will adopt Birch's rational, thoughtful, comprehensive plan for reducing the suffering of all potentially sentient creatures. Yet Birch ... maintains a tone of articulate, patient optimism. He clearly believes in us-he knows we can do better-and he offers to hold our hands and walk us through the steps to do so.
Birch takes readers on a compelling, engaging, and at times controversial journey through the sentient life of humans, a variety of nonhuman animals, and artificial intelligence. ... With its thoughtful framework and reasoned proposals, this book is valuable for students of ethics and animal studies as well as lab researchers and policymakers engaged in fields from farming to software engineering. ... From its opening pages, The Edge of Sentience makes complex subjects and relevant ethical issues readable.
Birch is a superbly clear writer, and he's very careful to adjust his belief according to the evidence. ... He bases everything that he writes on the available science and sound reasoning from the best data we have. He's one of the most interesting public philosophers around today because of his willingness to engage with ideas which have a very broad interest across the world.
This is a wonderfully informative work of science and philosophy writing, even to readers who are already well-versed in the issues discussed. Birch's writing is engaging, earnest and easy to follow, with flashes of wit and style ... this book is not intended to sit on shelves. It is intended to have an exploitable use-value, to be a tool for bending the arc of history towards justice.
In this important and timely book, Birch (London School of Economics) offers a comprehensive study of the many ways that sentient beings, those who can experience pleasure and pain, might suffer, sometimes terribly, at the hands of people who are ignorant of or indifferent to such a possibility in their subjects. Birch's book is highly researched, with over 100 pages of references, including 27 documenting his wide-ranging research in ethics, biology, and cognitive science.
The edge of sentience is a tour-de-force, ranging across complex issues in ethics, public policy and the study of consciousness with elegance and insight. In an area in which it is all-too-easy to throw up one's hands in despair and say that we do not-perhaps cannot-know enough to guide public policy with confidence, Birch has provided a framework that is constructive, rigorously grounded, and disarmingly honest. The edge of sentience is a model for how scientifically-engaged, public-policy oriented philosophy should be done, and if there is any justice in the world it will have a transformative impact on the field.
The edge of sentience is a tour-de-force, ranging across complex issues in ethics, public policy and the study of consciousness with elegance and insight. In an area in which it is all-too-easy to throw up one's hands in despair and say that we do not-perhaps cannot-know enough to guide public policy with confidence, Birch has provided a framework that is constructive, rigorously grounded, and disarmingly honest. The edge of sentience is a model for how scientifically-engaged, public-policy oriented philosophy should be done, and if there is any justice in the world it will have a transformative impact on the field.
Edge of Sentience is a masterclass in public-facing philosophy. At each step, Birch is lucid and perfectly calibrated in the strength of his assertions. His analysis is thoughtful and circumspect, and always poised for revision. He elevates his readers.
