Skip to main page content

WORKSHOP 2: Jonathan Birch: Animal Sentience and the Precautionary Principle

Theme:
philosophy
Tags:
animal sentienceprecautionary principle
What:
Workshop
When:
7:30 PM, Wednesday 27 Jun 2018 (2 hours)



In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof for animal sentience. I have recently developed a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience and a practical framework for implementing it. In this talk, I explain and defend the basic proposal, discuss some of its potential applications, and consider some ways of revising and improving it in light of critical responses. 
Birch, Jonathan (2017) Animal sentience and the precautionary principleAnimal Sentience 16(1) 

Jonathan Birch (Speaker)
London School of Economics

Cara Parisien 
Law Student Université de Montréal
Moderator


Gregory Mikkelson 
Professor McGill University


Michael Hendricks 
Professor McGill University

Participant
London School of Economics
Moderator
Université de Montréal
Law Student
Other Participant
McGill University
Professor
Other Participant
McGill University
Professor
Session detail
Allows attendees to send short textual feedback to the organizer for a session. This is only sent to the organizer and not the speakers.
To respect data privacy rules, this option only displays profiles of attendees who have chosen to share their profile information publicly.

Changes here will affect all session detail pages