A draft bill was introduced that year to explore bringing such a recognition into law. Michael Gove claimed whilst Environment Secretary in 2017 that the UK would continue to recognise animal sentience outside of the European Union. However, with factory-farmed insect protein looming, it could become a matter of vested interest. For anyone who has ever seen a snail recoil and hide, this makes very little sense. In the view of politicians, there are many animals for which there is no scientific evidence that they suffer. The interpretation of suffering has been the starting point for the debate on the human responsibility to animals at least since Bentham, and it continues to inform the more abstract dimensions of this debate today. While it does make a provision that “the appropriate national authority may extend the definition of ‘animal’ so as to include invertebrates”, this “may only be exercised if the appropriate national authority is satisfied, on the basis of scientific evidence, that animals of the kind concerned are capable of experiencing pain or suffering”. The Animal Welfare Act opens with a definition of an animal as “a vertebrate other than man”.

On the question of what an animal might be they are unscientific and almost surreal. These documents are narrow, concerned with animals which are under human control. Without Article 13 or something similar, the well-being of animals will not need to be considered when laws are being made after Brexit. Crucially, the Animal Welfare Act exists to protect against the mistreatment of animals by their carers or owners, whilst Article 13 constrains policy makers to consider animal sentience in their decisions. The second is Article 13 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which creates a legal relationship between the state and animals.

The first is the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, which creates a legal relationship between individuals and animals. Legal relationships between humans and animals in the UK currently hinge upon two pieces of legislation.

If this happens, it will be a tragedy for many livestock farmers which raises questions about the future and confirms that the market has always come before animal welfare.īeyond economics, however, Brexit has also forced us to consider some far more philosophical questions: Are animals sentient? Which ones? And is that the grounds on which they should be entitled to protection? Whilst the political debate has always focussed on what science has to tell us, it may be time to look again at the philosophy. Of headline-grabbing concern is the threat that livestock may be slaughtered en masse if farmers fall foul of tariffs and lose access to the European market. The looming threat of a no-deal Brexit is a major concern for the wellbeing of animals.

Sentience definition philosophy