There's a pervasive idea or feeling in a lot of people, I think, that animals are not just machinery, but actually very limited people, akin to mentally disabled humans, and should be treated as such (animal rights protesters, at least some vegetarians, etc). I don't think that this is patently bogus, but I do think it's not very likely.
I think when people start talking about animals feeling pain and having emotions, they don't mean that those animals have the sensory and neural hardware which produces and consumes pain signals and emotions (which is "hardly worth debating"), but that there is someone experiencing that pain or those emotions. If that's not what they mean, then the mere fact of pain or emotions wouldn't carry any impact higher than rerunning a horror film.
There's a pervasive idea or feeling in a lot of people, I think, that animals are not just machinery, but actually very limited people, akin to mentally disabled humans, and should be treated as such (animal rights protesters, at least some vegetarians, etc). I don't think that this is patently bogus, but I do think it's not very likely.
I think when people start talking about animals feeling pain and having emotions, they don't mean that those animals have the sensory and neural hardware which produces and consumes pain signals and emotions (which is "hardly worth debating"), but that there is someone experiencing that pain or those emotions. If that's not what they mean, then the mere fact of pain or emotions wouldn't carry any impact higher than rerunning a horror film.