Citation
Lakhany, Farhan (2026) Walking the Tightrope: The Precautionary Dilemma of Neutrality and Guidance. Animal Sentience 38(7)
Thread
Jonathan Birch, Précis of The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI
Abstract
Jonathan Birch’s The Edge of Sentience promises a precautionary framework that guides ethical action without taking sides in the disputed metaphysics of consciousness. I argue that it cannot do both. Birch admits “biopsychism” (that all living organisms are conscious) into his "zone of reasonable disagreement," yet his operational criteria exclude plants and unicellular organisms by requiring evidence that biopsychism holds to be irrelevant. This leaves a dilemma. Keeping the “broad” standard preserves neutrality but extends candidacy to all life, guiding nothing; restricting to scientific evidence guides action but is itself the theoretical commitment the framework was meant to avoid.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1921
