The Value of Sentience: Empathy, Vulnerability, and Recognition. A Conference in Animal Ethics

The conference aims to contribute to the debate surrounding sentience in animal ethics by investigating, in a novel way, the connections between sentience and key moral attitudes such as feelings of empathy towards and the recognition of the vulnerability of sentient beings.

The Value of Sentience: Empathy, Vulnerability, and Recognition
A Conference in Animal Ethics

The conference aims to contribute to the debate surrounding sentience in animal ethics by investigating, in a novel way, the connections between sentience and key moral attitudes such as feelings of empathy towards and the recognition of the vulnerability of sentient beings.
The conference is generously sponsored by:
UCD Foundation
The Society for Applied Philosophy
The Mind Association
UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life (CEPL)
UCD School of Philosophy
Programme:
Wednesday 7th March
12:00–12:30
Registration and welcome
12:30–13:30
Keynote speaker: Elisa Aaltola (University of Eastern Finland): “The politics of emotion and affective animal ethics: From shame to joy”
13:30–14:30
Lunch
Parallel Session I
Parallel Session II
14:30–15:10
Fergal McHugh (UCD): “Bare Humanity: Imagination and Method”
David Mathers: “Ethical implications of indeterminate cases”
15:10–15-50
Oliver Santiago Quick (Aarhus University): “Integrative Empathy and Animal Moral Status”
15:50–16:20
Coffee break
16:20–17:20
Keynote speaker: Ben Bramble (TCD)
Thursday 8th March
9:20–10:20
Keynote speaker: Angela Martin (University of Fribourg): “A Conceptual Analysis of Vulnerability and Sentience and their Moral Implications”
Parallel Session III
Parallel Session IV
10:20–11:00
Eda Keskin (Martin Luther Universitt Halle-Wittenberg): “Film Art and Developing Empathy for Sentient Beings”
Friederike Zenker (Universität Basel): “Singular Animal or Placeholder? Photography, Ordinary Use, and Obvious Sentience”
11:00–11:40
Charlotte Figueroa (University of Oxford): “Using Art to Develop Empathy towards Non-Human Animals”
Anya Daly (UCD): “The Primordial ‘we’, Sentience and Animal Ethics”
11:40–12:00
Coffee break
12:00–13:00
Keynote speaker: Danielle Petherbridge (UCD)
13:00–14:00
Lunch
14:00–15:00
Keynote speaker : Clare Palmer (Texas A&M University): “Sentient wild animals and climate change: Towards an ethics of vulnerability”
Parallel Session V
Parallel Session VI
15:00–15:40
Catia Faria (University of Minho) “Vulnerability and the ethics of environmental enhancement”
Tatjana von Solodkoff (UCD): “Non-Human Animals and the Harm Relation”
15:40–16:20
Jan Deckers (Newcastle University): “How a greater focus on empathy might refresh discussions of sentience”
Marc Wilcox (University of Leeds): “Against the Sentience Account”
16:20–16:40
Coffee break
16:40–17:40
Keynote speaker: Gary Francione (Rutgers University) (via Skype): “Accounting for All Interests–Reallocating the Burden in Matters of Personhood”
19:00
Conference Dinner
Friday 9th March
10:00–11:00
Keynote speaker: Tony Milligan (KCL):
“Toleration and Compassion in Animal Ethics”
11:00–11:20
Coffee break
Parallel Session VII
Parallel Session VIII
11:20–12:00
Wayne Williams (University of Hull):“A Common Sense: Sentience, Sympathy and the Metaethics of Vulnerability”
Rebekah Humphreys (University of Wales Trinity St David): “Desensitisation, compartmentalisation, and animal experimentation: on exercising moral feelings and the imagination”
12:00–12:40
Maude Ouellette-Dubé (University of Fribourg): “Why do we need Care in animal ethics?”
12:40–13:40
Lunch
13:40–14:20
Martin Huth (University of Vienna): “Framed Animals. The Recognizability of Nonhuman Beings”
Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc (Michigan State University): “Is It Possible to Objectify Animals?” (via Skype)
14:20–15:20
Keynote speaker: Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University): “Challenging Disposability”
15:20–16:20
Keynote speaker: Eduardo Mendieta (Penn State University): “Emotional Companions: Animals, Pets, Robots”
16:20–16:40
Coffee break
16:40–17:40
Keynote speaker: Alice Crary (IAS/Oxford)
“Comments on a Contested Comparison: Animals and Race”
17:40–19:00
Closing remarks followed by reception
Do you have questions about The Value of Sentience: Empathy, Vulnerability, and Recognition. A Conference in Animal Ethics? Contact Patrizia Setola