Surprise: U.K. Law Recognizes That Sentient Animals Are Sentient

Gary L. Francione
4 min readMay 15, 2021
U.K. law is finally going to make clear that the what is on the right is different from what is on the left. (source: www.funpawcare.com)

The U.K. is proposing to do something that is absolutely revolutionary: it is going to enshrine in law that sentient animals are sentient.

Never mind that, in 1789, Jeremy Bentham argued that the moral significance of animals did not hinge on whether animals had humanlike cognitive attributes but only on whether they are sentient: “the question is not…

--

--

Gary L. Francione

Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lincoln.