This article contains a list of research organizations, newsletters, research libraries, personal blogs, conferences, podcasts, funds, notable written works and other links associated with Effective Animal Advocacy (EAA) movement. The list is biased because I only included resources that I know of.

More than 99.9% of animals are invertebrates. There is modest evidence that some large groups of invertebrates, especially cephalopods and arthropods, are sentient. The effective animal activism community currently allocates less than 1% of total spending to invertebrate welfare. That share should rise so that we can better understand invertebrate sentience and investigate the tractability of improving invertebrate welfare.

Rethink Priorities has been compiling and analyzing relevant scientific evidence regarding invertebrate consciousness. As explained in a previous post, we selected 53 features potentially indicative of the capacity for valenced experience as criteria for discerning whether invertebrates of 12 biological taxa are conscious or not (see database). However, if a specific feature can effectively operate non-consciously in humans, that function –by itself– may provide no evidence that an individual is conscious. Hence, we investigated which of those 53 features can occur unconsciously in humans. We observe that different noxious stimuli reactions and some simple forms of learning are the most likely to occur unconsciously in humans. These and other findings are presented and discussed in this report.

Invertebrate welfare has been gaining recent traction in the scientific literature and among the effective altruism community. However, whether invertebrates have the capacity to experience pain and pleasure in a morally significant way is still very uncertain. Given this current epistemic state, Rethink Priorities has been compiling and analyzing relevant scientific evidence regarding invertebrate consciousness and exploring criteria that evaluate whether individuals of a given invertebrate species or taxon have valenced experience. These data have been gathered and displayed in this database. In a prior post, we summarized our main findings by feature. Here, we present our results by taxa.

Invertebrate welfare has been gaining recent traction in the scientific literature and among the effective altruism community. However, whether invertebrates have the capacity to experience pain and pleasure in a morally significant way is still very uncertain. Given this current epistemic state, Rethink Priorities has been compiling and analyzing relevant scientific evidence regarding invertebrate consciousness and exploring criteria that evaluate whether individuals of a given invertebrate species or taxon have valenced experience. These data have been gathered and displayed in this database. In this post, the first one of two pieces on our main findings, we present our results by feature.

The database is an interactive table, where we summarize scientific data about 53 features potentially indicative of the capacity for valenced experience and examine the degree to which these features are found throughout 18 representative biological taxa. 12 invertebrate taxa are included: honey bees (genus Apis), cockroaches (genus Periplaneta), fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), ants (family Formicidae), spiders (order Araneae), the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, sea hares (genus Aplysia), moon jellyfish (genus Aurelia), crabs (infraorder Brachyura), crayfish (family Cambaridae), and octopuses (family Octopodidae). For comparative purposes, we included three kinds of non-animal organisms – prokaryotes, protists and plants (kingdom Plantae) – and three vertebrate species – chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), cows (Bos taurus), and humans (Homo Sapiens).

In this, the final of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 9 learning indicators, 4 navigational skills, and 7 mood state behaviors.

In this, the second of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 5 drug responses, 5 motivational tradeoffs, and 5 feats of cognitive sophistication.

In this, the first of three posts on features potentially relevant to invertebrate sentience, we assess 10 anatomical and evolutionary features and 5 types of noxious stimuli reactions.

Rethink Priorities reviewed the scientific literature relevant to invertebrate sentience. We selected 53 features potentially indicative of the capacity for valenced experience and examined the degree to which these features are found throughout 18 representative biological taxa. These data have been compiled into an easily sortable database that will enable animal welfare organizations to better gauge the probability that (various species of) invertebrates have the capacity for valenced experience. This essay details what we’ve done, why, and the strengths and weaknesses of our approach.

Life history classification will hide some significant differences in the lives of wild animals. Not all species within a given classification possess all of the traits associated with that group even across all years or all locations. Therefore, when making moral decisions, one also has to consider how average quality of life should be determined in the face of large variance. Among insect herbivores, some lifespans are relatively long, some modes of death are very quick, and some small-bodied herbivores may lead lives characterized by ample food resources. Although determining the affective states of wild animals from this data is impossible, it seems quite likely that the majority individuals in some subgroups, such as those sheltered from both the elements and predation by feeding from within plant tissues, lead very high quality lives. Knowing a group of organisms produce many offspring, have high mortality rates, small body size and are short-lived is not sufficient to determine that their lives are a net negative (or positive)