South Africa at a crossroads on wildlife welfare and sentience
by Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick
June 1, 2021
South Africa at a crossroads on wildlife welfare and sentience
by Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick June 1, 2021
First published in Daily Maverick 168 newspaper
The 17th-century mathematician and philosopher René Descartes said animals were automatons, so cruelty towards them was impossible. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham disagreed, saying that in our measure of animals we should not ask can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?