Off on the Wrong Foot: Sentience and the Capacity for Painful or Pleasurable Experiences as Distinct Concepts

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Notes

1 . Suppose there are reasons for him to be awake, though: The surgery could impact his ability to see, so they need John conscious to report whether his sight is still functioning.

2 . Later I distinguish between two readings of “capacity”; for now, we can just consider losing CPPE temporarily.

3 . Earlier I argued that CPPE and sentience are distinct; I used the strict sense to demonstrate this. But sentience is obviously distinct from loose CPPE too, since the John* case is coherent too: John* could live his entire life without CPPE, which, though maybe dull, is possible

4 . It seems that the authors intend this reading, since they seem to want to ground the moral status of vegetative patients with covert awareness who may never emerge from a vegetative state.

5 . Directly appealing to minimal awareness or minimal consciousness may seem question-begging, but it's not. My point is that, given my discussion, the bar for sentience will be lower than that of CPPE.