Sentience is an important concept in ethics, as the ability to experience happiness or suffering often forms a basis for determining which entities deserve moral consideration, particularly in utilitarianism.

The meaning of SENTIENCE is a sentient quality or state.

Sentience or perception may be relevant to identifying agents as experiencers whereas causation may be most relevant to identifying agents as actors.

The ability to feel and perceive is sentience. The sentience of cows, pigs, and chickens is one reason that some people become vegetarians. In the 18th century, Western philosophers defined sentience …

sentience in American English (ˈsenʃəns) noun sentient condition or character; capacity for sensation or feeling

Dec 25, 2025 · sentience (usually uncountable, plural sentiences) The state or quality of being sentient; possession of consciousness or sensory awareness. quotations

Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience).

Sentience is the capacity to have sensations and subjective experiences. It involves the ability to perceive and respond to stimuli, often accompanied by a degree of awareness or consciousness. A …

Jul 19, 2024 · Sentience in a broad sense is the capacity for conscious experience, where ‘phenomenal consciousness’ is the pertinent sense of consciousness. Sentience in a narrower sense adds the …

Jun 21, 2018 · Our aim is to expand the moral circle to include all sentient beings, but the term sentience opens up a host of important philosophical and empirical questions about exactly which beings we’re …