Mental Time Travel and the Harm of Death
Several philosophers have influentially argued that animals are not harmed by death, or are harmed by it less than humans are, on the grounds that they lack cognitive connections to the future: they do not know about the future, have no desire to see it, have no projects extending into the future, and/or are not psychologically connected to their future selves. In support of such arguments, it is often claimed that animals lack capacities for ‘mental time travel’. Yet a growing empirical literature provides grounds for thinking that at least some animals do have mental time travel capacities. In this talk, I explore whether and how this evidence makes trouble for arguments about the harm of death to animals.
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Ali Boyle LSE
