The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 2

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Why
Animals
Really
Matter
Dr Marc Bekoff, PhD

Discussions about "Why animals matter" are extremely important even
Proclamation of the Cambridge
Declaration on Consciousness in NonHuman Animals at the Francis Crick
Memorial Conference, Churchill
College, University of Cambridge
University, Cambridge 7 July 2012,
watch video below.

when we're faced with global climate change and economic and
environmental disasters that strongly impact human well-being. For more
dicsussion please see an interview I just did with Forbes. Here I ask, "Do
nonhuman animals matter because they're conscious or because they're
good for us or because they're both. I don't think either being conscious
or good for us or both should weigh in on why other animals really
matter.
In a recent essay for Psychology Today psychologist Hal Herzog claims

Source: http://fcmconference.org/#talks

we really don't know if a close relationship with other animals is good for
us. He notes that the results for studies that have focused on the
relationship between living with a companion animal and human health
are confusing and conflicting despite media hype about how good it is for

Revisiting the animal
consciousness debate.
The Society for Animal
Consciousness™

2016

us. Whether other animals, including wild individuals, really do anything
positive for us remains to be studied and we need conservation
psychologists to weigh in on this although many argue they (animals and
other nature) are good for us (see here) and The Oxford Handbook of
Environmental and Conservation Psychology.
2

© The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016.

Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.