Definition:

According to Merriam-Webster.com, sentience is defined as "feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought."

Webster's Online Dictionary defines the word as, "state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness" and "the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness."

Animal rights advocates often describe sentience as the ability to suffer.

Sentience is important in animal rights because it is the main determinant for whether a being has interests and rights. If a being is not sentient, it cannot suffer and does not have rights. Beings have rights to prevent society and individuals from causing undue suffering to each other, but without sentience, an object such as a table or a lamp is not injured by unfair or unjust treatment. If someone scratches a table, the table itself does not suffer, but the table's owner may be injured because of the loss of the table's economic, aesthetic or utilitarian value.

Few people doubt that animals suffer. If anyone needs scientific proof of animal consciousness, an international panel of neuroscientists signed a declaration in 2012 that non-human animals have consciousness and that humans are not unique in having consciousness. The declaration's main author has since gone vegan.

People have debated whether plants are sentient, but there has been little scientific proof of sentience in the plantae kingdom.

Also Known As: consciousness

Examples: If you've ever accidentally stepped on a dog's paw and heard him cry out, it's hard to deny that dogs have sentience.