An Enquiry into the Links Between Episodic Memory and Empathy in Non-Human Animals

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For the last century, research into animal consciousness has adhered to Morgan's Canon, which guides researchers in favouring simple explanations of animal minds over complex ones, but due to it being rooted in empirically unjustified theoretical assumptions about physical reductionism and simplicity, contemporary research has become intellectually stagnated as a result. Left unchecked it will remain so. My research aim is to argue for the adoption of my Minimum Harm Principle as an alternative, which requires that researchers be conscientious when evaluating competing explanations that if they conclude incorrectly, they cannot take back the consequences that their conclusions will have for animals that are consciously aware of their suffering, have the capacity to vividly recall suffering, and the capacity to share in the suffering of others. My PhD project is divided into two sections: the first currently underway is to critique and offer a new alternative to Morgan's Canon, and the second is to evidence how this alternative principle can be used to make progress in researching the conscious aspects of Episodic Memory and Empathy in animals, which the upcoming two years of my PhD will investigate.