ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS 693 promise (or threaten) to shed light on t moral attitudes toward different anima asymmetry can be observed. We do n Cartesian certainty that our fellow hum scious-what we require is what is aptly cal Can we not have the same moral certainty about the experiences of animals? I have not yet seen an argument by a philosopher to the effect that we cannot, with the aid of science, establish facts about animal minds with the same degree of moral certainty that satisfies us in the case of our own species. So whether or not a case has been made for the" in principle" mystery of consciousness (I myself am utterly unpersuaded by the arguments offered to date), it is a red herring. We can learn enough about animal consciousness to settle the questions we have about our responsibilities. The moral agenda about animals is important, and for that very reason it must not be permitted to continue to deflect the research, both empirical and conceptual, on which an informed ethics could be based.

A striking example of one-sided use of evidence is Thomas Nagel's famous paper" What is it Like to be a Bat?"(1991). One of the rhetorical peculiarities of Nagel's paper is that he chose bats and went to the trouble to relate a few of the fascinating facts about bats and their echolocation, because, presumably, those hard-won, third-person-perspective scien-tific facts tell us something about bat consciousness. What? First and least, they support our conviction that bats are conscious.(He did not write a paper called" What is it Like to be a Brick?") Second, and more important, they support his contention that bat consciousness is very unlike ours. The rhetorical peculiarity-if not outright inconsistency-of his treatment of the issue can be captured by an obvious question: if a few such facts can establish something about bat consciousness, would more such facts not establish more? He has already relied on" objective, third-person" scientific investigation to establish (or at least render rationally credible)