Nelson aims to demonstrate that nonhuman animal minds face a version of what Cameron Buckner has called the control problem. The control problem is what minds face when they must distinguish and manage different types of processes and/or content. For example, a mind that is incapable of distinguishing perceptual experiences from imaginings would be a mind that has failed to find a solution to the control problem. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that strongly suggests that many nonlinguistic animals dream. Nelson argues that if animals dream, then their minds must have a way of sorting dream processes/content from other sorts of mental processes/content. In other words, if animals dream, then animal minds must be capable of a form of metacognitive control.

Many people think morality is not unique to humans but is shared by other animals, especially social mammals and perhaps birds. These views often rely on empathy as the basis of moral behavior. But this raises a problem. Empathy can mean either imagining yourself in another’s place or directly responding to another’s situation. The first requires complex thinking that many animals may lack; the second seems too simple to count as moral. This paper argues that one form of this simpler, receptive empathy can still support genuine moral emotions.

Dr. Kim TallBear, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, will speak on The Indian’s Death to Make Settler "Indigenous" Life: Genetics, Ancestry, and Self-Indigenization in the USA and Canada