The ethical entomologist: If insects are individuals, what might we owe them?

Over the past four decades, entomology has moved away from conceiving of insects as little robots executing genetically-encoded commands; recent data have highlighted the cognitive sophistication and behavioral flexibility and plasticity of insects across numerous taxa. Increasingly, insect neuroscience and behavior suggest that some insects could plausibly be 'sentient' - meaning, having positively or negatively valanced states and the capacity for welfare. Sentience, under many moral theories, would suggest that entomologists have some ethical responsibility to consider the welfare of individual insects. This talk will briefly cover data on the plausibility of insect sentience, major knowledge gaps in empirical and philosophical scholarship on insect sentience, and what we may owe insects if they can indeed experience welfare. The talk concludes by sharing practical and publicly available tools for improving insect welfare in research and education.