For about five decades the phrase “sanctity-of-life“ has been part of the Anglo-American biomedical ethical discussion related to abortion and end-of-life questions. Nevertheless, the concept’s origin and meaning are unclear. Much controversy is based on the mistaken assumption that the concept denotes the absolute value of human life and thus dictates a strict prohibition on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. In this paper, I offer an analysis of the religious and philosophical history of the idea of “sanctity-of-life.” Drawing on biblical texts and interpretation as well as Kant’s secularization of the concept, I argue that “sanctity” has been misunderstood as an ontological feature of biological human life, and instead locate the idea within the historical virtue-ethical tradition, which understands sanctification as a personal achievement through one’s own actions.

Sentientism is the most influential position in animal ethics. It presents sentience as decisive for integrating animals in ethics. Nevertheless, its significance for animal ethical argumentation is not quite clear. Does it mean (a) that sentience is a valuable state, which awards sentient individuals the moral prize of something like 'intrinsic value'? (b) Or is sentience an empirical fact that informs how animal welfare can be adequately realised in samples of certain species? (c) Or does sentience explain psychologically why humans identify emotionally with singular animals? Additionally, the questions show how different animals are addressed, namely (a) as individual units of sentience (individuality), (b) as representatives of certain species (exemplarity), and (c) as unique relata in distinguished human-animal relationships (singularity). Every suggestion of the use of sentientism faces specific challenges: (a) Sentience used as a foundational value premise is philosophically confronted with the fact-value-fallacy. Taken as an absolute value, sentientism may even threaten the status of the sentient individual for the sake of the ideological status of a world without suffering. (b) Sentience in the animal ethical welfare application perspective asks for an evidence-based (neuro-)biopsychological terminology to operationalise the boundary of sentience in animal welfare research, and is confronted with the other-minds problem. For the sake of the individual animal, it has to refer to the specific characteristics of its species. (c) Human-animal relationships have to face the risk of emotional abuse and sentimental anthropomorphism. We must therefore carefully examine the question: For whose sake are not only companion animals regarded as unique - for the sake of the animal or for the sake of human emotional needs? - The range of challenges signals a loss of comprehensive value orientation in modern times. In view of a deeper understanding of the value crisis, the paper starts with a historical reconstruction of the philosophical implications of the transition from natural teleology to modern science. Initially, the ancient conceptual origin of sentientism - the anima sensitiva and its position in a natural philosophical teleological order - reveals sentientism as an isolated fragment from the broken Aristotelean scala naturae. Understanding Aristotle's highly influential natural teleological metaphysics and its destruction by the rise of modern science can explain how a common crypto-teleological language generates argumentation patterns that are problematic today. A consideration of Kant's epistemological critique of natural teleology, and his inclusion of animals as sentient beings in a self-reflective modern ethics, may help to clarify the roles of ethics, (bio)sciences, and teleology in enlightened animal ethical argumentations concerning sentience and animal welfare.

In the EU, the breeding of genetically modified laboratory animals is, by definition, an animal experiment if the offspring may experience pain, suffering, or harm. In order to determine the actual burden of genetically modified mice, established methods are available. However, the breeding of immunodeficient mice is considered an experiment requiring a permit, even if no pain, suffering or harm is observed under scientifically required defined hygienic housing conditions, as determined by established methods of severity assessment. This seems contradictory and leads to uncertainty among scientists. With this commentary, we would like to shed light on this topic from different perspectives and propose a solution in terms of individualized severity assessment and approval procedures.