Abstract
The paper focuses on a concept of unconscious pain, which current authors Peter Harrison and Peter Carruthers work with. According to them, animals are unconscious and therefore pain for them does not exist, because they cannot experience or feel it.
If these authors are right, then animals cannot be harmed and, as moral agents, we have no direct duties towards them. However, the question remains whether something like unconscious pain is possible at all and is not an oxymoron.