Jonathan Lewis

Neural Organoids: How Should We Handle the Possibility of Sentience?

Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees October 1, 2025 Søren Holm, Jonathan Lewis

Neural organoids grown from stem cells have raised ethical concerns that they might become sentient. This paper critically evaluates three ways to defend that possibility: comparing organoids to known sentient organisms, using leading theories of consciousness to infer sentience from neural activity, and relying on philosophical views like panpsychism. Current cortical organoids lack nociceptors, sensory integration, and behavioral repertoires needed for analogical arguments; they also fall short of structural differentiation required by most empirical consciousness theories, making neural metrics unreliable. Even if panpsychism were accepted, the moral relevance of any micro experiences would remain unclear.