Induced Zoological Cognition

Induced Zoological Cognition (IZC) is a scientific procedure by which non-sapient sentient animals, such as non-human apes, cetaceans, cephalopods, and corvids, can have their neurologies augmented to allow them to "ascend" to sapience, becoming animans in the process. Different philosophies either support, oppose, or make no prescription as to the morality of induced zoological cognition.
Opposition to IZC comes from three different perspectives; one, from bioconservatives, claims that forcing a creature not intended to be sapient to be sapient is inherently harmful to that creature, as they are naturally intended to be non-sapient; another, from the anti-natalists, believe that sapience, rather than sentience monitored by responsible sapients, is inherently more painful, and therefore unethical. Finally, some Animan and Animal Liberationists object to Induced Zoological Cognition by arguing that IZC is only inducing an anthropocentric model of sapience, and that all sentient creatures are already and of necessity sapient in their own frame of reference, thus making IZC an anthropist speciesist cruel experiment on creatures who are already sapient in their own right.
Active proponents of IZC include technocapitalists, who believe the uplift of various different species of animal will both increase the labor supply and enable newer sapients more capable of forms of labor humans and existing IZC subjects are unable to comprehend and/or perform, and animan liberationists of a different vein, particularly apeists and simianists, who claim that the human monopoly on sapience is how the anthropocracy is able to continue oppressing and subjugating animals and animans, and that in order to oppose this system IZC must be performed to liberate animals from the shackles of non-sapience. Various institutes organized around this principle, or around partial forms of IZC to allow animans to communicate with their non-sapient relatives, have sprung up, particularly in places where animan nationalism and bioregionalism are popular. Additionally, another vein of support for IZC is a particular brand of religious evangelism which believes that the salvation of animals depends on their achieving sapience, and therefore failure to perform IZC is tantamount to damning animals to either eternal torment or eternal oblivion.
Finally, many people believe IZC to be a morally neutral act; neither inherently good nor inherently bad, akin to deciding to have children. This is the standpoint of most major political parties outside of bioregionalist polities, and is also often the stated position of many IZC organizations themselves, in an attempt to emphasize the apolitical nature of the act.

Type

Research / Scientific