Valence, Mirror Self-Recognition, and the Gradualist Evolution of Consciousness

It is my pleasure to respond to three thoughtful commentaries on A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness in this issue (Veit 2023a). The commentaries by Pober (2025), as well as Barrett and Fischer (2025), both focus on the relationship between valence, common currencies of value, and consciousness, and so I will largely respond to their arguments together. Afterwards, I will respond to the commentary by Kohda (2025) which raises distinct concerns about my gradualist approach to consciousness and proposes an alternative thesis for understanding the evolution of self-awareness, drawing on his experimental work on mirror self-recognition in fish.