Third, while theories of consciousness are frequently developed without special regard to questions about animal consciousness, the plausibility of such theories has sometimes been assessed against the results of their application to animal consciousness (and, similarly, to human infants). This raises questions about the relative epistemic weight of theoretical considerations (e.g. philosophical arguments for a given theory of consciousness) against particular case judgments or intuitions about whether a given creature is conscious. For example, Searle (1998) argues that our intuitive, commonsense attributions of intentional and emotional states to dogs carries more epistemic weight than philosophically motivated skeptical concerns. In contrast, Carruthers (1989) asserts that his own arguments that nonhuman animals (even dogs) lack consciousness are sufficiently weighty that we are morally obligated to eradicate or ignore our sympathetic feelings toward such creatures. Should our theories of consciousness be constrained by our intuitive attributions of consciousness to animals (or, e.g., babies), or should the former override the latter? 