Sentience is a capacity that only some organisms have. It is often assumed that this capacity has moral significance and should have a prominent role in moral thinking. The commonsense notion of sentience (as indicated by the etymology, from the Latin sentiens which means "capable of feeling") suggests that sentience is a capacity to be in certain kinds of mental states. In the ethical literature, the term "sentience" is often used to refer to the ability to feel pain and pleasure. More generally, sentience can be said to be the capacity to have feelings or sensations, which include pain and pleasure but also visual and auditory sensations, hunger, sadness, and so on.