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The problem in trying to determine whether a species possesses or is capable of consciousness in the form of self-awareness sometimes isn't as much a problem of the organism itself as it is a problem of the other trying to ascertain if the species in question truly "has" one through some form of communication that proves this beyond a reasonable doubt.
While it has been proven that another species has mental and intellectual capabilities in similar to a human, it has not yet been proven if another species aside from humans are capable to abstraction and self-awareness, and most of morality and ethics is developed and thought of within abstraction. Some animals I believe are capable of some logical reasoning, but abstractions into things beyond the immediate and the tangible still seem to be only exclusive thus far to humans. The human brain mainly differs from other mammals by having a much larger frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, areas that house the capabilities of reasoning and abstraction, and almost disproportionately so.
There is considerable difficulty in determining whether another species possesses capabilities and sensibilities (for lack of a better term) because of the communication divide. We aren't even sure yet if other animals possesses a sense of individuality through self-awareness comparable with our own, whether they are species capable of objective rational and maybe even abstract thought that is ideally universally understood by humans and other animals alike. Ideally if such animals are capable of this then bridging the gap can be done, as both parties able to develop ways from both ends to communicate.
Until then, we don't know if other animals are capable of those abilities, feelings and emotions because we can't really KNOW, at least not yet.
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