Sentientism

Barbara is emerita professor of anthropology at William & Mary and a freelance science writer and public speaker. The author of seven books, including the new Animals’ Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild, Barbara focuses on animal emotion and cognition, the ethics of our relationships with animals, and the evolutionary history of language, culture, and religion. Her book How Animals Grieve has been translated into 7 languages and her TED talk on animal love and grief has now received over 3 million views. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:39 Barbara’s Intro Biological anthropology, animal advocacy & writing 28 years in academia then freelance science writing & speaking Animal cognition & animal-human relationships Watching Jane Goodall & Dian Fossey go from scholarship to advocacy… doing fieldwork with apes… “Soon it became clear I wanted to work for animals as well as on animals” 05:05 What’s Real? Growing up in New Jersey Raised Presbyterian, sent to church & sunday school “It wasn’t really part of my identity”, more background & community “My parents didn’t question that there was a god, that god was… in charge of us.” “I fell into that… & then came college” First person in the family to go to college. “I arrived with my Bible – within 2 or 3 semesters that was kind of exploded” Taking theology & pre-med classes Agnostic then atheist Choosing evolution & science Mum at 88: “I wonder if what I thought all those years is really true… is there a god?” “I was never particularly interested in reconciling religion & science” Refusing money from The Templeton Foundation… “I don’t accept the claim that there’s no agenda” Religious ethical problems: Homophoba, sexism, fears of hell, human dominion Writing “Evolving God”. Finding the earliest roots of religious expression in non-human animal imagination/rule-following/empathy/perspective-taking Jane Goodall’s claim that chimpanzees feel awe & wonder The universal “religious” sense Frans de Waal “I think that I am relentlessly naturalistic” Working with primates “Concentrically my circles began to widen” ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Carter is Policy Director and Board Member of the Fair Start Movement, an organisation dedicated to giving every child a fair start in life. He is the author of Justice as a Fair Start in Life. Carter began his career as an Honors Program appointee to the U.S. Department of Justice. He later served as a legal adviser to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in the national security law division. He wrote his thesis reformulating the right to have children under Jeremy Waldron, his extensive academic work on family planning has been published by Yale, Duke, and Northwestern Universities, as well as in peer-reviewed pieces.. He has served on the Steering Committee of the Population Ethics and Policy Research Project and was a Visiting Scholar at the Uehiro Center, both at the University of Oxford. He has taught at several law schools in the U.S., served as a peer reviewer for the journal Bioethics, and most recently managed an animal protection strategic impact litigation program. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome  01:21 Carter's Intro - Fair Start Movement: Shifting family planning from prioritising the desires of parents to prioritising the needs of future children - Achieving the SDGs - A future of 4-6 billion humans vs. 12-14 billion - Economic growth & inequity & ecosystem factors - The right to a fair start in life 03:54 What's Real? - Naturalistically based civil rights - Rejecting the flawed "science" used to justify discrimination - Truth & justice - "Scientific justifications for the denigrations of non-humans also fell apart under scrutiny" - Reading Peter Singer. Applying civil rights lessons to animal rights - Exploring the human population issue - Suffering, flourishing & relative autonomy - Climate/environment limitations on autonomy & flourishing - "Science had become god" & a naturalistic family - "What we've learned about non-human cognition really should embarrass decades & decades of human living as completely unethical" - "It's our children, grandchildren &great-grandchildren that will suffer the most because we've failed to respect the non-human world" - Nagel's "View from nowhere"... "we all mutually agree to avoid that pain... that doesn't require supernatural grounding" - Systemic failures in law & early education 14:25 What Matters? - Naturalistic ethics - Social contract ethics - "Would you consent to that?" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Dr. Richard Firth-Godbehere PhD is one of the world’s leading experts on disgust and emotions. He is an independent researcher and consultant in the history, language, science & philosophy of emotions & an honorary research fellow at the centre for the history of the emotions, Queen Mary University of London. Richard’s first book, "A Human History of Emotions" (also known as "Homo Emoticus") will soon be published in over a dozen languages in countries ranging from Japan to the USA, from Australia to Brazil. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome  01:27 Richard's Intro - The history of human emotions - Academia & public engagement - History "never talked about feelings" but wars start "because someone gets annoyed" - You can't really separate emotion & rationality "You cannot make a decision unless you feel something" - Interdisciplinary 06:00 What's Real? - Lapsed Catholic mother & an "its all bloody rubbish-arian" father - Scientific family; Doctors, engineers, nurses. "We didn't go into the seminary" - Joining mum in a spiritual phase. Tarot, mediums, psychics... - Realising you could "read people" without tarot - "Yeh - this is a load of rubbish" - "Firmly atheist". The incoherence of "god". "If it's timeless it doesn't exist anywhen, if it's spaceless it doesn't exist anywhere" - "Every answer... has come down firmly not on the side of the supernatural" - "In a world where we have a billion HD cameras... why do we only see blurry photographs [of ghosts]?" - Hume's scepticism - The Kalam Cosmological Argument "doesn't get you back to god... it could have been a farting space pixie!" - "People assume emotions mean 'irrational'" - Science is driven by excitement, wonder, passion & curiosity - "The idea that science is people in lab coats with no feelings is completely wrong" - "Emotion is a driver & part of decision-making" - "The Stoics didn't suppress their emotions, they used them!" 19:10 What (& Who) Matters? - Ethics comes from us being an evolved group animal. "If we all went around stabbing each other we wouldn't be here" - The Golden Rule - Secular Humanism - Well-being for humans & beyond - "I have a real problem with 'everyone must be happy!'" - Negative emotions (e.g. appropriate fear) can help wellbeing - Good/bad forms of hate & love - The harm of "toxic happiness." It's OK to feel down ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Steve (stevesapontzis.com) is professor emeritus of philosophy at California State University, East Bay. He specialises in animal ethics, environmental ethics & meta-ethics. He was co-founder in 1985 of Between the Species: A Journal of Ethics & served as its initial co-editor. Steve was a member of the board of the American Philosophical Quarterly. In 1983, Steve founded, with his wife Jeanne, the Hayward Friends of Animals Humane Society. They now operate Second Chance, Helping the Pets of People in Need, in California. Steve wrote the books "Morals, Reason & Animals" & "Subjective Morals" & edited Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat. I'm afraid the audio is patchy - I should have organised a better mic for Steve - sorry! If you struggle to follow our conversation on the podcast, please find episode 97 here on the Sentientism YouTube channel where I've edited a complete transcript as subtitles. Don't forget to subscribe while you're there! I'll post that transcript on Sentientism.info too for those who would prefer just to read. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:14 Steve's Intro - Growing up in Salt Lake City to French/Greek parents - Greek Orthodox & Methodist Christian - Order of the Cross (vegetarian) - Going vegetarian as a teenager - Philosophy at Rice University, Texas - Louis Mackey & Kierkegaard - University of Paris & existentialism & Merleau Ponty - PhD at Yale - Cal State - Retirement - Hayward Friends of Animals & Second Chance charities - Singer's Animal Liberation "The only philosophy book with a cookbook at the end" - Teaching animal ethics, ethical theory, environmental ethics 9:19 What's Real? - Going through the motions at church - "I didn't really believe in god it was not something that appealed to me whatever." - "There's so much suffering in the world." - The limits of science in understanding reality "I think the meaning of a poem is something that's real" - "Reality is very complicated and things are real in I think a wide variety of ways" 15:47 What (& Who) Matters? - Writing "Subjective Morals" - "morals are created by human beings" - The self-centred and the other-social - "morals develop in order to reinforce the strength of our other social motivations" - "there's no limitation to empathy" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Coral is an aspiring writer, an animal rescue volunteer/donor & runs a bunny boarding & grooming business. She is an ex-Mormon atheist & a "meat & potatoes girl" turned vegan. Find Coral & her content at: @atheist_vegan, & wattpad.com/user/VCoralSandsV & inkitt.com/veganatheist & on YouTube. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome & why Sentientism is important 02:39 "Vegan Atheist Coral"'s Intro - A Mormon, military family - Joining the Coastguard - From "A meat & potatoes girl" to vegan & animal rescue - From religious to "spiritual" to agnostic/atheist - #JoinTheConversation & Street Epistemology - Stories with morals. Star Trek 11:55 What's Real? - Growing up Mormon (yet another "one true church") - "It encompasses every bit of your life" - 4 hours in church then 2 more in "school" every Sunday - "Most of my childhood I felt like I was in church" - Strong emphasis on family, but "very good at shunning" if you don't believe - Internal self-pressure: "You're constantly measuring yourself against what you think Jesus would want you to do" - Joseph Smith & the golden plates - The old & new Bible testaments superceded by The Book of Mormon - The trinity, creationism, proselytising - Fundamentalist & progressive Mormons - Managing the public perception of Mormonism (e.g. modesty dress codes) - Sending children on missions. Isolating from families & friends to reinforce church teachings - "The other people you're on the mission with are almost snitches" - Church sees friends & even own parents as potential threats - Pressured to speak to elders about doubts "testimony" as long as they're resolved in favour of the church - Moving from the west coast to Alabama. Culture shock - Growing up with a naievety about race & racism - The shock of a new school "We pray here" - "I go to the one true church & they're all wrong" - Parents drifting away from the church due to accusations about a minister - Studying other religions... "there has to be an ultimate truth" - Some family are still Mormon - Asking "what do we know & how do we know?", exploring philosophy (brain in a vat, The Matrix), re-evaluating "the god question" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Helen (@hkopnina) is Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Business at the University of Northumbria & also lectures at The Hague University. Her research focuses on environmental education, biodiversity & corporate sustainability. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:12 Helen's Intro 02:49 What's Real? - The passage to caring about ecosystems for many ecocentrists was through a connection to individual animals - Growing up atheist "just like everybody else in the Soviet Union" in Moscow - Parents who were "wild about wilderness" - Visiting Siberia "in the summer & without gulags" - "I loved fairy tales" but firmly naturalistic - "I'm still 99% atheist with 1% reserved for doubt" - Political dissident parents, pushing back on ideology - "When you don't have religion you create a religion yourself - & that was communism... we had Lenin & Marx as our gods..." - Lenin, Marx & Engels as a "holy trinity"? - "My parents instructed me that it was bullshit" - Naturalistic ontology (no supernatural) & epistemology (use evidence & reason) - Flat earth, anti-vaxx, one party states... 13:45 What (& Who) Matters? - Kant, deontology, consequentialism... - "You can call me a cynic - I don't think there is any absolute morality - I think we invent it." - Injustice & unfairness - Frans de Waal's fairness experiments with chimps - "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are all about us humans" (vs. https://sentientism.info/how/sentientist-development-goals) - "Why don't we have the same moral consideration for billions of other living beings - it just seems inconsistent... unjust" - Environmental Justice isn't about the env. its about distribution of goods & harms among humans - Wokeness, fairness, division & distribution. The risks of forcing pure equality (e.g. Soviet Union - bloody revolution then a new elite emerges) - Avoiding relativism & nihilism. Can we construct a universal morality? - The impacts on Soviet Union of WWII then Stalin - "I see our planet as one of billions - so it doesn't really matter" - Anthropology & cultural relativism "why is human sacrifice & cannibalism a good thing?" - Moral progress "but things can be turned back too" - Survival & reproductive rationales for morality "Otherwise you get beaten up" - "Anger at inconsistency... it pisses me off that it just applies to one single species" - Feminism: "I'm just not interested to be honest" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Alex (@alexlockwood & alexlockwood.co.uk) is a fiction & non-fiction writer. He is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Research in Media & Cultural Studies at Uni of Sunderland. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University & has published stories, essays & journalism in a wide range of magazines, journals & newspapers. He has a particular fascination with how we write about our engagements and relations with the nonhuman world. Alex’s debut non-fiction work, The Pig in Thin Air, was published with Lantern Books in March 2016. Alex was one of the founding team of Animal Rebellion, a director of The Save Movement & a member of the Vegan Society‘s Research Advisory Committee. His “Planting Value” report for  @The Vegan Society  lays out plans for a transition towards a vegan UK plantingvalueinfood.org. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:11 Alex’s Intro A writer-academic-activist The challenge of focus! Private & public writing (e.g. COP26), being part of a network 05:10 What’s Real? Last week’s shamanic journeying ayahuasca retreat: “Asking deep questions about what it means to be a human being on this planet” Animist ontologies & methodologies Advocating for the non-human “Who is a person?… can we co-create this planet [in a way] that recognises the birthright of all beings” Growing up in working class, inner-city, South London council estates Catholic upbringing, but with some atheist family “School of hard knocks… spiritual & religious questions weren’t very real” Confirmed as Catholic, school run by monks & church every weekend… “Realising it was a symbolic story… it wasn’t taught as a fundamentalist truth” “Didn’t sit right with me that my very very kind & generous atheist grandfather (& his cats!) wasn’t going to go to heaven.” Experiences of connecting with our planet, the broader universal spirit… that have always been quite real to me ... ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Rachel is a multi-award winning writer, podcast host & media consultant. Her memoir, “Open – An Uncensored Memoir Of Love, Liberation, And Non-Monogomy” was published in 2022. She is on the advisory board for Sentient Media & the board of directors of Our Hen House. Rachel does nonprofit media consulting, especially for vegan organizations & brands. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:34 Rachel's Intro - Journalism, writing memoir "Open", normalising veganism & liberation 06:12 What's Real? - Growing up culturally Jewish. Parents wanted to leave behind the stricter ordinances (e.g. gender) - Jewish school (daily prayers, dress codes) "I was not having it" - Moving to a more liberal Jewish school - "Tikkun olam": helping the world as an ethos. What you do in this life - not an afterlife. Giving back - Immigration lawyer dad working w/Catholic charities - Trip to Israel w/a religious group. "I was very disillusioned... they didn't talk about Palestinian people... didn't address the conflict at all" - Stark contrast w/parents' sense of Jews as: "we're liberals, we've suffered... so we care about other social minorities & discrimination" - "The oppressed becoming the oppressors" - Proud to be culturally Jewish but "I identify less & less w/religious aspects... the more I examine them the more there's speciesism or sexism baked in" - Always sceptical of a patriarchal god - At 9 yrs, trying to make sense of the death of a cousin. Bargaining w/god & praying to protect loved ones - Realising bad/good things happen for no reason & interrogating the idea of god - Agnostic now. "As sceptical of staunch atheism as I am of staunch religiosity." - Humility, interconnectedness. Meditation, dancing with trees - Limits of knowledge (now or ever) - Credence & probabilities vs. binary beliefs - Psychedelics: the science & the experience. The comfort of universal interconnectedness - "I'm not convinced of any afterlife or a soul that will go on" - Terror management. Coming to terms w/the fear of death (maybe a next book!). We know we'll die but don't want to! Coping via religion, group continuity as a response... - "Can I confront this reality [death] & make friends with it?... what would that open up in terms of freedom?" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Lee McIntyre (leemcintyrebooks.com & @LeeCMcIntyre) is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy & History of Science at Boston University & an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. Lee is the author of How to Talk to a Science Denier as well as many other books, essays & papers. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, the Boston Globe, the New Statesman & the Humanist. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:30 Lee's Intro - Philosophy of science to public philosophy ("it's supposed to be about making life better") - "Science denial & misinformation are the scourges of our age... there's an epistemic crisis" - Clarity & 2-way public engagement "philosophers can't just be talking to each other" 06:00 What's Real? - Ontology (being) & epistemology (knowing) - "It's possible there are things that are real... that we cannot know" - Naturalistic ontology (only the natural exists) & epistemology (evidence & reason) - Growing up in Portland - Questioning: "My mom didn't treat me like a kid... That made me a philosopher early on" - Dad & grandmother kicked out of church - Raised non-religious - "It was good to wonder, but it wasn't good to pretend that you were certain of things that you couldn't know or that you didn't know" - Socrates: the real enemy isn't ignorance (because we can learn) it's false knowledge - "Don't let the charlatans take that sense of wonder away from you" - Norm MacDonald: Faith as a choice, a leap? - Experiencing cancer & considering mortality - How does Dawkins know there's nothing after death? Could there be a naturalistic afterlife? - "The fact that there are questions we can't answer is not an excuse for pretending we have an answer" - Faith is often a response to the discomfort of uncertainty - David Hume & empiricism - Skepticism, humility, hubris - Karl Popper, fallibilism - Pretend naturalism vs. good faith naturalism - Science denial/conspiracism: Gullibility about what you want to believe & extreme skepticism about any alternative - Arbitrariness - Hugh Mellor's "The warrant of induction" https://youtu.be/0__p0iVUi2M &  bayesianism 38:00 What (& Who) Matters?  - Teaching ethics for a decade but "I've never really made up my mind" ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.

Mary Pat (@mpchampeau) is the director of graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education (@HumaneEducation & humaneeducation.org) & faculty at Antioch University. Mary Pat has been in the field of education since 1979 when she began teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. Before joining IHE, she worked in refugee camps in Asia & supervised culture & language programs for the World Trade Institute in New York. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:12 Mary Pat's Intro - Humane Ed Grad Prog. One of the only graduate level social justice progs that includes non-human animal protection (w/human rights & environmental justice) - A place where people can be who they are with respect to non-human animal ethics. Without apology - Humane Education's focus on exploring questions that are central to Sentientism - "This is the next level... when are we going to open our circle of compassion - to humans we've never met - to animals...?" - Expanding both our compassion & our role in the world - Why do so many people committed to social justice / intersectional perspectives / resisting all oppressions struggle to consider non-human sentients? - Systems thinking & how oppressions (& solutions) interlink. From lose-lose-lose to win-win-win? 10:00 What's Real? - "Hardcore, long-term, recovering Catholic" - Growing up in Buffalo, NW in a large Irish Catholic family - Catholic schools & public schools (per George Carlin) - "We kind of looked down on the 'publics' because they were going to hell" - "The 1960's never really touched us" - Taking a world religions course - Reading "The Religions of Man". Catholicism was only one of the religions! "Why is Catholicism even in this book?" - Peeking out of the nest for the first time - Living in muslim communities in Niger. "I could totally relate" because of the parallels with Catholicism - Rejecting Catholocism but being grateful for the vocabulary - Religious beliefs (angels, devils, god...) as "iconic representations of our psyche" - The human impact of the story of Christ. Finding spirituality in adversity - Easily rejecting & working against the negatives of religious (& non-religious) worldviews (sexism, racism, homophobia...) - Are religions slowly evolving towards more modern humanistic/sentientist ethics? ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! Thanks Graham.