Sentientism

Aysha (https://twitter.com/DrAyshaAkhtar & http://www.ayshaakhtar.com/) is a neurologist, public health specialist & author. She is President & CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences (https://contemporarysciences.org/). She worked for the Office of Counterterrorism & Emerging Threats of the FDA & served as Lieutenant Commander in the US Public Health Service. She is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Aysha wrote: "Animals &  Public Health: Why treating animals better is critical to human welfare." 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: 0:00 Welcome & Sentientism 2:10 Aysha Intro - Neurology, public health, emerging threats (e.g. pandemics) - Setting up CCS to replace all animal research and testing with human relevant methods 4:27 What's Real? Renouncing Islam, becoming atheist - Growing up in a Pakistani Muslim family, but more culturally than strictly religious - Calling herself a Muslim, but then seeing how her father & Muslim society treated girls & women differently - Feeling pressure to dress modestly - Announcing "I renounce Islam" at 11 yrs old - Still believing in a god, then becoming an atheist - "Why would a god care about me and not someone else living a miserable life?" "If there is a god, why is there so much suffering?" - How can the suffering we cause animals be something a god could allow? - Religion helps people feel less lost. Understanding why people cling to it - Meaning, value, moral structure, purpose, community, love, awe & wonder are available naturalistically too. 15:50 What Matters Morally? All suffering & flourishing beings - Keeping the good parts of religious morality - "Living a life that causes the least amount of harm & the greatest amount of joy possible" - "Of course that includes non-human animals because they feel, they have emotions" - Our moral basics can be very simple - Rights, dignity, personhood, sentience - Why so much philosophy assumes only humans matter. The fundamental mistake of disregarding so much suffering - People seem more concerned about the potential suffering of AI & mini organic brains, while not caring about animals - Experiencing sexual abuse & finding solace with Sylvester the dog "my best friend" - Finding out Sylvester was being physically abused & calling that out, then finding the confidence to stand up for herself - Accidentally being sent PETA materials about the life of a dairy cow. The family went vegetarian that evening - Being a vegetarian in the Pakistani community in the 1980's was unheard of - Being made fun of my other kids, but "I didn't give a damn". "I didn't care what they thought about me I cared what they thought about the issue" - Reading Regan, Singer. Finding the connections between human & non-human ethics & rights - "We were such nerds" 31:05 What are sentience & consciousness? - And more - see YT! Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ w/this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.   Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups e.g.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

Josh (https://josh-milburn.com/ & https://twitter.com/JoshLMilburn & https://www.instagram.com/aveganphilosopher/) is a moral & political philosopher with research interests in animal ethics, the philosophy of food, liberal & libertarian political theory & applied ethics. He is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Dept of Politics & International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He co-hosts the Knowing Animals podcast. In these 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: https://youtu.be/akBBFREpveU. We discuss: - Taking an interdisciplinary approach to academia & activism - Encountering various religious traditions as a child - Thinking "I don't believe that" at 8 years old re: Noah's ark - Being a "militant atheist" as a teenager - Studying religions to undergrad level - What is real & what we can know to be real - There is a world out there but we don't know all about it - Science & naturalism - Dogma vs open-mindedness & humility - Moral realism & different kinds of claim/evidence - The dangers of moral relativism & nihilism - Grounding morality in a naturalistic understanding of sentient beings & sentience. "I don't suffering & I don't think you do either" - Pluralism - Religious studies didn't cover philosophy - Being very resistant to vegetarianism. A fundamental challenge - Reading Peter Singer at 17 while considering studying philosophy - "Philosophers are often not the best activists" - Philosophical arguments don't have the same impact on everyone - Some people "get it" but still don't change. Others just don't get it - "Imagine animals had rights - how would we feed the world?... It would't be a vegan food system." Clean/cultivated meats & milks - "Can we get to an ethical food system without people having to change their practices at all?" - Animals where it's less certain whether they are sentient. Invertebrates, oysters, jellyfish, insects, sponges - Deciding how to act in the face of uncertainty - "It's got to be a high bar to say 'you cannot do that thing that is central to your life'" but "Sentient animals have rights" and that's enough to tell pig farmers to stop - Edge cases re: veganism & animal ethics - Liberalism & state coercion. Only using coercion when injustice is clear - Having compassion for human sentients too, even those doing harm - #JustTransition - The history of the term "Sentientism". Rodman, Ryder, Singer - It's hard not to be consequentialist in its broadest sense - Deontological rules do have to pay attention to what happens - Gary Francione's abolitionism - Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka's Zoopolis - Sentientism as a pluralistic philosophy - "Animal activists don't have to be on the political left" - Sentientism rules out intra-human discriminations. Racism/homophobia etc. don't belong - Robert Nozick was a vegetarian & a libertarian - And much more. See https://sentientism.info/ or YouTube for full show notes. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/.  Join Josh on our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Main one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Thanks to Graham for the post-prod https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.

Joey (https://josephtuminello.academia.edu/) is asst. professor of philosophy at McNeese State Uni & program coordinator for the nonprofits Farm Forward & Better Food Foundation (See also Default Veg). His research covers philosophies of food, medicine, animals & environment. He teaches biomedical ethics & sections of ethical theory & existentialism. In these 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 also here on YouTube (subscribe there too!). We discuss (full show notes are on YouTube and Sentientism.info): - Growing up in a Catholic household in Louisiana - "Who's your mama, are you Catholic & can you make a roux?" - Questioning religion early on. Developing scepticism. Understanding mechanisms of control in religion & beyond - Hard-core atheist phase & studying philosophy - Non-theism & atheism. Tempered with humility & openness - "Open-mindedness & scepticism go hand in hand" - Deciding not to get confirmed - Attending Catholic high school that didn't welcome questioning & experiencing social adversity - Social justice & hateful interpretations of some religions (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church) - Using religious arguments to justify discriminations - Analytic philosophy & challenging religious inconsistencies - "Ambiguity & tension is part of the human experience" - Humility & open-mindedness needs to be at the core of naturalism - The arrogance in "angry atheism" - Getting comfortable not knowing. With-holding belief until there's evidence - Meta-physics & ethics - "We don't have access to the ultimate nature of reality" but there are still things we can meaningfully say about reality - Experiences are happening. Phenomenology, directed consciousness & the self/non-self - Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" - Consciousness, interests that matter and ethics (caring about the interests of others) - Lacking a justification for the exploitation or oppression of others, human or not - The "Embrace The Void" podcast with Joey's friend Aaron - Pre-human morality - Is the choice to be moral simply the choice to care about the perspectives of others - Moral inter-subjectivism. There are moral truths independent of each mind but they do require an interface between subjects - Sentient beings do matter morally, but is sentience the only thing that matters? Is cutting down a tree wrong if it has no impact on sentients? - The risk of anthropocentrism, because humans are defining & assessing sentience. But sentience existed long before & far beyond humans - And much more... see YouTube. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Main one is here on FaceBook. Thanks to Graham.

Walter (https://twitter.com/wrwveit & https://walterveit.com/) is an interdisciplinary scientist, philosopher & writer focusing on biology, minds & ethics. He publishes the ‘Science & Philosophy‘ series on Psychology Today & Medium. In these Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?" Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." Our conversation is also here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xxSGItuaSn4. We discuss: - Defending Descartes, as a child! - Studying philosophy, politics, economics & science - Writing a PhD on the philosophy of consciousness. How sentience came to arise in a purely physical universe - Growing up in an agnostic family, attending church but "grumbling" - Finding it strange learning about god at school. Asking annoying questions :) - A brief early teenage phase of believing in god, then reverting to atheism - Church seemed like a "weird cult-like thing." "It just didn't make sense." - There are thousands of religions. They can't all be right. Just disbelieving in one more than religious people do - Being a "hard-core naturalist" but still feeling the pull of superstition - Finding naturalism reassuring. Can abandon the "f*cking scary stuff" (monsters, ghosts, hell) - We can just enjoy our lives & explore the universe - The pull of being part of something larger. The universe, a tribe, a sports team fan group... - The hesitation in Germany about collectivism - "It's a peculiar world we live in - it's exciting" - Does morality crumble without the normative force of a god. "A dude in the sky making up laws and we just have to follow them" - People sceptical of morality aren't sceptical about laws. You can break them but there might be consequences - Too much of morality seems arbitrary. But Bentham almost proposed utilitarianism as a sort of science, not morality - Utilitarians in the UK were engaged in politics & in improving the world - Instead of considering morality - just consider the facts re: "What do animals want from their own point of view" - Facts: animals exist. They can be harmed. They don't like suffering - Humans evolved as a social species. That makes us care - "Morality" might create more harms than benefits! - There is no dividing line between humans and other animals because we all have interests - Both morality and religion have been used to divide humans & animals - Even oppressive groups have divided people through an appeal to morality - The deep connection between morality and spirituality/religion. Often naturalists & atheists don't see the danger - Naturalists are attacked for being amoral but are no less moral - And much more... Full show notes are on Sentientism.info. I ran out of space! Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.   Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Thanks, Graham for the post-prod: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.

Kristof is a social psychologist and senior lecturer at the university of Kent where he runs SHARKLab (Study of Human InterGroup & Animal Relations). He is the author of "Why We Love and Exploit Animals". We discuss: - The psychology of human-animal relations - Links between sexism, racism & speciesism - "Us humans are weird". We're not fully rational decision makers - Being sceptical of our own rationality - Knowing the right answer isn't the same as persuading others to agree or make changes - Growing up in Belgium, a largely Catholic country but with many who are non-practicing - Attending church, then becoming "strongly atheist" because of evidence, but also "the nasty stuff" (sexism, homophobia, racism) - Being raised with values of compassion & respect. Finding those values in Christianity, other religions and in Humanism - Moving to a more nuanced view of the good and bad in religion - Traditions and rituals have value for some people. As long as they don't cause harm to people outside or within the group - The abuse of power in institutionalised religion - Pre-human proto-morality - We don't need supernatural beliefs to justify compassionate ethics. We just need them too justify harmful ethics - Religious schooling - Being angry with the world as a teenager: religion; capitalism; animal products; injustice - then being led to study human behaviour - Taking teenage rebellion and applying it to social justice activism in academia - Moral intuitions re: "freedom, equality and avoiding harm to others" - Freedom & equality shouldn't just be left wing concerns. They're much more widely shared - Sentience matters re: moral consideration, not intelligence - Are freedom and equality fundamental or important because of how they impact suffering/flourishing? - Caring about animals. Having companion animals as family members - The Meat Paradox - Seeing a family member killing chickens and rabbits - The hardcore punk music scene & Straight Edge. Bands with a clear, constructive message re: politics & animal ethics & anti-fascism (vs. more pessimistic grunge and 1970's punk) - "I can't keep eating meat any more", supported by the positive social pressure of the music scene & friends making the change - Parents initially resisting veg*nism, needing to learn DIY (it's easier now!) - Learning about dairy/eggs & going vegan at University - Wild animal suffering and how to prioritise it vs. animal farming/fishing. The risk of paternalism/hubris - Effective Altruism - Benevolent & hostile sexism - Sentientism's focus on inclusive moral consideration - The challenges of rescue and sanctuary animals and predator companion animals - The default human answer of "kill them all" re: issues with wild animals - Animals don't care what category we put them in. They suffer just the same - And much more... (full notes at https://sentientism.info/) Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/​. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ ​ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism​. Thanks, Graham for the post-prod: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.

Jane (https://twitter.com/JVM) is a TV broadcaster, author, journalist & now CEO of the animal rights non-profit Jane Unchained (https://janeunchained.com/). She has written four books, two of which were NY Times bestsellers. In these 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 the Sentientism YouTube. We discuss: - Jane's career in media & journalism & now running a non-profit - Countdown to Year Zero & making the world vegan by 2026 - Near death experiences - Growing up in "showbiz" New York with Puerto Rican/Irish parents - Jane's mother gave up meat early - Thinking the family was vegetarian but eating pescetarian - Going to different churches as an adventure, but when things got serious, going back to Catholicism - Dabbling rather than strong religiosity - "Let your conscience be your guide" - We all know what's wrong and right. The role of guilt, shame & remorse - Recovering from alcoholism. 26 years sober! - Praying every morning "Turn it over - seek guidance". Making the bed every day - "We don't need to have a definition of a higher power - it's just not me" - Ego & self-centredness is the source of so many wrongs - Societal forces claiming that "some suffering doesn't count" are behind most evils. Human & animal - ...And much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

Matti (https://www.mattiwilks.com/ and @matti_wilks) is a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University, working with Professor Paul Bloom. She studies moral psychology & moral development - including attitudes to cultivated meat & the "natural", the moral status of various types of entities & altruism. In these 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: - Doing research to make the world a better place (& curiosity) - Growing up non-religious (w/ ex-Jewish father) & vegetarian - Seeing the benefits & value in religion: Community & compassion - Open-mindedness & humility - The danger of over-confidence in naturalism & science - Researching ve*an children in meat-eating households - Parallels between religious & omnivore societal defaults and indoctrination/norm setting - Many "religious" people don't actually hold to the supernatural beliefs - Why do we have morality & what should morality be about? - Being uncertain about whether there are moral truths - Harm & suffering as inherently bad. The drive to reduce suffering - Haidt et al's Moral Foundations Theory - Even if nothing matters to the universe, experiences matter to each individual sentient being - Would Isaac killing his son have been right? (No) - Isn't choosing whether to care about suffering just choosing whether to be moral? - People seem to be more ethically motivated than they used to be - Even Greenwashing is a sign that more people care about the environment - Public negativity re: factory farming - Having the capacity to act more ethically is a privilege (being free of survival needs) - Moral relativism - Growing up around animals & becoming an "outraged" activist at 15-16 yrs - Studying animal cognition. "The Gap" by Thomas Suddendorf  - Humans do have distinctive capacities but all sentient animals qualify for moral consideration - The importance of the moral scope boundary - Sentientism as pluralistic re: ethical systems - Degrees of sentience vs. egalitarian approaches - And much more! Full shownotes at Sentientism.info. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist wall" using this form. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here on FaceBook. Thanks, Graham for the post-prod.

Victoria (https://www.victorialynn.me/ & https://twitter.com/incertaspecie) is an actress, film producer, writer, voiceover artist and animal activist. She has appeared in Netflix's "Haunted", the Comedy Central show "Nathan for You", in various theatre productions & in the video game "Kingdom Come: Delieverance". Victoria is an animal rights activist. She co-founded the production company Quantum Kitten. Look out for Victoria's new Cosmic Creature app (https://www.victoria-hogan.com/cosmic-creature. In these 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 (subscribe!) https://youtu.be/VKhii84yh5E. We discuss: - Victoria's life in the performing arts & animal activism - Holding the concept of reality lightly - Our own experience as central to our reality - We're not fully conscious of much that we do - Growing up Christian. Believing in god, praying - Ditching religion at 10-11 yrs - Being an angry, anti-Christian atheist in early teens - Rejecting the homophobia & freedom restrictions of Christianity - Exploring spirituality, Wicca, Buddhism, Hinduism and holding them all as loosely true or real - Re-visiting some Christian concepts and finding it less troubling, while still rejecting where it conflicts with equality - The risks of solipsism. Giving up on knowing - Being sceptical even of our own perceptions and rationality - Can people have separate personal "truths" and still understand each other and collaborate? - The path from formal religion to "angry atheism" to a broader spirituality or a more humble naturalism - Is there "A divine source we are working our way towards"? - Does a broader spirituality warp compassionate ethics less than the idea of god as a being? - The role of intuition - "Most people I encounter are kind" - The bizarre admission of: "Without religion - what's stopping us from looting and murdering?" - "Is religion really all that keeps you from murdering?" - How much wrong comes from ignorance rather than intention (e.g. animal farming) - Most religious people are more compassionate than their gods or religious books. Which is why most don't follow the books - Maybe religion doesn't influence ethics that much for good or ill - Grounding morality in the experiences of others (or something else)? - Having a very intense, ineffable psychedelic experience using DMT: The universe is relatively indifferent. Nature is sometimes cruel and sometimes kind. The universe values creation (e.g. having a child). The universe wants to exist. Suffering leads to destruction. Nurturing leads to life, flourishing and new creation - And more (see Sentientism.info for full show notes) Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Thanks, Graham for the post-production: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.

Julie is an author, artist and animal activist. In these 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 (with Luna barking in the background): - Growing up reading the Children's Encyclopaedia - Julie's life in public service & social work - Studying Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism - Spirituality & inter-connectedness & diversity - Naturalistic and mystical versions of awe, wonder and inter-connectedness - "There's some spirit in everything" - Being comfortable not knowing. Humility and open-mindedness - "I've always had more questions than answers" - Starting every day in prayer and meditation to god, but not a god defined by any established religion - "god" as an energy in the universe - "Humans are like ants in a big machine" Our perceptions are limited - Being a freethinker. Interested in all cultures and all religions - Shifting from being focused on human issues to becoming a non-human animal advocate - Albert Schweitzer's reverence for life - Having ancestors that profited from animal exploitation - Hating injustice, oppression and abuse - Bertrand Russell's analytic philosophy - Being a teacher and educator. The importance of a holistic education about all aspects of life - An experience with a stray dog. Being talked into looking after it - Seeing a council worker take the perspective of non-humans seriously - Visiting an egg farm and seeing the hens crammed in to cages - Reporting the egg farm to the RSPCA and being told "it's legal" - The danger of a reverence for nature leading to excuses about animal product consumption "life consumes life..." - Experiencing unconditional love as a child - Patterns of abuse - The importance of animal law and regulations - The range of ways individuals can drive change, both personally and through our roles influencing and driving institutions - Are we at the beginning of a huge movement for non-human animals? - The power of social media to help us drive change - The influence of education and indoctrination - The influence of films and fiction. Dominion, Gunda, Seaspiracy, books - "Within one generation - everything will be very different" - Millions of animals are exploited, tortured and killed in research & testing - "If it was ethically justified they would't need to hide it." "Most people don't want to needlessly cause suffering & death". - Tapping in to latent decent human ethics? - Fighting indifference. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Thanks, Graham for the post-production: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.

This episode is a bonus cross-post from The Conscious Basket Show where I talked to Samantha McCord (https://twitter.com/ConsciousBasket) about Sentientism. Samantha has founded Conscious Basket (https://www.consciousbasket.com/) as a marketplace for people trying to take more ethical decisions about the products they buy. In her companion podcast and Youtube she interviews all sorts of people working to make the world a better place. Why not visit and subscribe to her channels? Sentientism: sentientism.info Sentientism Facebook 🍎https://apple.co/391khQO 👂https://pod.link/1540408008 📺https://www.youtube.com/c/Sentientism