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sentientism

Sentientism

Sentientism is a simple philosophy that commits to using evidence, applying reason and granting moral consideration to all sentient beings. Like humanism, it therefore rejects supernatural beliefs. Sentientism explicitly extends humanism by granting degrees of moral consideration to all sentient beings.

Sentientism proposes that sentience, primarily the ability to experience suffering or flourishing, should determine whether we grant moral consideration to an entity. Non-sentient entities do not warrant direct moral consideration because they cannot experience the results of our decisions.

Even before use of the term, sentientist thinking had a long history, including Jeremy Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Sentientism itself was originated and developed as part of the animal ethics thinking of contemporary philosophers such as Richard D. Ryder and Peter Singer. More recently, writers such as Jamie Woodhouse have re-cast Sentientism as an extension of humanism in its commitment to evidence, reason and broad compassion (see Areo Magazine and Free Inquiry). This contrasts with the concept of Sentiocentrism, which, while also focusing on sentience, makes no explicit commitment to a naturalistic worldview.

Notable Sentientists:

Diana Fleischman, Peter Singer, Richard D. Ryder, Steven Pinker and Alasdair Cochrane.

Notable Sentientists (implied):

These people are atheist or humanist and moral vegans or vegetarians, which implies they have a sentientist worldview.

Thandie Newton, Bill Maher, James Cameron, Stephen Fry, George Meyer, Ricky Gervais, Margherita Hack, Pat Condell, Allison Kilkenny, David Pearce (philosopher), Yuval Noah Harari, Vivienne Westwood, David Lowery, Ethel Venton, Henry Stephens Salt, José González (singer), Steven Wilson, Kiran Rao, John Abraham (actor), Ira Glass, Alex Honnold, Paul Brook, Sam Harris, Sara Pascoe, Michael Nugent, Benjamin Spock, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, J M Coetzee, Dan Piraro, Stephin Merritt, Hemant Mehta, Oliver Sykes, James Rachels, Angela Gossow, Barney Greenway, Myq Kaplan, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, Mark Haddon, Gary Holt (musician), Ellen Page, Diederik Samsom, Steve Pavlina, Anne McKevitt, Kristen Bell, Architects (British band), Ian Buist, William Thompson (philosopher), Cloris Leachman, Arjen Lubach, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fenner Brockway, Toma Sik, John Oswald (activist), Peter Tatchell, Richard Dawkins, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jessica Lange, Alice Wheeldon, John Stewart Bell, Paul Lewis (broadcaster), Magà Ettori, Enid Lakeman, Frances Meehan Latterell, and Dave Godin.

Further Links:

Sentientism Wikipedia Entry
Sentientism Twitter
List of Twitter Sentientists
Sentientism FaceBook Page (public)
Sentientism FaceBook Group (private but all welcome)
Sentientism Sub-Reddit
Sentientism GoodReads group
Sentientism Instagram

sentientism.txt · Last modified: 2019/06/04 14:44 by admin