August 13, 2021

71: "Boom! - the entire world changed - everyone was questioning everything" - Mariann Sullivan - Podcast Host and Activist Lawyer/Lecturer - Sentientist Conversation

58 minutes

Mariann (@marisul) is Co-host with previous guest Jasmin Singer of the Our Hen House podcast and host of the Animal Law Podcast. She is a lawyer, lecturer, teacher and animal rights activist.

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 the Sentientism YouTube.

We discuss:

0:00 Welcome

1:40 Mariann's Intro. An Animal life

- Working as a lawyer in New York

- Adopting a dog on impulse then waking up to animal issue

- "He'd stopped eating meat because of the way animals were treated - and t was just like 'boom!'"

- Most people know there's a problem - they just avoid thinking about it

- Joining (later chairing) the Animal Law Committee of the NY bar

- Connecting animal advocacy organisations

- Meeting Jasmin Singer & starting Our Hen House

6:02 What's Real?

- Growing up Catholic

- "I had faith but it was never a burden for me"

- Not really being religious any more... "but those voices never really go away"

- As a teenager "It just started to seem unlikely"

- Getting comfortable with "I don't know"

- Ethics & evidence as reasons for abandoning supernatural worldviews

- The tumult of Catholic college in 1968. From dressing for dinner & attending church to "men with beards living in the dorms"

- "Boom - the entire world changed - everyone was questioning everything"

- Leaning towards atheism but not being certain

- "We're connected to each other in ways we don't understand"

- Non-sentient living things

- Woo! vs. naturalistic views of sentience & consciousness

- Finding awe in a naturalistic worldview

18:01 What Matters?

- "It's all about suffering"... and about pleasure too

- Suffering matters... "It's so obvious"

- "What kind of god - would create this planet - where animals eat each other"

- Morality as compliance vs. concern for suffering/flourishing

- Reading Peter Singer. He wrote down what many were already feeling

- "Why did I get there and everybody doesn't get there?"

- "I don't think it's a philosophical problem... it's a psychological problem"

- "How can you not sound self-righteous when you're right?"

- "I don't understand why this is this big moral journey"

- The "all we have to do is tell everybody" stage of activism

- The family & social challenges of going vegan

- The risks of motivated reasoning even within a naturalistic worldview

28:48 The Future

- Balancing despair & hope with the help of Our Hen House

- Things have shifted. "It's almost as if we have won the moral argument already."

... and much more. Full notes on YouTube or Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall using this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on Facebook.

Thanks Graham for the post-production.

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By Jamie Woodhouse

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