Sentientism

Erin is the Deputy Director of Investigations at Animal Outlook, a national animal-advocacy nonprofit organisation. Erin was an undercover investigator for two years. She left the field after her last investigation at the Dick Van Dam Dairy in California, where she saw cruelty, abuse & suffering every day. Through her new position with Animal Outlook, Erin works closely with investigators, providing support & resources.

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

01:38 Erin's Intro

- Undercover farm & fishery investigations & Animal Outlook

02:46 What's Real?

- Growing up very religious... 

- Church every Sunday, Biblical moral standards

- The Golden Rule "Do unto others..."

- "There was a point in my life where I started to question... there always seemed to be some exclusions... some conditions"

- "'Others' encompassed everyone... human, animals, children, everyone regardless of sexuality, background, identification..."

- No longer Christian, now non-religious... "someone who just wants to make the world a better place for everyone in it"

- "As I got older I started questioning things more"

- Very religious mother "faith based" who still encouraged questions

- Religious belief: "That's great for them... as long as no one is being hurt"

- Questioning both the facts & ethics of Christianity

- "It really came to a head for me... [I] managed to fall into almost every marginalised community" LGBTQ+, race...

- "I fell into so many of those categories that potentially might be excluded from salvation"

- The supernatural, luck, agnosticism?

- "I never rule anything out" humility

18:25 What Matters?

- [Golden Rule] "the way I would like the world to function"

- "...my own trauma & hardship & suffering"

- Compassion for it's own sake or because god commands?

23:30 Who Matters?

- "I've always had this connection with animals"

- As a child "I did not see a lot of kindness", often conditional compassion

- With non-human animals: "There are no conditions to receive affection from them"... "Those were the purest connections I could make"

- Making friends with a scary-sounding neighbourhood dog "I just felt a wet nose & breathing"

- Saving a stray dog & drowning kittens

- Watching an animal farming documentary at ~13-14 yrs old "I immediately felt horrified"

- "I could feel that contradiction... why am I eating this?"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

This episode is a recording of my presentation about Sentientism to the Terra.do climate change platform & community. Many thanks to Adam and the team for inviting me. My core presentation runs for about 30 minutes - the rest is an open conversation with the group. Drop me an email at hello at sentientism dot info if you'd like a copy of the slides - or you can see them on the YouTube of my presentation.

Terra.do is the world’s first online climate learning platform and community for professionals looking to pivot their career towards climate solutions. Their goal is to get 100 million people, in all sectors of society, working on climate change by 2030. They run cohort-based online programs for talented individuals that teach them everything about climate, plug them into a network of mentors and expose them to full-time/part-time/entrepreneurial work opportunities in the space.)

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what (and who) matters?”

Sentientism answers those questions with a commitment to "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings."

Find out 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!

LoriKim (she/her/we/our) describes herself as an educator, organiser, activist, conservationist, abolitionist, naturalist & healer. Originally from Jamaica & now living in the Bronx, USA, LoriKim has dedicated her life to working for social & environmental justice specifically organizing around LGBTQIA+, Black, Brown & Indigenous communities.  LoriKim’s work in anthropology & her training as a biologist has helped her work against environmental racism, in providing environmental education for People of Color & in working towards decolonialism & liberation through veganism for over 25 years. LoriKim works as a founder, facilitator and organiser with organisations including BlackVegFest https://blackvegfest.org/ & The Cypher.

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

01:26 LoriKim's Intro

- Educator, organiser, activist, conservationist, abolitionist, naturalist, healer

- "Black liberation practice" with "a queer & vegan lens"

02:38 What's Real?

- Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica

- "Being a Black country... what that means is that we had to really hold tight to our traditions, our histories that were muddled, were removed... because of slavery"

- "Highly colonised", stringent laws, highly carceral

- "Missionaries saw opportunity to come in and bring their various and sundry versions of the truth"

- Synchronising traditions into Christianity as the only way they could survive

- Growing up Catholic "A very white and blond Jesus... this is not someone I can relate to."

- "I never believed in Santa Claus"

- "Religion... as the framework I had to live under in order to go about my daily life"

- Communion, saying rosary, prayer

- "What I saw in the natural world did not reflect this idea that god created all of these things... I watched creation happen."

- Moving to the US at 13

- "This religion doesn't make any sense to me" & "bruk out" from church

- Coming out & stopping eating meat at 14

- "I could not equate this idea of loving all beings... and also eating them"

- "Yes - I'm an atheist... I don't believe any of this"

- "However, spirit moves you."

- Talking with ancestors "I thought that was me talking to myself, but..."

- "I would ask for things in my head & it would happen"

- "I never really strayed away from thinking about the world beyond"

- A multitude of universes & studying science

- "A hybrid of really being rooted in science... & there's so much more that's unknown that I know that I feel"

- "I'm an Aquarius & we don't follow anybody else's rules"

- Practising things that come from a lot of African ancestral traditions, "but not strictly"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

Nicolas is a research associate at INRAE (L’institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement) and the Toulouse School of Economics. His work focuses on risk and decision theory, environmental economics, benefit-cost analysis and, more recently, on animal welfare. He has published scientific papers on subjects including the precautionary principle, the value of statistical life, and climate policy. He has organized several international conferences and written numerous articles for the general public, as well as reports on risk policy issues.

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

01:31 Nicolas' Intro

- Economics, risk, environment, psychology, now non-human animals

- "Trying to include animal issues into mainstream economics"

- From anthropocentrism to sentientism in every field?

04:40 What's Real?

- Growing up in SW France

- Catholic parents, but "religion was not very important"

- Attending church

- Not anti-religion but not a positive view either

- "Religions have contributed to a strong divide between humans and animals... dominion... stewardship"

- Surrounded by animals... dogs, cows in grandfather's farm, horses

- "I liked to view myself as an animal lover"

- "I like to see myself as a scientifically-minded person" 

- Religious & naturalistic routes to anthropocentrism

12:08 What & Who Matters?

- "We are raised to eat meat... and we don't really question it"

- "My vegetarian epiphany" 10 years ago on a date

- "I was completely ignorant about what is going on in that industry [dairy, eggs, meat]"

- "I didn't see that when it's quite obvious - and I have wrong beliefs - what happened in my brain, my mind & in society?"

- Cognitive dissonance, meat paradox, psychology: "Every time I had new sources of information it was bad news"

- A colleague, expert in the meat industry, asked "what's the problem with animal welfare in the meat industry?"

- "People don't want to see, don't want to know... even the experts"

- "There is a demand for cognitive dissonance, but also a supply"

- The evolution of morality, but why do we care about animals - some more than others? Extension of our compassion for humans, reciprocity?

- Emotional / intellectual routes into moral consideration

- Bio/ecocentrism/holism

- "In economics, all research is anthropocentric"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

Marina is a journalist, currently focusing on factory farming and the criminalization of activists who fight it. Marina has written for Vox, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Intercept and many other publications. She used to be an editor for Harvard Magazine. Before that, she wrote and edited for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Toledo Blade and The Harvard Crimson.

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

01:25 Marina's Intro

- Zeroing in on animal-focused journalism

03:20 What's Real?

- Raised by a single mum

- Jewish but not v.religious (like many Soviet jews)

- Emigrating from Belarus to the USA at 3yrs old

- Growing up in St. Louis

- Orthodox Jewish school to 8th grade but "feeling like an outsider"

- "I was sceptical of the religious stuff from a pretty young age"

- Updating "my religion" on FaceBook as "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" in middle school

- Gender segregated classes

- Hearing anti-Arab racist statements in class

- "A profound sense of justice"

- Going vegetarian at 11 yrs old "if we don't have to kill animals... then it's wrong to do that"

- School-mates "did not understand vegetarianism... god gave us dominion over animals... they're happy to be killed & give us sustenance."

- Secular, progressive high-school, but "I wouldn't say that people's attitudes... were particularly different... different reasons... protein, animals not intelligent..."

- Moving to veganism

- "I see everything through an animal liberation lens"

- Secular/scientific/naturalistic worldviews don't guarantee good ethics either

- "I feel a profound connection to alll of life on earth, particularly animals & sentient life... it's something I can't express in material terms"

- Animal ways of understanding can transcend what humans are capable of. Birds navigation, dog smell capability...

- "Respect for non-human life & epistemological humility should underpin our efforts to understand the world - rather than the assumption that humans have the right to manage & dominate"

- "I still identify as Jewish... an important part of who I am"

- Atheists/agnostics within religious communities

- "The way I feel about life & animals can definitely be described as spriritual"

- Human dominionism "is totally at odds with my worldview"

- The harms that can come from religious or naturalistic worldviews

- "Science is responsible for a lot of evil stuff too"

24:00 What Matters?

- Justice

- "I reject any form of violence... & that's what animal agriculture is"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

Susana is an assistant professor based at the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of Science of UNED, working on animal ethics and the philosophy of animal minds. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Complutense University of Madrid, an MA in Global Ethics and Human Values from King’s College London and a PhD in Philosophy from UNED, Spain. She has been a post-doc fellow at the University of Graz and at the Messerli Research Institute in Vienna. Susana describes her research interest as focusing on “what animals are capable of feeling, thinking, and doing, and what this means for the sort of treatment that we owe them.”

Susana led the project “Animals and the Concept of Death” which culminated in her book, “La Zarigüeya De Schrödinger” or “Schrödinger’s Possum”.

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

01:46 Susana's Intro

- Vienna & Madrid cultures re: animals & veganism

03:57 What's Real?

- Growing up in a 100% atheist household. Unusual for 1980's Spain

- "I used to think of god as a woman" but "I never had it as a belief"

- No religious education... "It's a little bit sad"

- "It's always been very natural to not have god as part of the explanation"

- Some sense of shame about not being religious as a kid but "I quickly grew proud of my beliefs"

- Attending an international private school with rich kids "I knew I was different"... incorporated being an atheist into that difference

- Superstitions "Just in case" :)

12:51 What Matters?

- "I want to believe in moral realism - I don't want to be a relativist"

- "Sentience is definitely something that provides a good grounding for ethics & moral status"

- "I feel like something is left out if we focus excessively on sentience"

- Agency as a potential moral grounding? "Something that ought to be respected about agency"

- Wilcox: "agency & sentience are co-extensive"

- "Harms beyond sentience?... ways of wronging animals that don't correlate with subjective feelings": dignity, preventing from relations / developing capacity

- Drawn to objectiveless accounts of wellbeing more than hedonist accounts

- "Pleasure is something important... but a life that contains only pleasure... might be a good enough life, but it's somehow impoverished"

- Nihilism

- "It feels like experiences aren't everything"... "Experiences are subject to manipulation, habituation..."

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

Mark is a psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, best known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming and his use of psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association. Mark has received numerous awards, notably Honorary Membership of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, the American College of Psychoanalysts and the American College of Psychiatrists. He has published more than 250 articles and book chapters, and 6 books. His second book, The Neuropsychology of Dreams, was a landmark contribution to the field. His 2002 book (with Oliver Turnbull), The Brain and the Inner World was a best-seller and has been translated into 13 languages. His latest book, on the hard problem of consciousness, is The Hidden Spring.

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

01:29 Mark's Intro

- The brain as the organ of the mind

- Breaking from behaviourism

- Studying psychoanalysis (first person) alongside neuroscience (studying from the outside)

- The value of interdisciplinary studies of consciousness

- Artificial intelligence perspectives

06:08 What's Real?

- Sunday school, Christian mother

- At 5-6 yrs old, father said "Your mum believes in all that stuff, I don't."

- Brother's horrific accident & brain damage: "He came back from the hospital... a changed person." "Who is this guy and where is Lee?"

- "I was forced at an early age to confront this question of the relationship mind & body... the person & the organism"

- "My sentient being must somehow be bound up with the functions of this bodily organ"

- "I think we underestimate little kids... they really do think about these things"

- "Clearly he is his brain"

- Finding it terrifying... intimations of our own mortality

- Lying in bed in panic: "I am going to cease to exist"

- Depression: "what's the point?"

- Becoming atheist, now agnostic. Appreciating the limits of human comprehension (through working with patients)

- "We're only able to comprehend as much as the instrument we use... is capable of... it's not a perfect instrument"

- Taking a comfort in ignorance & the limits of our capability

- "Do the best we can to understand" but "science has limits"

- Un-testable/falsifiable beliefs. Delusions as a response to frightening uncertainties

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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 is a philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at California State University, East Bay who specializes in animal ethics, environmental ethics and meta-ethics. He was co-founder in 1985 of the journal Between the Species: A Journal of Ethics and served as its initial co-editor. Steve was a member of the board of the American Philosophical Quarterly (1991–1994). 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 Morals, Reason, and Animals, in 1987, Subjective Morals, in 2011, and edited Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat; published in 2004.

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 Steve's Intro

- Getting out of the ivory tower "Put the values you espouse into effect & help the animals"

- A seminal early voice in animal ethics

6:05 What's Real?

- Growing up in Salt Lake City

- Immigrant parents from war-torn Europe "focused on making sure they could make a living"

- Greek Orthodox & Methodist Christian parents

- Sunday School

- Order of the Cross cult (vegetarian because of reincarnation)

- "I was never interested in religion" "The story of Noah was really nuts"

- "The story in the 1950's was you couldn't survive without meat... but my mother proved that wrong"

- "We liked animals... didn't see the need to kill them for something totally unnecessary"

- James vs. Bertrand Russell "It's immoral to believe something just because it makes you feel good"

17:03 What Matters?

- Literature as a way into philosophy

- Philosophy at Rice University (classical, medieval, existential)

22:52 Who Matters?

- Singer's Animal Liberation

- Animals "were my friends"

- "The most basic principle of morality is not to cause suffering for no good reason"

- "I was very much a Kantian"

- Writing "Are Animals Moral Beings"

- "Utilitarianism can tend to subordinate the indvidual... it tried to do a science of ethics"

- "Kantianism has problems too"

- Pluralism & pragmatism: Care ethics, Singer & utility, Regan & rights, Korsgaard & Kant...

- "We need to build on history"

- Anthropocentric & bio/ecocentric challenges

- “A lot of environmental ethics… is nonsense”

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.

Kathryn Gillespie PhD  (kathrynagillespie.com) is a writer, multispecies ethnographer, & feminist geographer. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Geography & the Applied Environmental & Sustainability Studies Program. Her research & teaching interests focus on: ethnography & qualitative methods; feminist & multi-species theory & methods; food & agriculture; political economy; critical animal studies; human-environment relations. She is the author of The Cow with Ear Tag #1389. She has also published in numerous scholarly journals & has co-edited three books: Vulnerable Witness: The Politics of Grief in the Field; Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World; and Economies of Death: Economic Logics of Killable Life & Grievable Death. Kathryn has volunteered with Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, Food Empowerment Project and Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

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

01:15 Kathryn's Intro

- Understanding the harms animals experience under capitalist & settler colonial regimes, particularly in food systems

- "Bringing individual animals into the frame"

- Field work in farms & auction yards "spaces of exploitation"

- Sanctuaries: Seeing the lasting harms of exploitation but also "places to imagine flourishing" & rehabilitation

- Multi-species auto-ethnography. Everyday violence & care

- Living w/chickens "turned us vegan" & lab-rescued beagles

- Academia & activism

07:52 What's Real?

- Raised somewhat in the Episcopal church

- "That just did not resonate with me"

- Visiting Baptist churches "that was incredible... a joyful explosion of faith"

- A Buddhist grandmother & "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh

- Practising Tibetan Buddhism as a teenager

- Buddhist compassion & Episcopalian blessing of animals on St. Francis' day

- Supernatural vs. naturalistic Buddhism "The supernatural stuff never appealed to me"

- Envying the pure, comforting faith of a fundamentalist Christian best friend

- Compassion for the other or because god tells you?

- Pagan & Wiccan practics

- People re-connecting with nature during COVID

- The etymology of "real" in Latin/Sanksrit from "wealth"... the capitalisation/commodification of life

- Emotional, embodied, lived experiences re: meaning, connection & knowledge making. Another form of evidence

32:10 What Matters?

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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. Mark Solomon is an author, neuropsychologist, musician and radio show/podcast host whose work touches on a wide range of topics. Mark produces a national Street Epistemology radio show/podcast called "Being Reasonable" (beingreasonableshow.com, @B_Reasonable_, @Being Reasonable)

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

01:25 Mark's Intro

-  @Street Epistemology . Conversations about "what you know and how you know it"  @Anthony Magnabosco , Reid Nicewonder  @Cordial Curiosity  

02:44 What's Real?

- Flat Earth

- Backfire effect

- Talking less about the belief & more about the reasons for the belief

- Improving our epistemology, not just "correcting" beliefs

- "I grew up in a Jewish household that didn't discuss god"

- Living with two separate epistemologies: naturalism / humanism but culturally Jewish

- "I couldn't even tell you that my rabbi believed in the supernatural"

- SE as a tool anyone can use

- Evidence & reason

- Objectivity & subjectivity

- Reality, truth, belief & opinion

- Starting conversations with understanding how people think of truth

27:44 What Matters?

- "I don't know"

- "I try to be a selfless person but sometimes I act selfishly"

- "I just act - I don't know if I have a choice"

- Uncertainty, psychology & moral foundations

- Suffering vs. flourishing (causing bad feelings in others is bad)

- Moral origins in evolution & psychology

- Determinism & free will

- Pre & non-human morality

- Compassion & co-operation as evolutionarily adaptive

- Virtue, deontology, utility, feminist care, relational ethics

- "If there were no sentient beings there would be no morality"

- Internal (warm fuzzy feelings, reciprocity...) & external reasons to be good

- True altruism & demandingness. "At least don't needlessly cause suffering & death"

- Emotional & intellectual routes to compassion

- Alleviating suffering vs. enhancing flourishing

- Universal Declaration of Human Rights

48:15 Who Matters?

- Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?"

- Getting backyard chickens for eggs & as pets

- "It's become painfully obvious to us that they are really smart creatures with their own social order... they definitely feel suffering."

- "There are some really stark commonalities between humans & chickens"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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.