There aren't, yet, many books about Sentientism (plenty of articles though!). There are, however, thousands of books about themes relevant to sentientism - epistemelogical and moral philosophy; religion, humanism, secularism, scepticism and atheism; consciousness and sentience; human, animal, even alien and robot ethics; artificial intelligence...
You'll find links below for our GoodReads group where you can find lots of great reading material, as well as a couple of books that do bear more directly on Sentientism.
Please feel free to suggest others we should add here - or even write one yourself!
Great place to find book recommendations that link to sentientism and to discuss what you're reading. Set up and run by @gurlintheworld.
Sentientist Politics by Alasdair Cochrane
Sentientist Politics outlines Alasdair's vision for a "sentientist cosmopolitan democracy" where non-human animals have political representation. There's a useful Wikipedia entry here with a summary and some criticisms.
Reasoned Politics by Magnus Vinding
In his new book, “Reasoned Politics“, suspected celebrity sentientist Magnus Vinding sets out a realistic vision for a politics grounded in compassion for all sentient beings (particularly a concern for their suffering) and a commitment to using evidence and reason in understanding our world.
The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer
The Expanding Circle sets out the biological and evolutionary bases for morality and how we have improved on those through use of evidence and reason - in part, to widen our circle of concern within and then beyond the human race. There's a short Wikipedia entry here.
This page will let you know what we’ve been up to but I wanted to share a few highlights:
Criticism, suggestions, offers of help and amplification / sharing are always welcome. Thanks so much for all the help so far and to those who’ve been doing their own things to develop our collective Sentientism project – working to normalise “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings”. A special thanks to Denise and Tarabella who have found our Patreon page and are contributing to our production costs.
The numbers below should give some indication of how many of the remaining ~7.7 billion humans (let alone the powerful AIs) we have yet to persuade 😊. As ever, you and friends are very welcome in any of our online groups. They’re open to anyone interested, not just sentients who have a Sentientist worldview:
Raising Awareness:
Communities (a big thank you to the volunteers that set up and run each of these):
Walls:
Please forward this on to others who might find the Sentientism worldview interesting! They can sign up for updates at the bottom of Sentientism.info.
I hope you and yours are well. Here’s to a more compassionate, thoughtful world,
Jamie.
Find our Sentientist conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.
Peter is often referred to as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.” He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, naturalistic, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the books "Animal Liberation", Why Vegan? and "Animal Liberation Now!" (launched on the same day as our Sentientism episode - join his speaking tour here!), in which he argues against speciesism and for a shift to plant-based food systems and veganism. He also wrote the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" and the books "The Life You Can Save" & "The Most Good You Can Do" which argue for effective altruism - using evidence & reasoning to do the most good we can for all sentient beings both human and not.
In 2004 Peter was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. In 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald placed him among Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer is a cofounder of Animals Australia & the founder of The Life You Can Save. In 2021 he received the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. Peter donated the $1 million prize money to the most effective organizations working to assist people in extreme poverty and to reduce the suffering of animals in factory farms.
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 audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
06:12 What's Real?
26:25 What Matters?
38:58 Who Matters?
01:10:05 How Can We Make A Better Future?
Following Peter:
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 to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon.
Find our Sentientist Conversation here on the Sentientism podcast and here on the Sentientism YouTube.
Michael is head of philosophy at the University of Liverpool. His current work spans transhumanism, death and meaning. He has written on whether non-human animals can have meaningful lives and What It Is Like to Be a Bot. He says of his work: “As a philosopher, I am a generalist, which is a nice way of saying that I have done many different things and I am not really an expert on anything in particular. Most people would probably tag me as an ethicist, but this is only true in a very broad sense. Figuring out what is right and what is wrong, permissible or impermissible, does not hold much interest for me. It seems to me that when people are debating these questions they are actually arguing about something else, namely who we want to be and in what kind of world we want to live. For me, doing philosophy is ultimately a sustained attempt to get to grips with this “deeply puzzling world” (to borrow an expression of Mary Midgley’s), to understand it and to understand our place in it. Philosophy is not business; it’s personal, more akin to therapy than to science. It’s about finding out what is actually going on and what we are doing here. Can philosophy provide an answer to these questions? I don’t know. All we can do is keep on trying. Perhaps what matters is not that we find an answer, but that we keep the question alive.”
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 audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:42 Michael's Intro
06:06 What's Real?
29:03 What Matters?
45:35 Who Matters?
01:26:44 How Can We Make a Better Future?
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 to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon.