Find our Sentientist Conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast.

Lee McIntyre is a Philosopher of Science. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy & History of Science at Boston University & an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. Lee is the author of How to Talk to a Science Denier as well as many other books, essays & papers. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, the Boston Globe, the New Statesman & the Humanist.

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.” In addition to the video above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple and here elsewhere.

We discuss:
00:00 Welcome

01:30 Lee’s Intro

• Philosophy of science to public philosophy (“it’s supposed to be about making life better”)
• “Science denial & misinformation are the scourges of our age… there’s an epistemic crisis”
• Clarity & 2-way public engagement “philosophers can’t just be talking to each other”

06:00 What’s Real?

• Ontology (being) & epistemology (knowing)
• “It’s possible there are things that are real… that we cannot know”
• Naturalistic ontology (only the natural exists) & epistemology (evidence & reason)
• Growing up in Portland
• Questioning: “My mom didn’t treat me like a kid… That made me a philosopher early on”
• Dad & grandmother kicked out of church
• Raised non-religious
• “It was good to wonder, but it wasn’t good to pretend that you were certain of things that you couldn’t know or that you didn’t know”
• Socrates: the real enemy isn’t ignorance (because we can learn) it’s false knowledge
• “Don’t let the charlatans take that sense of wonder away from you”
• Norm MacDonald: Faith as a choice, a leap?
• Experiencing cancer & considering mortality
• How does Dawkins know there’s nothing after death? Could there be a naturalistic afterlife?
• “The fact that there are questions we can’t answer is not an excuse for pretending we have an answer”
• Faith is often a response to the discomfort of uncertainty
• David Hume & empiricism
• Skepticism, humility, hubris
• Karl Popper, fallibilism
• Pretend naturalism vs. good faith naturalism
• Science denial/conspiracism: Gullibility about what you want to believe & extreme skepticism about any alternative
• Arbitrariness
• Hugh Mellor’s “The warrant of induction” https://youtu.be/0__p0iVUi2M & bayesianism

38:00 What (& Who) Matters?

• Teaching ethics for a decade but “I’ve never really made up my mind”
• “A lot of people want there to be a science of ethics”
• “It’s irreducibly a question of values… they’re not set on a naturalistic foundation” (Ought – Is)
• Descriptive, evolutionary ethics vs. normative ethics
• “I cannot help but believe there is such a thing as right & wrong… it’s just wired in”
• Bringing the family dog into ethics class. Do non-human animals have duties?
• “What can you say to someone who just says ‘I don’t care?'”
• Ayn Rand & egoism
• Love & care “If we loved everyone we wouldn’t need ethics”
• Kant
• Singer, animal ethics & moral “circle”
• Sentientism granting moral consideration to all sentients, but neutral on ethical system
• Demandingness, omission, commission. At least not needlessly causing suffering & death
• Veganism, wild animal suffering
• Moral agents & patients
• A Universal Declaration of Sentient Rights? https://sentientism.info/universal-declaration-of-sentient-rights
• Stocker: Love?
• Science denial beliefs are not about facts & evidence, they’re about identity. 1) Getting them to care more broadly & 2) Seeing the moral imperative to act
• We need both naturalism & compassion

01:15:08 How Can we Make a Better World?

• I started out thinking “If I could just get people to change their beliefs then things would get better (e.g. climate denial).” But that’s not enough – it’s more about caring & not caring
• Performative belief
• Institutional change, personal change, nudges
• Cultural ways of extending our moral concern scope & embracing sentientism?
• Caring through contact/communication
• Showing it’s possible, resisting peer pressure, changing norms
• Thoreau: “It doesn’t suit my imagination” to eat animals
• “My Octopus Teacher”, slaughterhouses with glass walls
• Animal ethics as the “science denial” kryptonite for many humanists/skeptics
• Latent sentientist ethics? (people already care about some non-human animals)
• Making it easier to do the right thing (Impossible Whopper)
• Win-wins from broader compassion
• Be calm, respectful, patient. Listen, have empathy. “Someone will not change their beliefs if they don’t trust you.”

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info.

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Thanks Graham for the post-production.