Language plays a powerful role in how we think and act. To help us move towards a more sentientist world, we might want to start using more sentientist language. In particular, that includes language that doesn't trap us into thinking in anthropocentric or speciesist ways that narrow our moral circle to focus on humans.
This page sets out some suggestions about the sort of sentientist language we might want to adopt. I'd love to know what you think - new terms, better terms... Please comment below or join the discussion in one of our online communities.
Animals and Media and UPF's Center for Animal Ethics both have some great guidance about how we can help better represent the interests of all sentient beings in our media and daily language.
Default Language | Sentientist Language |
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Describing non-human sentient beings as objects: e.g. "it". | Describing sentient beings as subjects: e.g. "they" or "them". |
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Using the term "animal" or the names of species (e.g. pig, cow) in a pejorative way. | Not doing this. |
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Using terms or phrases that imply harming or killing sentient beings is morally acceptable. | Not doing this. |
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Describing "humans" as being distinct from "animals". | Not doing this. For example, by referring to "non-human animals" and making it clear that humans are animals too. |
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Human (adjective) - being related to or belonging to a human. | Sentient (adjective) - the capacity to have experiences, for example suffering or flourishing. |
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Human (noun) - a member of the species homo sapiens. | Sentient (noun) - a sentient being. |
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Humanity / humankind - humans in general. | Sentientity / Sentientkind - sentients in general. |
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Humane - showing kindness, care and sympathy towards others. Implies these are uniquely human characteristics when they are widely prevalent in other sentients. Often used to describe actions that are not "humane", for example "humane slaughter". | Compassionate - actions and intentions that demonstrate compassion. Compassion is a feeling of sympathy and sadness, in one sentient, for the suffering of another along with a desire to alleviate that suffering. Arguably extensible to identifying with and wishing for positive experiences in other sentients, not just the alleviation of suffering. |
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Humanitarian - improving human lives and reducing human suffering. | Sentientarian - improving sentient lives and reducing sentient suffering. |
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Democracy - a form of government based on rule by the people. | Sentocracy or Sentiocracy - a form of government based on rule by sentient beings. |
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Homicide - intentional killing of a human. | Senticide - intentional killing of a sentient. See this paper for an example of work on extending criminology to include crimes against non-human sentients. A narrower proposed term for the killing of non-human animals by humans is theriocide. That linked paper also mentions "zoocide" and "animalicide". |
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Anthropomorphism - the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. Often on the assumption that human traits are what matters morally. | Sentiomorphism - attributing sentience to entities based on evidence of their sentience. Because sentience is what matters morally. |
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Dehumanise - to deny the full humanness of a human or to make someone think of some humans (including themselves) as less valuable than humans. | Desentientise - denying, ignoring or devaluing the sentience of a sentient being, for example by assigning them to a category where their sentience is deemed irrelevant (e.g. farmed animal). (Thanks @JosephDavidHill for the suggestion) Other alternatives include objectify, de-subjectivise, dementalize. |
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Humanism - Naturalistic worldview that grants moral consideration to all humans and (sometimes) has a concern for "other sentient animals". | Sentientism - Naturalistic worldview that grants moral consideration to all sentients. |
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Substratism - Negatively discriminating against a sentient being because of its substrate. In this context a substrate is the material the being's sentience "runs on". The sentient beings we're aware of today have biological substrates, but many believe other substrates (silicon-based, other biologies) might be possible. | |
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Casual Greetings | Sent / Sents - A shortened version of "sentient" used as a casual form of address, as in "Hi sent!" or "How's it going, sents?" Suggested semi-seriously by Sentientist author and podcast guest AJ Jacobs. This hasn't quite worked its way into popular usage... yet. |
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Words normally reserved for human sentients | Extend them to apply to all sentient beings, for example: oppression, vulnerability, violence, murder, war, harm, health, needs, interests, solidarity, justice, cosmopolitanism, democracy, person, community, ethics, social justice, morality, freedom, autonomy, rights, liberalism, voice, relations, sustainability, care, compassion... |
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.