Find our first Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and on the Sentientism Podcast here. Find our second conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.

John is a writer, philosopher, cultural critic and magician. He is best known for his book, The Postmodern Prince, and for his more recent work in Critical Animal Studies where he edited the collection “Critical Theory and Animal Liberation“. Also in that field his book “The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and the Nature of Moral Life” was published by NYU Press in 2024. John was raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and received his BA from Hampshire College and his PhD in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He has taught at the University of Illinois Chicago, DePaul University, and the University of California Santa Cruz, and is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, where he teaches ethics, politics, existentialism, and other courses.  In his spare time, he performs as a professional magician and mentalist.

In “The Omnivore’s Deception” John argues for complete elimination of the meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries. He says “However, it is no more a book about veganism than Rosemary’s Baby is a movie about becoming a first-time mom. Rather, it’s about civilizational error. It’s about what happens when we organize society, economy, and daily life around a radical evil, then engage in elaborate self-deceptions to keep the truth of that evil from ourselves.”

John is non-religious and has a broadly naturalistic worldview. He is vegan and has (at least) a sentiocentric moral scope.

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