Humanist organisations around the world seem to be getting more open to talking seriously about non-human sentient beings. Maybe that’s not a surprise given humanists are already supposed to be committed to evidence, reason and compassion – willing to break from harmful social norms to find a more compassionate morality. They also seem, anecdotally, more likely to be vegan than the general population – although that’s a low bar to beat.

Here are three examples you might find interesting – maybe the anthropocentrism of humanism is starting to crack…?:

• Humanistically Speaking is published by a number of regional humanist groups in the UK. Their entire December 2021 issue was focused on Sentience and included an article by me about Sentientism
• The American Humanist Association are holding an online event on 20th April entitled “Why Animal Rights is a Humanist Issue”. Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn, of course a previous Sentientist Conversations podcast guest, will be presenting. The AHA currently makes no mention of non-human sentient animals in its definition of Humanism. Maybe that will change after Corey’s talk and this one about non-human animal minds.
• Amy Halpern-Laff and I co-wrote this “A New Dimension for Humanism?” article for TheHumanist.com, published by the American Humanist Association. The comments are interesting!

Let me know if you’ve seen further examples. Feedback on the articles above is always welcome too, of course.

Jamie.