Karthik is Managing Director of the Fish Welfare Initiative in India. He has a background in animal welfare & ethical livelihoods. He is a PhD scholar at the National Academy of Legal Studies & Research in India & previously managed the university’s Animal Law Centre. While there, he researched the unethical practices associated with industrialised egg production in India.
He has also worked as a research and livelihoods consultant for sixteen Members of Parliament from the Telugu Despam Party. Karthik is deeply committed to ending animal and human suffering and believes in the efficacy of bottom up approaches to change.

Karthik is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope. He is an atheist and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find my Sentientist Conversation with Karthik on the Sentientism YouTube here and on the Sentientism Podcast here.

Because it is altruism that makes sense!

Why I’m A Sentientist:

- All suffering matters morally.

- No sentient being deserves to be treated as a commodity.

- Existing treatment is neither necessary for survival or morally justifiable.

- Cognitive science will continue to expand our understanding of the many forms of sentience.

- Recognizing our underlying genetic unity (ex. LUCA) is reason enough to universalize our compassion.

@cgbessellieu

Principles of humanism extended beyond humans.
@Dan_Ouka_Writes

For me, it is an evolutionary step as a human to recognise the ‘non-human animal’ as sentient with individuality – and not objects to be commodified by us.

@writers_accord
Jules' book, "I, Animal: Examining the Human - Animal Divide".

Carol is an author, artist, animal activist and scholar whose work focuses on the reality of animals’ lives as important contributors to the biodiversity of this planet. She is Professor Emerita of Design and Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr University of Design, Vancouver, BC. CANADA. Her most recent book is The Creative Lives of Animals.

Carol is vegan and has (at least) a sentiocentric moral scope. Carol is non-religious and has a broadly naturalistic worldview. She is happy to call herself a Sentientist - having joined our "wall".

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

carolgigliotti.com
@cgigliotti

I believe our views should be based on naturalistic exploration of our universe, and that the most rational foundation for morality is the suffering and flourishing of sentient beings.

I think that subjective experiences matter, and suffering is wrong, no matter who or “what” experiences it.
@ClareDHarris

Because treat others the way you want to be treated.

@appa4ever

Lucas studied and practiced architecture in the U.S., Canada, and India before leaving it all behind in an effort to rethink what it is to live a meaningful life. Since then he's traveled the world, started a philanthropic enterprise, Haven Hearts, and written a beautiful, compassionate book. Along the way he enjoys playing frisbee, making things with his hands, and befriending every dog who crosses his path.

He is the author of The Weight of Empathy, a travel memoir. Lucas describes it as an exploration of both our relationship with animals and his own personal process of learning how to be a compassionate person in an often violent and uncaring world.

Lucas is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview, happily identifying himself as a Sentientist. His Sentientist Conversation with me is here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.

LucasSpiegel.com
Lucas on Instagram
Lucas' video from Palitana
Peepal Animal Rescue
Mino Valley Sanctuary
ElephantNaturePark

John is a Strategic Lecturer in the School of Law and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. Prior to joining QMUL he was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law and Fitzwilliam College. He has taught and researched at Cambridge, Durham, Birmingham, the UCL Constitution Unit, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and the UK Commission on a Bill of Rights. Although he started out as a Sunday School teacher, he now has a non-religious worldview. He is a vocal advocate for veganism and salsa dancing.
John's Sentientist Conversation with me on YouTube
John at Queen Mary Uni of London
@JohnAdenitire

Before I had heard the term 'Sentientism' I had already been involved in animal rights and have loved science for as long as I can remember. I hope that during my lifetime, 'Sentientism' becomes a normalised term in the public sphere for rational, compassionate people - or at least those of us who strive to that ideal.
Matt on FaceBook

Because an unexamined life, is not worth living.

It is my core value that every sentient being deserves a good, happy life. Whatever their race, religion, class, gender, sexuality or species may be. I want their suffering to stop. Reason and evidence is a must when trying to solve questions on how to help those who suffer, to discover who is suffering and how they are suffering. I prefer sentientism over animalism because it doesn't limit our moral circle to animals, but opens it to any kind of being who may be able to feel pain.

@sentientlentils

I'm a Sentientist because it makes sense! Welcome to the future.

@IndraGesink

I've chosen to follow this idea because I believe all life is worthy of freedom, happiness, and love with very general intrinsic value surviving in a world which they choose to avoid death and suffering as far as practicable, I also think it's very anthropocentric to trivialise the exploitation of non-human animals as commodities simply because they're different forms of life. We should really put into regard that these are sentient beings who feel pain, emotion, and nonsensically & unnecessarily suffer everyday for the sake of human gratification.

Diana is an evolutionary psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. Her field of research includes the study of disgust, human sexuality, and hormones and behaviour. She is involved in the effective altruism and animal welfare movements and identifies as a feminist and a Sentientist. Diana's 2018 Darwin Day Lecture, hosted by Humanists UK, was part of the inspiration for our work developing and raising awareness of Sentientism.

Diana's #SentientistConversation with me on YouTube and Podcast
Diana on Wikipedia
dianaverse.com
@sentientist (I told you she's a Sentientist)

I am an associate professor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University (Andrew at Dalhousie). My areas of specialization are in animal (bio)ethics, naturalized epistemology, neuroethics, and the philosophy of animal behaviour and cognition. I am interested in how deepening scientific understanding of the psychological capacities of various nonhuman animals should change philosophical discussions of their knowledge (beyond a simple reliabilism), agency (including their consent and dissent capacities) and treatment in captivity (primarily in laboratories).

Logic has brought me to the conclusion that Sentientism is the best philosophy to heal the earth & all beings.

Sentientism, like veganism for me, is very much a guiding principle in life. It came to me as a revelation in my late teens, that life choices held such hypocrisy. I found myself in turmoil over consuming some animals, whilst protecting others. I began to question the disparity around the world, the human injustice & wanton exploitation of the natural world. I realised I was a believer in sentientism fundamentally...that I was seeking to make decisions based on best insights into science, evidence, reason and supported with a compassionate disposition. It came natural to me, as I chose veganism. Understanding that all life has an innate right to exist..that it is not our place to attribute a 'scale of value' to beings, with humankind at the peak. Sentientism is the ultimate liberation from the man-made tyranny of rigid belief systems. It is simply 'freedom'.

@meldawson6

Curiosity helped me the most. Knowledge fills you up. Observing something is a pleasure, deducing something else from it is another. I do Science just for the sake of it - I do research, publish and teach without being paid affiliated with academics, and it just makes sense for me.

Arpad Lorberer

Most of the problems we face are as much ethical as they are technological or economical or ecological.

Alex on GitHub

Sentientism for justice and equality.
@MelloDinossauro

Mary Pat is the director of graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education & faculty at Antioch University. Mary Pat has been in the field of education since 1979 when she began teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. Before joining IHE, she worked in refugee camps in Asia & supervised culture & language programs for the World Trade Institute in New York.

Mary Pat is vegan and has a naturalistic, sentiocentric worldview - a "card-carrying Sentientist!"

Find her Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast.

We MUST support only the sentientist Artificial Intelligence projects or otherwise machines view us like animals and use us only how resources for his proposal, Sentientism is important to make a better world because we have sufficent resources to not generate unnecesary suffering.

Jorge on YouTube

Because the needs of sentient beings, their freedom and the continued existence of sentient life are the are the only aspects one can build a reasonable framework of ethics upon.

Because humans are not above nature, we are nature and therefore must protect it. All living beings have a soul, even plants.

@JessLohm

Sharing Animal Activism on Facebook

Sentientism matches my philosophical perspective most accurately. All sentient beings deserve our moral consideration.

I believe in Sentientism absolutely.

This rationale could not be more urgent and more appropriate to the times.

Because I care about what's true and what's fair, and would hasten the day when it's the norm to take seriously the interests of sentient beings, human and otherwise.

Humans have evolved to the most advanced order of Primates we are naturally sentient

I'm a Sentientist because a being's physical differences from us or its intellectual capabilities do not matter for how I should treat them. The only relevant consideration is their sentience - I believe that anyone who has spent any time caring for animals knows this at some level.

@TristanDKatz

The future is Vegan. Animals are here WITH us not FOR us.
@Cshells33Wells

You can't argue with reason and compassion based logic that says we should treat all life forms that are self aware and can feel pain in ways that help them flourish and avoid suffering.

Christine on FaceBook
Christine's Writing on Local Matters
artbychristinerose.com
Christine's Tumblr Blog

@RafaRuizdeLira

Because sentientism is the basic criterion for moral consideration, and all sentient beings deserve respect and consideration of their interests.

Mary on FaceBook

To me, suffering/joy are what really matter in the end. And for this, sentience to some degree is a necessary condition.
@JMannhart

Suffering in any sentient being, even if not human, is still suffering. If our aim as individuals and society is to be "good", in any kind of definition possible, elimination of suffering is needed.

@rom20501

Although I gave up meat many years ago it was relatively recently that I learned more about the exploitation and cruelty in the agricultural industry, that meant dairy cows as well as though bred for meat were often treated badly and would be killed after a few years, often male dairy calves are merely useless to them so they can be sent to the veal trade? Surely even worse than eating meat. As well as avoiding animal tested make up and skin care I try to join the animal rights community in signing petitions, raising awareness of cruelty from Taji dolphin hunting to the UK badger cull, which again is linked to practices in the dairy industry, intensive farming has spread BTB in cattle yet badgers are blamed, why? There are so many MPs in the Conservative DEFRA who are pro hunt and shoot it is hard to find a voice, but hopefully with platforms like this change is coming. The Dominion attitude has reigned for too long, even though I'm not an atheist and believe in Jesus Christ, I also think that it is human attitudes that have led to so much cruelty to people outside the West and animals in the serach for new territory and riches, a way of living alongside nature not owning it should be our goal as more sustainable peoples have known for centuries.

Those who are able to suffer ought be granted moral consideration.

@aokellermann

Sentient beings feel, have consciousness and emotions, yet they are voiceless, there should a be a charter of animal rights

I am a sentientist because I believe that all sentient beings have a right to Fairness and Justice. No animal should have to suffer intentionally or be condemned to suffer unimaginable pain, mental anguish, loss or death.

@anitaalf

Compassion for animal suffering.

Suffering is the most important moral issue.
@erniebornheimer

Abolish All Suffering!

Evidence and reason shows what's real. What matters most is reducing and preventing suffering through compassion for fellow sentient beings.

Animals are suffering in this world all because of humans. The world would still be a Paradise if people had more respect, compassion and empathy for the animals. They would be free and living safely without human intervention and encroachment and cruelty. We are not superior to them. They have more soul and feel all emotions and needs. We do not own them. Animal sentience should be recognized, revered.

I'm a Sentientist because it's the only way of life that makes sense.

Meike on FaceBook

Why Sentientism?: "it just feels right"

MSDMEANAR
@msdmeanar

Sentience matters for moral consideration. Evidence, Reason, Universalism.

not fully sure yet. i so far like what i hear but like any group like this i like to check out the people and see if they match the words

Eva is the operations lead for the non-profit Pax Fauna. Pax Fauna exists to design a more effective social movement for animal freedom in the U.S., using original research as well as careful study of social movement literature and the recent history of the animal movement in order to reverse the cultural norm of eating animals. Eva has been organizing in the animal freedom movement since 2015 when she started working with DxE in Chicago, where she focused on building community, writing protest music, and compiling the movements’ songs into an online songbook used by advocates around the world. She started working full time as DxE’s legal coordinator in 2018, managing the organization’s many legal cases, organizing trainings, and orchestrating large artistic demonstrations. Eva has a deep curiosity about culture in all its forms, and how social movements engage with culture both internally and externally. Through songwriting, she has explored how music and art can shape the messaging and attitudes of the animal movement. Building on a background in Kingian nonviolence, she is a dedicated student of Nonviolent Communication, and she is committed to bringing NVC’s repertoire of creative problem-solving tools to the work of building a better culture in the animal movement. Working for years as a music therapist in hospice taught Eva how to apply metrics to aspects of life that are difficult to measure- and how to judge when metrics aren’t working to tell the whole story.

Eva is non-religious and has a naturalistic worldview. She is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

@evahamer
Eva on Mastodon
Eva on Instagram
Eva at Pax Fauna

All beings want to live.

@berilsirmacek
berilsirmacek.com

Love Our Mother on Instagram
@LoveOurMother1

Jane is a TV broadcaster, author, journalist & now CEO of the animal rights non-profit Jane Unchained. For six years she hosted her own show on CNN Headline News. She has written four books, two of which were NY Times bestsellers. She has won numerous awards for her activism on behalf of non-human animals.

Jane is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find her Sentientist Conversation with mehere on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast. In it, she says "The root of all evil is thinking some suffering doesn't matter".

@JVM
Jane Unchained

"One of the things I am most certain of in life is that what is truly valuable from a moral perspective is flourishing and the absence of suffering for all creatures who can experience."
@lced_Teas

Harm Not for All

As a sentient being myself, I'd say I'm proudly a Sentientist. "Social oppression needs animals oppression" Realizing the roots cause of every social justice's problem is the idea some species are better than the others. We always have moral obligation to do better for human animals and non human animals. Free them, Free Us, Free ALL

Poppy on Instagram

Because I'm both (ethical) vegan, and (secular) humanist. 🙂

@BarisBayram2045

Corey is a sociologist and scholar of social movements and human-nonhuman relations. She is a lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. Corey says: "The magnitude of nonhuman suffering is such that activists can’t afford to take chances. My work is designed to take the guesswork out of social movement mobilization and animal rights activism." She is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview. She is one of the few academics who has explored the intersection of the atheist/humanist/naturalistic thinking and animal advocacy movements - see this article and her book A Rational Approach to Animal Rights.

Find Corey's video/podcast conversation with me here on "Sentientist Conversations"

@DrCoreyLeeWrenn
Corey on FaceBook
CoreyLeeWrenn.com
Corey on Wikipedia

I believe in extending moral consideration to all sentient beings as individuals with their own interests and values. I am also a longtime Humanist and member of the AHA because I believe in the separation of church and state and the promotion of a scientific rationalist point of view.

@EthicalSentient (Twitter), @EthicalSentient (Insta) and other social media.

Because sentience matters.

https://just.google.my.name

Basic rights are not limited to one species, even if we pretend they are.

I'm a sentientist because I believe that non-human animals have the same right to freedom from enslavement, exploitation and torture, as human animals. They have the same capacity for pleasure and suffering and should therefore be protected from being reduced to an unfeeling asset.

I believe I have always believed that all living creatures are sentient. I don't remember a time when I didn't know this. Early memories are not reliable so I can't say that I have ALWAYS believed/known this.

Chaitanya is Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in the Centre for Regulatory Policy and Governance. He has a PhD in Economics. Chaitanya's research interests include economic development strategies in the global south, structural change, economic development and regulatory policy, urban economics, and non-anthropocentric strategies/alternatives to anthropocentric value systems in progress and conservation including food systems research (and maybe Sentientist Economics?)

In addition to his academic work, Chaitanya has published articles on economic development, inequality and on the intersection of Hinduism, politics and animal ethics in India.

Chaitanya has a naturalistic worldview and, at least, a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

@chaitanyatalrej
@eat_plants_stay_fit
Chaitanya on ResearchGate

Where there is sentience there is an experience that matters.
@NicholasHallows

Humanity should come out of the human-centric bubble. However, too often animals are viewed with partisan sentimentality or ignorant disregard, as economic utility or nuisances. I think we need to be guided by evidence-based reason, wonder, care & curiosity to restore the bond with our beautiful world and minimize all suffering. If we judge ourselves to be capable of any moral progress, we will understand the need to live without being a threat to all living creatures around us.

Concern for the well-being of all living beings ought to be the highest concern for all living beings.

@dylanbraines

I think the world would be a better place if we all championed animals and their sentience.
VeganCollective on FaceBook

I have always been jarred by the differences in how we treat our fellow humans vs how we treat other sentient beings. As I matured I began to form my own set of beliefs, that our worth should not be defined by whether we are "human," but rather, our sentience. My dog is sentient, and I treat her as such.

All animals—and all beings that can feel—deserve compassion. No matter how hard it is for us, no matter how many of our behaviors we need to change, we must learn to treat other beings how we wish to be treated.
@BillGreenberg15

The baseline for who matters morally is whether or not things matter to a living being - sentience captures this.
@MW_Perry

We've been brainwashed to believe competition is the essence of life. It isn't. There is competition. But cooperation is more common, more vital, more quintessential to life.
John's "Who are you?" blog
John's Amazon Author Page

"I am a sentientist because: Suffering matters to those who suffer. Sentientism means having compassion for all those who suffer – both human and nonhuman. Sentientism means emancipating all sentient beings who can’t stand up for their own interests. Sentientism is the new moral paradigm. Change will not come by doing nothing. Sentientism is not only a theoretical idea, it includes veganism. Sentientism doesn’t hurt you – nor others.”

Floris's bio states he is "a philosopher and therefore an atheist". He is a practical, activist, vegan philosopher. He has written a number of books including "Philosophy for a Better World", "On Green Liberty", "De vrolijke veganist" ("The Happy Vegan") and "Hoe komen we van religie af?" ("How to get rid of religion. An inconvenient liberal paradox"). In 2017, Floris participated in a television series "To Hell With Your Religion", in which he lived with a group of people of various religions for two weeks, exploring and critiquing religious ideas.
Floris' Sentientist Conversation with Jamie on YouTube and Podcast
After our conversation, Floris kindly shared a series of posters he has developed that relate to Sentientist themes. These posters, hosted here, remain Floris’ intellectual property but he is happy with them being freely used for educational purposes.
Floris on Wikipedia

Why Sentientism?: "For all sentient beings"

Oscar is an animal activist and moral philosopher who is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and is one of the co-founders of the organization Animal Ethics. Oscar is vegan and non-religious.

Oscar on Wikipedia
Oscar's Blog
Oscar on FaceBook

I'm a Sentientist because its what makes sense and we will need this shift if we are to survive as a species

Fiona on FaceBook

All the sentient creatures of the earth are deserving of equal treatment. We are born of the same family and it is beyond unethical for one species to lay waste to the earth for the sake of exploiting its kin. All living beings have value and we, as the ethically minded beings of this world, must work to preserve their wellbeing and that of the Earth.

I am a sentientist because I believe that no living being is inherently more valuable than another based on immutable traits: race, gender, age, or species. The value of life stems from pleasure, so to enslave or kill a being which can feel pleasure, or might be able to in the future (note that this includes nonsentient embryos and fetuses, but not a being which is braindead or cannot feel) is to rob it of all potential future pleasure.
@Arachnocat14

Because in order to work together to make the world a better place, we need to first agree on what it means to make the world a better place.
@arielpontes

As someone who is personally against bigotry, speciesism seems like a combination of racism, sexism, and ableism combined. I see no reason why someone that has the mental capabilities of a 3-5 year old (ex, pigs) should be treated the way they are simply because they have a body that does not look like a monkey, as ours does. If monkeys (homo sapiens) deserve rights and to live (as I believe they do) free of discrimination despite mental or physical differences, then why is someone to be judged on their worth for having feathers or hooves when we've already determined that judging someone on their bodily abilities and appearance is not justification for denying them personhood rights? It would be ethically inconsistent to be speciesist while claiming to be antiracist, antisexist, and/or antiableist.

@NorthyHunter

I like to learn about philosophy and hopefully teach it to people.

@Karrrisa_TD

If you take a moment out of your busy day to think about life on Earth, it's obvious that all sentient life whether arachnids, mollusks, reptiles, insects, birds, mammals, amphibians (in no particular order) is pretty miraculous. Who am I, (as a mammal), to say that my life is more valuable that that of an insect. All sentient life is caring, feeling and complex.

Because I'm sentient, and I think that is the most ethical way forward.

Jazar on FaceBook

"Suffering matters, no matter who experiences it. Sentientism is the label that captures this world view."

Michael Dello-Iacovo (michaeldello.com​ and @MichaelDello​) is a PhD candidate in space science, looking at off-Earth exploration, mining & asteroid impact risk. Michael hosts the Morality is Hard podcast where he examines ethical questions and argues that everyday ethical choices are harder than we think they are. He is currently on the New South Wales state committee for the Animal Justice Party, sits on the national policy committee and is a committee member of the party’s youth wing. Michael has dedicated his life to giving back and making the world a better place for all. To that end, in 2016 he pledged to donate all of his income above $45,000 each year to the most effective charities and causes, a pledge which he will uphold with his parliamentary income, if elected. Michael was previously the CEO of Effective Altruism Australia.

Michael's Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast
@MichaelDello
Michael Dello

Andrew is Professor of Animal Welfare and Ethics and Founding Director of the University of Winchester Centre for Animal Welfare, Adjunct Professor in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University, Queensland, EBVS European and RCVS Veterinary Specialist in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law, American and New Zealand Veterinary Specialist in Animal Welfare, Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and Principal Fellow of Advance HE.

@DrAndrewKnight
Andrew on LinkedIn
Andrew on FaceBook
AndrewKnight.info
SustainablePetFood.info

Adam is a Lecturer in Environmental Science at Deakin University. He is an environmental scientist working on questions related to ecology, conservation and society. He is most interested in: i) how concern for Animals informs environmental values and practice, ii) the environmental potential of transitioning to plant-based agriculture and iii) more critical approaches to how the sciences consider Animals. Adam wants to leverage research to help create a better future for Animals, the environment and humans. Adam is also a co-host of the Freedom of Species show on Melbourne's 3CR community radio.

Adam is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview. He says "I'm a Sentientist because, given what we know about sentient beings, sentientism seems like a good minimum moral standard."

Our Sentientist Conversation is here on the Sentientism YouTube and the Sentientism Podcast!

Adam at Deakin
Adam at TheConversation
Adam's VeganSci YouTube Channel

Jeff is Clinical Assoc. Prof. of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, & Philosophy, & Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program at New York University. He is on the executive committee at the NYU Center for Environmental & Animal Protection & the advisory board for the Animals in Context series at NYU Press. He is a board member at Animal Charity Evaluators, a board member at Minding Animals International, an Exec. Cttee. member at the Animals & Society Institute, and a Senior Fellow at Sentient Media. He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview. He has said: "My credence that Sentientism is the correct & only theory of moral status is lower than 1 but it is relatively high."
Jeff's Sentientist Conversation with Jamie is here on YouTube
(audio also on the Sentientism podcast)
Jeff on Wikipedia
jeffsebo.net
@jeffrsebo

Zoe is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). She is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement. She has authored seven books both for adults and children, including Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life. Zoe writes the Becoming a Solutionary blog at Psychology today. She has made numerous TV and radio appearances and has given six TED talks, including “Extending our Circle of Compassion.”
She has said "How can we... expand our circle of compassion to include everybody who can suffer?"
Zoe is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Zoe's Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast
@ZoeWeil
Institute for Humane Education

I hold to a moral framework that considers desires the basic unit of moral consideration. All sentient beings have desires, so it’s a natural fit for my moral theory.

"All morality stems from the fact that sentient beings prefer some experiences over others. The purpose of logic, governance, and society is to cultivate the wellbeing of sentient beings, frequently by opposing or modifying the lumbering, heartless evolutionary processes that seek to dominate and potentially degrade them."

Proponent for Sentience

Because we all share a common ancestor and common instincts and biological machinery. To pretend we are very different from our fellow earthlings, particularly other mammals, is hubris.

Love the belief that ALL sentient beings have emotions.

In my estimation there are certain types of pain that can never be compensated for, the merciless slaughter of animals is only one type.
@esotericspeech

All sentient beings have interests that deserve full and rational consideration

Because our choices need to be based on reason.
@juliocesarprava

"I’m a Sentientist because all suffering matters morally and because evidence and reason are the only ways to really understand our world."

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!), 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.

Peter has a sentiocentric moral scope. He is an atheist and has a naturalistic worldview.

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

@PeterSinger
Peter on Instagram
Petersinger.info
Peter on Wikipedia

“I’m concerned with oppression in all its forms.”

Joey is assistant professor of philosophy at McNeese State University & programme coordinator for the nonprofits Farm Forward & Better Food Foundation (See also the Default Veg campaign). His research covers philosophies of food, medicine, animals & environment. He teaches biomedical ethics & sections of ethical theory & existentialism.

He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Watch his Sentientist Conversation with me here on YouTube or Podcast.

Joey on Academia.edu

rohinshah.com

Coral is an aspiring writer, an animal rescue volunteer/donor & runs a bunny boarding & grooming business. She is an ex-Mormon atheist with a naturalistic worldview & a "meat & potatoes girl" turned vegan.

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

@atheist_vegan
wattpad.com/user/VCoralSandsV
inkitt.com/veganatheist
Coral on YouTube
Discord JoinTheConversation Invite
Coral on WorldAnvil

Love and compassion for all sentient beings.

Kishan on LinkedIn

?

@sarah_boka

All of us & this planet.
@runsthruit

Although sceptical about the capacities of human reason, I do feel reason should be utilised by humans when making ethical decisions. Reason has thus far indicated to us that, alongside humans, nonhuman animals are sentient. Based on this knowledge, coupled with a rejection of (or ongoing attempt to reject) deluded and destructive anthropocentrism, I feel the least we can do as human beings is behave compassionately toward nonhuman animals (and fellow humans). The practice of veganism is a moral imperative in this connection.

Louis via Email

Tobias is an author and a vegan advocacy consultant. He blogs at veganstrategist.org and wrote "How to Create a Vegan World". He is the co-founder of ProVeg International. He is an Effective Altruist - thinking about the best ways to achieve a compassionate society. He also describes himself as a "Slow opinionist". He has a naturalistic worldview, although remains open to the possibility there is "something more".

Find his Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast.

@TobiasLeenaert
veganstrategist.org

I care deeply about both rationality and ethics. My ethical foundation is exactly identical to the fundamental tenants of Sentientism. My conclusions and my ethics as a whole seem to differ slightly, but we start from a very similar set of principles.

Why not?

Ethical reason, cannot justify speciesism.

Because and effect!
David on FaceBook
@daftguru

Through a synergy of studying Marxism-Leninism and Secular Buddhism, I became interested in maintaining a meaningful worldview consistent with Buddhist compassion and Marxist dialectical materialism. After reading Althusser’s arguments for anti-humanism, as well as national books by Dean Cornish and Caldwell Esselstyn, I became interested in a naturalistic philosophical approach to veganism. This had to lead me to learn about sentientism, which compliments my views in Marxism and Buddhism, as well as minimalism, science, socialism, and environmentalism practices and activism.

Seth on FaceBook

Sentience is all that matters.
Cynthia on Facebook

I'm a sentientist because the sentient united will never be defeated!

@beornnmccarthy

LiteraryChange Blog

Brandi on LinkedIn

I believe in non-violence (ahimsa) as a key philosophy and the shortcut to world peace. I am a sentientist because I have compassion for all beings and do not exploit or abuse animals for greed or ignorance. I can only hope that this philosophy expands and we manifest a utopian dimension of peace.

@NEO10Y

I have one challenge as a moral being, to draw a line, in pencil, between what is a someone and what is a something. Along that messy line, the more certain I am that another is a someone, the less like an object, and the more like an equal subject I must treat them.

@EightTwo

Sentimental towards Pets.
@Mahi_773

Marc is a biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the co-founder, with Jane Goodall, of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and a former Guggenheim fellow. He lectures internationally on animal behavior, cognitive ethology (the study of animal minds), and behavioral ecology, and writes a science column about animal emotion for Psychology Today. He is an advocate for the compassionate conservation movement that aims to improve environmentalism by embedding a moral concern for individual sentient animals. In 1986 Marc won the Master's age-graded Tour de France. Marc is a vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Marc's #SentientistConversation on the Sentientism YouTube Channel and Podcast.
Marc on Wikipedia
marcbekoff.com
@MarcBekoff

Sentientism addresses the most important blind spots of Humanism.

If our ability to suffer doesn't count for anything, then we could cause the greatest pain/suffering and yet not be held accountable. What decent morality maximizes suffering?

Malola on GoodReads

Everyone should be judged not by the circumstances of their birth, but by the pattern of their mind. Anything that can experience, that can suffer, has moral weight to its existence.

Alex on FaceBook

It just makes sense!
@williford_teri

Jessica Pierce (born October 21, 1965) is an American bioethicist and writer. She is a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School. She has been writing and lecturing about the moral contours of human-animal relationships for over 15 years and is a leading scholar in animal ethics and environmental bioethics. She has published 11 books, including The Last Walk and Run, Spot, Run, as well as hundreds of scholarly and popular articles. Her work has been published in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. She writes a regular blog for Psychology Today called All Dogs Go to Heaven. You can find out more about Jessica at jessicapierce.net. Her most recent book, co-authored with Marc Bekoff, is A Dog’s World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without People (Princeton University Press) will be released in October of 2021.

Jessica is vegan and has a naturalistic world-view, although remains open minded about and is influenced by eastern philosophy.  

In Jessica's Sentientist Conversation with me (also here on podcast), she says "Compassion needs to be grounded in reality".

jessicapierce.net
Jessica on Wikipedia

David is an activist & chief petitioner of the Yes On IP13 campaign (www.yesonip13.org & @yesonip13) which aims to outlaw the harming & killing of sentient animals in the US state of Oregon. That's without exceptions for animal agriculture, hunting, research or other forms of exploitation. Originally with a background in psychology & public health, David’s switch to activism began after bearing witness to pigs being killed in gas chambers.

David is vegan, has a naturalistic worldview and considers himself a sentientist.

Find his Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast.

Colleen on Instagram

As a long time vegan and atheist I was happy to discover sentientism. I learn a lot following the discussions online! In real life I have a vegan sushi restaurant called «el buda profano». Coming to a town near you any day now!

@alanpater
@elBudaProfano
El Buda Profano

For all we know, sentient experience is all there is, and even if isn't, it's not clear what else could possible matter. Being capable of experiencing happiness or suffering is all it takes to make one morally relevant, for one to matter, on pain of incoherence or inconsistency in our approach and attitude to our existential predicament.
Aatu on Facebook

I'm a Sentientist "because that's the position that leaves me with least cognitive dissonance."
@apoorvamagic

Elan is a cultural anthropologist focusing on human-animal interactions, environmental justice, and food politics. He is assistant professor of the practice in environmental studies and coordinator of the animal studies minor at Wesleyan University. He is the author of the Gregory Bateson Prize winning book: "Saving Animals: Multispecies Ecologies of Rescue and Care". He also contributed a chapter called "The Empty Promises of Cultured Meat" to the book "The Good it Promises, the Harm It Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism".

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

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

@ElanAbrell
Elan on LinkedIn
Elan's interview on Our Hen House

Sentientism because we need to respect all lives on earth equally and nurture life. Sentientism because our relationship with the animals decide our relationship with ourselves, and the planet.
itskritikal.com
Indianvegandiary on Instagram
@dontbekritikal

Walter is an interdisciplinary scientist, philosopher and writer focusing on biology, minds and ethics. He publishes the ‘Science and Philosophy‘ series on Psychology Today and Medium. He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Watch his Sentientist Conversation with me here or listen to the podcast version on Apple here or on other platforms here.

@wrwveit
walterveit.com

"I think a secular morality has to come from the systematisation of empathy, and empathy is a mode of understanding sentient beings."

Luke is a philosopher of mind at the Centre for Mind, Brain & Consciousness at New York University. Although Luke works primarily on philosophy of mind & metaphysics, their areas of interest include ethics, social & political philosophy, early modern philosophy and philosophy of gender & sexuality. Their book, "Reason, Empathy, and the Minds of Others" is under contract with Oxford University Press.

You can find Luke's Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism Youtube and on the Sentientism Podcast here on Apple and here on the other platforms​​​​​​.

lukeroelofs.com
Majestic Equality blog

The consideration of others not based on species is virtuous

@ZCelmer

If an organism seeks to avoid death and can suffer pain--even if not nerve-based as that which we are accustomed to--it is sentient and should be accorded rights. Both nonhuman animals as well as other intelligences, even if their origin may have been artificial.

Katie is a theoretical cosmologist who holds the Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at Perimeter Institute. Her academic research investigates dark matter, vacuum decay and the epoch of reionisation. Katie is also a popular science communicator who participates in social media and regularly writes for Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time and Cosmos. She is the author of the book "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)"

Katie is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope. She has a naturalistic worldview, saying here: "I had a lot of trouble believing in anything that I didn’t have strong evidence for. It comes back to the scientific view point maybe. I didn’t have religious experiences. I didn’t have a feeling of connection with the divine. I wanted that feeling of connection … I found the practice very meaningful, but I never got the faith."

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

Katie on Wikipedia
@AstroKatie
astrokatie.com
Disorientation, a poem by Katie

"I do not want to contribute to suffering."

Jonina is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a Co-Founder of Lancaster Farm Sanctuary. She is involved in the collective liberation movement and identifies as an ecofeminist and a Sentientist.

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

Lancasterfarmsanctuary.org
@joninaturzi

"'May all that have life be delivered from suffering.” (Gautama Buddha) Let's help other creatures, not harm them. Any civilisation worthy of the name will be vegan. Our goal should be the well-being of all sentience."

David is a philosopher who co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, now rebranded as Humanity+, with Nick Bostrum. David writes on a range of transhumanist topics and what he calls the "hedonistic imperative", a moral obligation to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His self-published internet manifesto, The Hedonistic Imperative, outlines how pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and neurosurgery could converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience from human and non-human life, replacing suffering with "gradients of bliss". David calls this the "abolitionist project".

@webmasterdave
The Hedonistic Imperative (HedWeb)
David on Wikipedia

Alene is the President and Founder of Legal Impact for Chickens. She graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for a federal judge and then started litigating for animals. She has worked at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and The Good Food Institute. Alene is licensed to practice law in New York, the District of Columbia, and California. Alene is committed to helping chickens to honor the memories of her two beloved avian family members, Conrad and Zeke.

Alene has a non-religious, naturalistic worldview (with a strong sceptical streak...). She is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

@AleneAnello
@ChickensLegal

@KieraLawley

Peter is a human rights campaigner, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. The Netflix movie, "Hating Peter Tatchell", tells the story of his life and work to date. Peter is an atheist, a humanist and campaigns for sentient animal rights, saying: "human rights and animal rights are two aspects of the same struggle against injustice" and that he advocates for a "claim to be spared suffering and offered inalienable rights" for both humans and animals.

Find his Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast. In our discussion he says: "Maybe there will come a point when Humanism ceases to be - that Humanism evolves into Sentientism. I would like to see that. And I would like to be part of the process that makes that happen."

Peter on Wikipedia
PeterTatchell.net
petertatchellfoundation.org
@PeterTatchell

Myq is a stand-up comedian. He has performed on the Tonight Show, Conan, the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Late Late Show with James Corden, in his own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special, and in his own one-hour special on Netflix and now Amazon, “Small, Dork, and Handsome.” He has been a finalist on Last Comic Standing and recently appeared on America’s Got Talent. His debut album “Vegan Mind Meld” was one of iTunes’ top 10 comedy albums of the year and his latest album, AKA, debuted at #1.
He is vegan and, while having a strong affinity to Buddhist philosophy, has a naturalistic worldview, having described himself as "atheistic".

Myq's Sentientist Conversation with Jamie on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast
@myqkaplan
Myq on Wikipedia
myqkaplan.com

I have a strong view that humans should look out for other creatures that share our planet.
@sapnaramnani

If there is one sentence that could sum up all i am and all i believe it would be ‘respect all and every life, it is the bare minimum, the baseline, the place to start’
@LeomantVictoria

"Even when I was deeply entrenched in the dairy and beef industries for almost two decades before becoming a vegan activist, it was impossible to deny or discount the personalities, emotions and the ability to feel and most of all suffer. We are all animals, we are all equal and none of us should be treated any different or lesser, for not being born the same. Non-human animals need no other purpose or use than to simply be."

Jackie is a former dairy & beef farmer turned full-time animal rights advocate. She is head of communications and a founding board member for the global non-profit, VeganFTA (For The Animals). She co-hosts their podcast and live shows. Jackie is also an author and public speaker.

Jackie has a broadly naturalistic worldview although does have a sense that there may be something spiritual beyond the natural world. She is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

@jackienormanfta

Without evidence why believe a thing?

I'm a Sentientist because I believe in science and morality for the benefit of all sentient beings.

I'm a sentientist because I believe any living being who processes emotion, good or bad, deserves respect and should be treated as equal.
@alice_oven

Marcus is a professional tennis player. He is a philanthropist and an advocate for effective altruism through his work as the founder of High Impact Athletes and as a member of Giving What We Can. He is veg*an and has a naturalistic worldview.

Marcus' Sentientist Conversation with me is here on YouTube and Podcast.

Marcus on Wikipedia
@MarcusDaniell

Jacy is a social scientist and co-founder of the Sentience Institute. His acclaimed book, The End of Animal Farming, analyses the development & popularisation of food technologies such as plant-based & cultivated meat. Jacy's research has been featured in The Guardian, Vox, Forbes, and other global media outlets, and he has presented at conferences and seminars in over 20 countries. He is currently a PhD Fellow at The University of Chicago. He is from Huntsville, Texas and lives in Chicago with his wife Kelly Anthis and their rescued dogs Apollo & Dionysus.

Jacy is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview and is happy to identify as a "Sentientist".

Jacy's Sentientist Conversation with me is on the Sentientism YouTube and podcast.

@jacyanthis
jacyanthis.com
Jacy on Wikipedia

A Bill of Rights for the Age of Artificial Intelligence - We should be concerned about the rights of all sentients as an unprecedented diversity of minds emerges

@geochurch

George Church

A species like ours - without compassion - is what it has become: a pathological, narcissistic, monster. We must change (go vegan!).

Erika on WordPress

I believe that if you can feel than you should be free from harm inflicted by people.

@dre4earth

Why Sentientism? "Because it is morally and ethically the right thing to be."

Ντέμπορα / Deborah on FaceBook
@marthaphoebe64

Why Sentientism?: "It’s a relevant characteristic meaning I should extend moral status and consideration - sentient beings have interests that I take into account. That’s why I’m vegan."

Benny's book "How To Argue With Vegans"
@BennymaloneUK

Sentientism- not only feels right, but actually is one of the most reasonable and convincing concepts I have ever come across

Alex Egorov

No sentient being is above others. I have no right to persecute other beings for food, clothing or vanity. I have freed myself from years of peer pressure, trying to make me do what is wrong.

@vinwelly

Aditya (soytheist.com & @Soytheist) is an animal rights advocate from Assam in India. His @Soytheist YouTube channel focuses on taking a straightforward & rational approach to animal rights, identity politics & occasionally religion & atheism.

He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find his Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube here or Podcast here.

Paul is the author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World. He is the CEO and co-founder of The Better Meat Co. and the host of the Business for Good Podcast. Prior to publishing Clean Meat, he was known for being an animal protection advocate, both as the founder of Animal Outlook (formerly Compassion Over Killing) and a Vice President at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In 2008, Paul was inducted into the Animal Rights Hall of Fame. He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Paul's Sentientist Conversation with Jamie is here on our YouTube and is also on our Sentientism Podcast.

Paul's four Ted Talks
Paul on Wikipedia
paul-shapiro.com
@PaulHShapiro

Because every sentient being deserves to live a life free from unnecessary suffering.

"I'm a Sentientist because it's the most compelling description of my sense of ethics."

Dan is the host of Truth Wanted, a call-in talk show that's part of the Atheist Community of Austin.Truth Wanted focuses on how and why people believe what they believe - and how we can talk about beliefs in more effective ways - whether it’s karma or Christ, Bigfoot or crystals.

Dan is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope. He has a non-religious, "igtheist", naturalistic worldview.

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

@ObjectivelyDan
Dan on Twitch

It’s a perfect description of my ethical and moral approach to life.

Kyle is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University. His research is in social & political philosophy & in animal & environmental ethics. He teaches normative ethics, metaethics, bioethics, business ethics, cyberethics, the philosophy of law, & critical thinking. Kyle is the author of "Wild Animal Ethics - The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering".

Kyle is vegan and has a sentiocentric and naturalistic worldview. He identifies as a Sentientist.

Find Kyle's Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast.

@KyleJohannsen2
Kyle on Academia.edu
Kyle on PhilPeople

If a sentientist is someone who wants to use evidence, reason and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings, I consider myself a sentientist.

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

I found out about Sentientism yesterday! And realize I have been adopting this philosophy and developing my way of life since I was a child. First kindness and respect for all animals leading quickly to vegetarianism, later veganism; early Christianity to atheism at 13. This is the way of relating to and moving within the universe that makes sense and feels ethically comfortable.
Jennifer on Facebook

Flourishing and suffering feel just the same no matter whose mind they are found in.
@tyler_m_john

Jamie's Sentientist Conversation with me is here (YouTube and Podcast versions).
Jamie on FaceBook

Empathy

"... Other things being equal, equally strong interests should count equally."

Heather is a scientist (zoology and biology), philosopher & a former zookeeper & animal welfare officer. She is now a researcher at the London School of Economics specialising in non-human animal sentience, welfare, & ethics.

Find Heather's Sentientist Conversation with me here on Youtube or here on the Sentientism podcast.

@zoophilosophy
heatherbrowning.net

Animals. Health. Planet. Humanity. Future.
@OrangeHealia

@liberiachimprescueprotection

"Nothing is more important than the abolition of suffering in the universe. I believe we can derive meaning and purpose from working to secure our most basic needs and desires, and those of all other sentient beings: to live as long as life is worth living, to avoid suffering, and to pursue our idea of happiness. I created a life philosophy based on this idea: liberationism.org -- and sentientism is in line with this view. With solidarity and unconditional compassion for all fellow sufferers." -- BPE.
brianpellis.net
liberationism.org

*Everything* we care about begins at the conscious subjective experience. It is the case that a subjective experience avoids pain, so it is the case we must seek to avoid it.
@jaron_hall

Sentientism is the best way to work out what's real and what's important.
@LizJService

Carrie Poppy is an American journalist, atheist, vegan, creator, and host of the popular podcast "Oh No! Ross and Carrie" which describes itself as "the show where we don’t just report on spirituality, fringe science and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves." The show itself comes from a skeptical perspective (both hosts are atheists) but also approaches the topics with genuine curiosity, warmth, and interest. She's not a fan of labels, but shares the Sentientist commitments to naturalism and sentiocentrism.

OhNoPodcast.com  and OhNoPodcast on Wikipedia
carriepoppy.horse
@CarriePoppyYES

Self-awareness at the molecular level seems intuitively obvious - the universe is a self-aware entity, studying itself through the experience of “being” in all our various forms.

I'm a sentientist because the collective denial of the suffering of other beings makes us unworthy of our privileged place among the creatures of this planet.

Steve is a philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at California State University, East Bay who specializes in animal ethics, environmental ethics and meta-ethics. He was co-founder in 1985 of the journal Between the Species: A Journal of Ethics and served as its initial co-editor. Steve was a member of the board of the American Philosophical Quarterly (1991–1994). In 1983, Steve founded, with his wife Jeanne, the Hayward Friends of Animals Humane Society. They now operate Second Chance, Helping the Pets of People in Need, in California. Steve wrote Morals, Reason, and Animals, in 1987, Subjective Morals, in 2011, and edited Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat; published in 2004.

Steve has a naturalistic worldview, saying "I don't have a religious bone in my body". He grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.

Find Steve's Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast. We also had an earlier conversation but with a worse quality microphone so I'd suggest you watch that here one on YouTube with the subtitles switched on.

Steve on Wikipedia
stevesapontzis.com

Because I think so hard that the sentientism is the best option for us, mean all sentient beings, This is for short.

Hessenprime on FaceBook

Compassion

"I am a sentientist because I recognise that all sentient beings have a life that can go better and worse for them. This is enough for us to recognise that they matter."

Josh is a moral and political philosopher with research interests in animal ethics, the philosophy of food, liberal and libertarian political theory, and applied ethics. He is a Lecturer in Political Philosophy and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow based in International Relations, Politics and History at Loughborough University. Josh is the author of many articles and books, including "Just Fodder" on the ethics of feeding non-human animals and (to be published in 2023) "Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully". Josh co-hosts the Knowing Animals podcast.

Josh is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope. He is non-religious and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find our Sentientist Conversation on The Sentientism YouTube here or the Sentientism Podcast here.

josh-milburn.com
@JoshLMilburn
@aveganphilosopher

Ethical vegan for over 54 years.

@BevyAllen

@yorkyfreckles

Cameron (cameron@animaladvocacyafrica.org) is the Operations Lead for Animal Advocacy Africa (& @Animal_Africa). Cameron ran his own eCommerce business for several years before pivoting to charity entrepreneurship to have a more extensive & substantial positive impact on the world. Cameron has been involved in the Effective Altruism community for over ten years & went through Charity Entrepreneurship’s 2020 incubation program.

He is vegan, has a sentiocentric, naturalistic worldview and is happy to describe himself as a Sentientist.

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

Because it's sensical.
@Allison23829042

I am a sentientist because I believe sentience is the best, and only, criterion for granting moral consideration. Sentientism has the potential to create a just world for all conscious, feeling beings that call this planet home.
@brenda.de.groot
https://brendadegroot.com

Evidence and reason.

Its the first place to start. It is the basic unit of any ethical system.
Philip on Facebook

@I_run_I_think

Kristof Dhont is a social psychologist & senior lecturer at the university of Kent where he runs SHARKLab (Study of Human InterGroup & Animal Relations​). He is the author of “Why We Love & Exploit Animals“. Kristof is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Kristof's Sentientist Conversation with me is on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast.

@kristof_dhont
SHARKLab at Kent University

AJ is an American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments, including "The Year of Living Biblically". He is an editor at large for Esquire and has worked for the Antioch Daily Ledger and Entertainment Weekly. Jacobs is a member of Giving What We Can and pledges 10% of lifelong earnings to charity. He donates to the Against Malaria Foundation and other Effective Altruism organizations. He is ~vegan and an atheist (raised secular Jewish). He has said "I love the Sentientism philosophy - we should see all sentient beings as our extended family".
My "Sentientist Conversation" interview with AJ on YouTube and on our Sentientism Podcast (also on Anchor)
AJ on Wikipedia
@ajjacobs
ajjacobs.com

@haadalee

Sentientism takes John Rawls's "Veil of Ignorance" to its logical conclusion: creating a world I'd want to live in no matter what form of sentient being I was born.

Why cruelty?

Commitment to scientific morality.

If something can suffer it deserves consideration for its wellbeing

Mikko is a tech start-up founder and CEO (now https://candle.to/​). He founded & is now board chair of Sentient Media – an organisation dedicated to making the world a better place for all sentient beings through journalism.

Mikko's Sentientist Conversation with me on our YouTube and Podcast

All is one and all beings deserve the freedom to flourish.

Acknowledging sentience and the ability to suffer in all beings, is just the first step towards a fair and decent world. We must also do everything we can to prevent that suffering.
@lisanarelle

Richard is a writer, psychologist, and animal rights advocate. He coined the term "speciesism" in 1970 and was one of the first to use the term "Sentientism" in a positive light, after it was first used in a derogatory sense by John Rodman in 1977 to criticise Peter Singer and Richard's thinking.

Richard developed the term sentientism in a naturalistic context – using evidence and reason to infer sentience and to grant moral consideration to sentient beings. Richard still considers himself a Sentientist in this naturalistic context today. He has also developed painism, a sub-set of the sentientist worldview that focuses on the moral importance of pain over that of positive experiences and aims to resolve the tensions between rights and utilitarian approaches.

Richard on Wikipedia

There is no justice for nonhuman animals in a system that ignores Sentientism. I am a Sentientist because all suffering, including all nonhuman animal suffering, deserves moral consideration.
@JulieTaylorfai1

Because reduction of suffering in all sentient beings via science seems like a good goal.
@Maloax1

Carole is a model, actress, singer/songwriter (she wrote "Slow Love" with Prince), writer and animal activist. She has been a contributor for several animal welfare publications including American Dog Magazine, for who she also worked as an investigative journalist. She had an animal welfare column on Newsvine. She is the West Coast Director of the Companion Animal Protection Society, a national non-profit organisation that investigates puppy mills and pet stores. Carole founded the #MeToo movement in France. She is vegan and an atheist. In our "Sentientist Conversation" video she said "Sentientism feels like home".
Sentientist Conversations with Carole (YouTube) #1
Sentientist Conversations with Carole (YouTube) #2
Carole on Wikipedia
Carole on Medium
caroleraphaelledavis.com
@caroleraphaelle

Because suffering sucks

@georgeliot
Marjorie on Facebook

What happens to our fellow sentient creatures, is up to every one of us ! We’re in this together. Let our actions be predicated, inter alia, on the rights & feelings of all sentient creatures!
@NoHolyScripture

Differences don't matter, only sentience does.

The cruel phenomena that is unwarrantedly perpetuated to sentient beings; known as suffering, is the most tragic thing that has ever happened in this universe.

"Sentientism means that we should take into account all and everyone's positive and negative feelings, without arbitrary exceptions. No-one and nothing can consistently or reasonably object to sentientism, because disagreeing with sentientism means having negative feelings about it and believing that those negative feelings should not be arbitrarily excluded from moral considerations."

Stijn is a physicist, economist, animal activist, rational moral philosopher and an Effective Altruist. He co-founded and is president of Effective Altruism Belgium. He's currently researching economics at the university of Leuven.

Stijn on our Sentientist Conversations YouTube and Podcast series - "My enemy, which I will destroy, is arbitrariness!"
@StijnBruers
stijnbruers.wordpress.com

Vicky is Managing Director of The Humane League UK. After working as a veterinary surgeon in the animal agriculture industry she left to focus her career on campaigning for non-human animals. She is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.
Vicky's Sentientist Conversation with me is here on YouTube and here on our Podcast (all platforms!).
@vickybond_THLUK

Lynda is an anthrozoologist, sociologist and philosopher who teaches sociology in Scottish Further Education. She is also a musician, songwriter, writer and artist. Lynda is Editor-in-Chief of the Student Journal of Vegan Sociology. She is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Lynda's Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast.

Lynda's recent paper in the Journal for Critical Animal Studies, "The Peppa Pig Paradox"
@LMKorimboccus
korimboccus.com

I've considered myself a secular Humanist for the past 35 years or so, but at an even younger age, before the double digits, I felt that the injustices to other sentient beings, for example the suffering of laboratory animals for the benefit of humans and the rape of rain forests and indigenous peoples, was and still is a terribly myopic view of our role as part of life on Earth, and a completely unfair imbalance in favor of one species, or nation, at the detriment to all other sentients. I feel it's natural that these two philosophies are part of one way.

As an empath I've always been compassionate to all Sentient Beings. Vegan as I love Animals & Environment.

@CambriaMetallic

@liberanimal

A recipe of science and humanity can create the world we all need.
@SSagawe
Shannon on Instagram

Joe is an author and lecturer at the University of Leicester. His research interests lie in the areas of human rights, animal rights and legal, political and moral theory and he is currently working on issues relating to the moral and legal status of non-human animals.

Joe's Sentientist Conversation with me on YouTube and Podcast

@DrJoeWills
Joe at the University of Leicester

I'm a Sentientist because: ethics.
@JacksoneraMaria

Is an action to promote justice and equality for all sentient beings.

I like to think I spend my time on this planet developing - my intellect, my reason, my compassion. It takes discipline of thought and love to rise above our basic instincts, and I am happy and willing and loving enough to work towards that discipline for the sake of my fellow sentient beings.
Amanda on Wikipedia
@popcornjotter

I selected all sentient perceptual experience as my ultimate ethical value after studying philosophy and completely rebuilding my ethical beliefs without previous dogmas. It came as a result of thoughts that emerged around the being-for-itself concept in Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness book and Peter Singer's work. Consequently I have become an act utilitarian, vegan and an effective altruist. The concept has had a profound impact on my significant long-term decisions. I am confident that the world would be significantly better for everyone if everyone valued sentient experience, maximised positive perceptual experience and minimised negative perceptual experience.

@EthosOpt (Twitter)

@bernardvantonder (Insta)

Mariann is Co-host with Jasmin Singer of the Our Hen House podcast and host of the Animal Law Podcast. She is a lawyer, lecturer, teacher and animal rights activist.

Mariann is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find Mariann's Sentientist Conversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube here and on the Sentientism podcast here.

@marisul

Critical thinking and compassion are both essential for a more nurturing world, and Sentientism brings those two things together.

Paul on Facebook

Because compassion and reason will prevail over injustice.
Sean on Facebook

Aditya is the wild animal suffering outreach coordinator for Animal Ethics. He works in grass-roots animal activism with a variety of organisations. He is studying Animal Protection Law at the National Legal Studies Research Institute in India.

He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find Aditya's Sentientist Conversation with me here on YouTube and here on Podcast.

Use our gift of intellect for the good of all life.

Why Sentientism? Ethically aligned to the idea. I apply strong logical rationale, trying to avoid emotional bias.

Colin on FaceBook

Naomi is the CEO of Best for Britain, the UK's leading non-partisan advocacy group upholding internationalist values. Before her campaigning and political career she worked in the corporate world and chaired a number of voluntary groups. Naomi describes herself as an internationalist, xenophile, humanist, vegan. She co-hosts the Oh God What Now? (formerly Remainiacs) and The Bunker podcasts.
You can watch her Sentientist Conversation with me here on YouTube and listen here on our Podcast.
@pimlicat

Compassion for animals.

I've been a Zen Buddhist since 1974.
@ScottHa85992272

I'm a sentientist because considering the common attribute of sentient beings, that is, the ability to suffer, has lead me to believe that all sentient beings deserve moral consideration.
@willsattnz

I am a Sentientist because of an inner strong compulsion to express my real human nature. The one that acknowledges that we are not the pinnacle of this planet. We are not superior by any means. We are just a part of life's web. And we have the potential to shift from being destructors and conquerors to being nurturers and regenerators. To respect and care for all sentient beings including our own kind.
@Evangel76283187

We are not the superior animal just because we believe it is so. Too few humans acknowledge we are all animals. I am Vegan on their behalf.
@speciesamused

I'm a sentientist because we should not be inflicting, without necessity, great suffering upon others. It is that simple. We should instead try to reduce and minimize the amount of suffering — no matter who is the being who's suffering — through, among other things, cultivating unbounded reason and unlimited compassion.

Gustavo's Freethought Commands YouTube

Suffering is suffering is suffering. Whether human or other sentient being.

I'm a Sentientist because "Compassion and logic".

All sentient beings, including humans, have consciousness and emotions. We are all capable of suffering.

Timothy on FaceBook

I'm a sentientist because there's no better way to understand the universe than using evidence and reason and because our morality should consider any being that can suffer or flourish. @JamieWoodhouse

Because we are more alike than not. I welcome my robot overlords as long as they are nice to my dogs.

I don't believe humans are qualitatively more special than other creatures, except insomuch as we flatter ourselves.

Everything that lives is holy.

See the famous Bentham quote. What matters is can they feel.

@DavidCMcLean1

Sentiocentrism just makes obvious sense.

Roy's YouTube Channel

Sentience is the only logical foundation for ethics.
@JonNugentPhoto1

I give value to beings who are sentient rather than being just alive.

my dad told me about it and i thought yep that sounds like me

I believe in reason and am an animal

@UgandaCenter

Katherine is chief of Science Advancement and Outreach (SAO) at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). SAO aims to change the paradigm of biomedical research by promoting the development and implementation of cutting-edge strategies in biomedical research and training and eliminating the use of animals in experimentation. Katherine earned her bachelor’s degrees in biology and psychology from Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in experimental psychology and cognitive science from the University of California–San Diego. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, she went on to become a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she stayed for eight years. Over the course of her research career, she studied the neural correlates of linguistic, spatial, and memory processes, working with children with early focal brain injury, adults and children with schizophrenia, and individuals with Williams syndrome and related genetic disorders. Katherine has more than 20 years of experience conducting brain and neuroimaging research with humans and is an expert at experimental design and data analysis. She has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and has presented her findings at national and international industry conferences.

Katherine is non-religious, with a broadly naturalistic worldview. She is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

Katherine at SAO
PETA's Research Modernisation Deal
@BooLacey

Compassion and reason the cornerstones of a peaceful and progressive society, and I personally wouldn't mind calling myself a sentientist. However, as a person who dabbles with faith and faith traditions, I have to respect the beliefs of many, which cannot always be backed by reason. As long as people find their peace. 🙂
Urmi's Centre for Interfaith Peace and Dialogue on Facebook
@URM1

No sentient being is on this Earth FOR us, they are here WITH us. Their lives are no less important than ours.

If the Universe is ever to make sense, sense is best served by observation and experimentation. Not by revelation.
@much2croweded

Ethics demand that the strong inflict no harm on those who feel pain and fear. Humans are animals, too.

I think... therefore I am a sentientist.

Salanieta on FaceBook

"For me the question is not 'why care for non-human animals?' but 'why not care for them?' From a Sentientist viewpoint, I think that caring for animals is the only way to build a more humane and moral world for all sentient beings. Evidence, reason and compassion are the tools that the intelligence of the brain and the heart are having to know that animal sentience is as obvious as ours."

Dr Sabine Brels, PhD in international animal law, is legal advisor to the World Federation for Animals. In 2014, she cofounded the Global Animal Law (GAL) Association and led work on the creation and update of the first complete Animal Welfare Legislation Database.

Find Sabine's Sentientist Conversation with me here and on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast.

Lori is Executive Director of The Kimmela Center and Founder & President of The Whale Sanctuary Project. She is a neuroscientist and expert in animal behavior and intelligence, formerly on the faculty of Emory University where she was also a faculty member at the Emory Center for Ethics. She is internationally known for her work on the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins and whales and marine mammal welfare in captivity, as well as cognition in farmed animals through The Someone Project. In 2001 Lori co-authored a ground-breaking study with Diana Reiss offering the first conclusive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, after which she decided against conducting further research with animals held captive in zoos and aquariums.

Lori has published over 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and magazine articles on marine mammal biology and cognition, comparative brain anatomy, self-awareness in nonhuman animals, human-nonhuman animal relationships, and the evolution of intelligence. Lori has appeared in several films and television programs, including the 2013 documentary Blackfish about killer whale captivity; Unlocking the Cage, the 2016 documentary on the Nonhuman Rights Project; Long Gone Wild, the 2019 documentary; and in the upcoming documentary about Corky, the orca held captive by SeaWorld since 1969.

Lori is an atheist & has a naturalistic worldview, saying "I don't see any reason to propose that there's anything supernatural out there". She is vegan & has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

Lori on Wikipedia
Lori on FaceBook
@MarinoLori
The Kimmela Center
The Whale Sanctuary Project

Jay is an award winning filmmaker, writer, and podcaster. He directed Islam and the Future of Tolerance, a film based around a conversation between Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz. He produces and creates a wide range of content, writes on his "What Jay Thinks" blog & hosts the Dilemma podcast (some co-hosted with Coleman Hughes). I had the pleasure of being his guest for a Dilemma Hangout on Sentientism back in 2020.

Jay has a naturalistic worldview. He is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

whatjaythinks.com
Jay on IMDB
@DilemmaPodcast

I am a sentientist because I believe evidence, reason and compassion to all beings is a necessary step to take for a better world.
@CShalendra

All animals think and feel whether an ant or elephant, shark or lobster. We are not outside of the animal kingdom, we are part of it.

Ahimsa- lowest possible suffering for all sentient beings. You explain it very well.

I am an animal rights author, independent scholar, consultant, and speaker. I have 45 years of personal commitment as a vegan and professional experience in leadership positions with some of the world’s foremost animal advocacy organisations. The Kim Stallwood Archive is held by The British Library. I wrote Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate with a Foreword by Brian May (Lantern Books, 2014). I am currently working on the biography of an elephant called Topsy. I became a vegetarian in 1974 after working in a chicken slaughterhouse and a vegan in 1976.

Kim's #SentientistConversation with me on the Sentientism YouTube and Podcast
Kim on Wikipedia
@GrumpyVegan
kimstallwood.com

Not a choice. I’ve experienced a lot of trauma and loss in my life which has made me extremely sensitive to all suffering. I’ve been vegetarian for over a year but eating vegan since summer.

Cebuan (Cebby) is a PhD candidate researching animal and biodiversity governance at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

Find Cebuan's Sentientist Conversation with me here on YouTube and on the Sentientism podcast.

@CebbyBliss
Cebuan at Radboud

@gzed777

Cat founded and leads Vietnam Animal Aid & Rescue. She is also a writer & activist addressing many non-human animal issues.

Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here or the Sentientism Podcast.

@CatBeschVN
Cat on Medium
@vnanimalaid
www.vnanimalaid.org

@juliana_monty

Zion is an author and activist known for her environmental work and science communication. She is UK director of Environmental Progress. She has been a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK on TV and radio, and founded and edited XR's Hourglass newspaper. She has written for The Huffington Post, authored the evidence-based nonfiction book The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting, and given a TEDx talk. She is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.
Zion on our SentientistConversations YouTube series and Sentientism Podcast - "Do you want a habitable planet for your children?"
Zion on Wikipedia
zionlights.co.uk
@ziontree

An entire morality can be constructed out of one princliple - respect for sentient beings - plus all of scientific knowledge.

Vegan for the animals (and the environment and my health); atheist and sceptic because I believe in reason and logic (superstition and mythology has its place - in history and fiction); socialist because I want a decent world for the many and not the few; anti-monarchist because I have no time for undeserved privilege that sits on the backs of those born without a silver spoon in their mouths.
@FrankWinfield4

Every sentient being values their life as I do mine, and I view it as a moral imperative for us to see and respect this similarity.

@DJMissBlueSky

Jenny is Managing Editor of Sentient Media. She is an award-winning journalist & science writer covering food, agriculture, climate change, biodiversity, health & technology. Her work has been published across a wide range of media outlets including Vox, Forbes, Observer, The Washington Post and New York Magazine. Jenny is a co-founder & contributing editor to the science communication project SciMoms. She is also a podcast host on the Animal Studies channel of the New Books Network & her newsletter, FutureFeed, chronicles change in the food system.

Jenny is vegan, has a naturalistic worldview (culturally reform Jewish) and considers herself a Sentientist.

Find Jenny's Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and Sentientism Podcast. Jenny also interviewed me (Jamie Woodhouse) here for her SubStack podcast.

@jennysplitter
jennysplitter.com
futurefeed.substack.com

Why Sentientism? Because every sentient being has the capacity to be harmed, and any being with a capacity to be harmed has a moral right not to be harmed. See my “Demystifying Animal Rights” for details.

Because Humanism isn’t good enough when it tolerates the tremendous moral injustices caused by speciesism today.

I realised it’s not just humans, other beings are individuals too. They think, they feel, they have understanding.
@whynotvegan2

John is a professional animal advocate, public speaker and social media consultant. He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.
Watch John's guest appearance on #SentientistConversations
Listen to John's guest appearance on #SentientistConversations (out soon!)
@JohnOberg
johnoberg.org
Patreon.com/JohnOberg

Peter holds a Canada Research Chair in Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, at Ontario Tech University. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology, where he leads the Trustworthy AI Lab. He co-edited the foundational book, Self-Aware Computing Systems, published by Springer, and is Associate Editor of IEEE Technology & Society Magazine. He has published over 75 papers in academic journals and conference proceedings, and led teams that have worked with dozens of companies in the areas of artificial intelligence, data science, and software development.

Peter has a naturalistic worldview. He is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope. His article "Of Fish and Robots" links his sentiocentrism with his work on artificial intelligence.

Petelewis.com
Peter at the Trustworthy AI Lab
@petelewis

Because all sentient beings are the same in our will to live, and our ability to suffer.

@bindu832

I believe absolutely in Sentientism!

The universe has no obligation to make sense to us or to aid us in our search for and actualization of good. Sentience itself wasn't evolved out of any good will towards us subjects but as an instrument of Nature to keep on replicating. As beings capable of self reflection and radical transformation of our environment, we have the responsibility to use that power to benefit the totality of sentient experience.

Nathaniel's Total Veganic Futurism YouTube

"The reasons we articulate today for animals to have rights, we will need in the future, to convince superintelligent AIs to allow us to keep our rights."
Roman's Sentientist Conversation with Jamie on YouTube and on the Sentientism Podcast
Roman on Wikipedia
Roman on GoogleScholar
@romanyam

I'm a sentientist because i cannot justify ethical isolationism.
@christofglass

I'm a sentientist as excluding anyone's suffering from moral consideration will always be arbitrary. Hence, the interests of all sentient beings deserve equal consideration.

@JosephLabour

Now there is a term for what I've always believed since I was a small child - Sentientism! Yay!

'The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?' Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Alleviating suffering and pain wherever it exists is the most compelling foundation for morality on offer.
@derekwclark

We seem to have developed a different attitude to sentient animals based on their utility (or competition) to humans as written about by Jonathan Foer in 'Some we love, some we hate, some we eat'. Others, as a means of defense, attribute sentience to plants. If we are serious about Humanism, we need to understand that, as rational beings, we have to extend our circle of compassion to those who we exploit including enslaving companion animals for our own enjoyment.
@vegvet
Kevin on FaceBook

I believe that suffering experienced by sentient beings is the greatest "evil" in this world, and I'm committed to doing everything I can to reduce it.

Michael is a writer and activist. He has written, co-written or contributed to seven books and the comedy musical play I, Keano. He has campaigned on many political issues, often with his late wife Anne Holliday, and he is chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland. He is vegan and a Sentientist.
Michael wrote this article on "Why I am a Sentientist".
@micknugent
michaelnugent.com
Michael on Wikipedia

Compassion for and kindness to every sentient creature.

Shaya Ish-Shalom

I am a sentientist because I spend almost all my life observing animals, so I have no doubts about their sentience. My question is: now that evidence from science, reasoning, and feelings show that all beings are sentient, what are we going to do with that truth?
@MonosCorte

Evidence. Reason. Compassion.

I hate bricks

Evidence, reason, and compassion make the most sense as pillars of a life devoted to truth, equality, and happiness. The tragedy is that most people probably agree, but do not realize how their behaviors and thoughts do not actually accord with these principles. I hope to be part of a movement that helps us live lives that more fully embody these principles and end the suffering of all sentient beings.
@AnDreadtheBlind

I am primarily vegan for animal rights, and an atheist because I believe religion to be dangerous and pointless.

@amusic20