These are people who have been nominated as a Suspected Sentientist, but don’t seem to be Sentientist (yet). This is either because they don’t seem to have a naturalistic worldview (committed to evidence and reason, rejecting supernatural beliefs) or because they don’t seem to grant meaningful moral consideration to all sentient beings.
Thank you for nominating people. If you have further input I’d love to hear it in the comments for each person. If you are one of these people, feel free to correct things and post yourself on our Wall of Sentientists!
Find our Sentientist conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.
Natalie Bennett is a politician and journalist who was the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016. She was given a peerage (Baroness in the UK House of Lords) in 2019 and is working to abolish her own post by creating an elected upper legislative chamber. Her journalism in Australia, Thailand and the UK has been published in the Bangkok Post, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and many other newspapers. Her latest book is “Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society“.
Natalie has at least a sentiocentric moral scope with tendencies towards biocentrism and ecocentrism. Natalie is an atheist and has a naturalistic epistemology.
NatalieBennett.org
@NatalieGreenPeer
Natalie’s Change Everything Substack
Natalie on Wikipedia
Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.
Matthew is professor of philosophy at Calvin University and a fellow in the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He wrote Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation and co-edited Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments about the Ethics of Eating (with Andrew Chignell and Terence Cuneo). His latest book, Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan, was published in November 2024.
Matthew teaches and writes on twentieth-century European philosophy and applied ethics (especially animal and food ethics). To support and extend vibrant teaching, scholarship, and public education in animal and food ethics, he founded and convenes the Animals and the Kingdom of God Lecture Series at Calvin College and co-founded and convened the Wake Up Weekend festival. Matthew is also a member of the Philosophy as a Way of Life Network at the University of Notre Dame; a U.S. Observer of the Christian Ethics of Farm Animal Welfare Project at the University of Aberdeen, UK; a member of the board of directors for The Better Food Foundation and CreatureKind; and a member of the board of advisors for Sarx.
Matthew aligns with a Christian reformed epistemology rather than a naturalistic one. He is vegan and has at least a sentiocentric moral scope.
Matthew’s Blog
Matthew at Philpapers.org
Matthew at Calvin
Matthew on LinkedIn
Hungry Beautiful Animals on Instagram
Matthew on FaceBook
Find our Sentientist Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.
Justine is Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada. As an ecologist she studies the mycorrhizal ecology of forests. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Ecology and President of the International Mycorrhiza Society.
Justine has a naturalistic worldview, saying in our conversation “I’m not religious, I don’t believe there’s a god, but I am totally open to being wrong about that.” She tends towards an ecocentric moral scope but recognises the particular moral salience of sentience. She is working on putting that into practice.
Find our Sentientism conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism Podcast here.
Altamush is an animal and environmental law professor. He teaches Pakistan’s 1st Animal Law Advocacy Course and is Founding Managing Partner At Environmental and Animal Rights Consultants, Pakistan’s 1st dedicated Animal and Environmental law and policy firm. Altamush is known for his non-profit work on Interspecies Justice for which he has won multiple awards. He also co-founded the Charity Doings Foundation, a non-profit that aims to save all life, be it human, animal, or the environment in Pakistan. Amongst many other advisory roles he serves as a strategic academic advisor and advocate for Muslim Veganism and Environmentalism at Green Islam.
Altamush is vegan and has, at least, a sentiocentric moral scope. He applies a broadly naturalistic epistemology in his work while having faith-based Islamic beliefs.
@AltamushSaeed
Altamush on LinkedIn
Altamush on Instagram
@earcpakistan
Charitydoings.org
Watch our Sentientism Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and listen on the Sentientism Podcast here.
Noella is a Brooklyn-based freelance culture writer whose writing has appeared in Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, the Washington Post, Vox and elsewhere. Noella’s reporting ranges from Black culture to queer identity to intersectional veganism, internet culture, and more. She describes herself as a “journalist, vegan foodie, pokemon trainer, dj, and abolitionist.” One of her most recent pieces, for Vox, was “I’m a Black vegan. Why don’t you see more of us?”
Noella is vegan and has, at least, a sentiocentric moral scope. She was brought up as a Baptist Christian but is not religious any more, describing herself as agnostic. Although she applies a naturalistic epistemology in most situations she does leave space for non-evidence based supernatural beliefs.
NoellaWilliams.com
All Noella’s links on CampSite
@yonoella
Noella on Insta
I’m a Black vegan. Why don’t you see more of us?
Find our Sentientism Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism podcast here.
Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. With Bill Wasik, editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, she wrote “Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus” which was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Their latest book together, “Our Kindred Creatures” makes a case for seeing the fight against animal cruelty as a crucial thread in America’s history. Readers are introduced to the activists, scientists, and moguls who helped create our modern views on animals, with our intense compassion for certain species and ignorant disregard for others.
Monica has a broadly naturalistic worldview and at least a theoretical sentiocentric moral scope.
Find our Sentientism Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism podcast here.
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. With Monica Murphy, veterinarian and writer, he wrote “Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus” which was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Their latest book together, “Our Kindred Creatures” makes a case for seeing the fight against animal cruelty as a crucial thread in America’s history. Readers are introduced to the activists, scientists, and moguls who helped create our modern views on animals, with our intense compassion for certain species and ignorant disregard for others.
Bill has a broadly naturalistic worldview and at least a theoretical sentiocentric moral scope.
Find our Sentientism Conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and the Sentientism podcast here.
Joel is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans. After completing his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Akron, he was a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama working in environmental education and sustainable development. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Joel was a scholar-in-residence at Wesleyan University in 2013 as the New York University Animal Studies Initiative’s Animal Ethics and Public Policy Fellow. He held visiting assistant professorships at Washington State University and Binghamton University, SUNY, before coming to Loyola. His main areas of research are applied ethics, especially environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science. One of his many academic publications is “Minding Nature: A Defense of a Sentiocentric Approach to Environmental Ethics“.
Joel has a naturalistic worldview and a sentiocentric moral scope.
Find our Sentientism conversation on the Sentientism YouTube here and on the Sentientism podcast here.
Louisa is a Religious Education (RE) Teacher and Head of Life Skills at a school in England. She is host of the RE podcast, an RE Subject reviewer for Oak National, a member of the NATRE (National Association for Teachers of Religious Education) executive committee and the Surrey SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) as well as being a public speaker and author.
Louisa has a broadly naturalistic, agnostic worldview (ex-Catholic and ex-Protestant). She has at least a sentiocentric moral scope.
@TheREPodcast
The RE Podcast
Louisa on Instagram
The RE Podcast on Facebook
Find our Sentientism Conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.
Michael is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. He is also an associate faculty at the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Michael is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms. Michael’s Levin Lab focuses on “Embodied Minds: understanding diverse intelligence in evolved, designed, and hybrid complex systems” and works “at the intersection of developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science”. This work includes the bioengineering of novel living machines and has clinical applications in regenerative medicine. Michael has editing roles at a number of academic journals and has published more than 350 papers.
Michael has a sentiocentric moral scope in concept but not yet in practice. He has a naturalistic worldview.
drmichaellevin.org
thoughtforms.life
@drmichaellevin
Michael on Wikipedia