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We are Sentientists

Where are sentientists around the world?

Here’s our wall of sentientists. If, like them, you’re committed to evidence and reason and have compassion for all sentient beings, why not join them and add your tile here.

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Stephen Fry

Suspected Sentientist

Stephen is an actor, comedian and writer. He is a prominent secular humanist and atheist and is vegetarian or maybe more recently, vegan.
Stephen on Wikipedia
@stephenfry

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Thandiwe Newton

Suspected Sentientist

Thandiwe is an English actor. She is vegan and an atheist.
Thandiwe on Wikipedia
@thandiwenewton

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Suspected Sentientist

Shelley was one of the major English romantic poets. He was a naturalistic atheist per his pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism” and an advocate of non-violent resistance.
Shelly was an ethical vegan (then called vegetarian). His compassion for sentient beings led him to write: “If the use of animal food be, in consequence, subversive to the peace of human society, how unwarrantable is the injustice and the barbarity which is exercised toward these miserable victims. They are called into existence by human artifice that they may drag out a short and miserable existence of slavery and disease, that their bodies may be mutilated, their social feelings outraged. It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery”; “Never again may blood of bird or beast/ Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,/ To the pure skies in accusation steaming”; and “It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.”
Shelley on Wikipedia

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Rebecca Goldstein

Suspected Sentientist

Rebecca is an atheist and secular humanist who grants moral consideration to all beings capable of suffering (sentient). See this Twitter conversation  and this podcast interview.

Rebecca on Wikipedia
@platobooktour

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Floris van den Berg

Suspected Sentientist

“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

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Stijn Bruers

Suspected Sentientist

“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

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Corey Lee Wrenn

Suspected Sentientist

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

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Peter Singer

Suspected Sentientist

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

Find our first Sentientist conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast. Find our second Sentientist conversation, focusing on Peter’s speaking tour of China and his book “Consider The Turkey” here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.

Peter is often referred to as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.” He was 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 first Sentientism episode together!), 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.

@Peter-Singer on BlueSky
Peter on Instagram
Petersinger.info (including PeterSinger.ai)
Peter’s Bold Reasoning Substack
Peter and Kasia de Lazari Radek’s Lives Well Lived Podcast
Peter on Wikipedia

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Walter Veit

Suspected Sentientist

Watch Walter’s first Sentientist Conversation with me here and his second here (focused on “A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness”) or listen to the podcast versions (episodes 48 and 158) on Apple here or on other platforms here. Find his third Sentientism Conversation, along with his partner Heather Browning, on the Sentientism YouTube here and here on the Sentientism podcast.

Walter is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Philosophy at the University of Reading and an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He works primarily in and at the intersections of (i) the Philosophy of Cognitive and Biological Sciences, (ii) the Philosophy of Mind, and (iii) Applied Ethics. Much of Walter’s recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare, and ethics, as well as evolution. His first monograph A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness integrating this research was published with Routledge. His partner Heather Browning is also a philosopher and a previous Sentientism guest. They recently published their first joint book What Are Zoos For?

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

@wrwveit
walterveit.com

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Michael Dello-Iacovo

Suspected Sentientist

“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

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David Pearce

Suspected Sentientist

“‘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 pharmacologygenetic engineeringnanotechnology 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

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Heather Browning

Suspected Sentientist

Find Heather’s first Sentientism Conversation with me here on Youtube or here on the Sentientism podcast. Find her second Sentientism conversation, along with her partner, philosopher Walter Veit, on the Sentientism YouTube here and here on the Sentientism podcast.

Heather is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. Her primary research interests are animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness. Heather’s latest book is What Are Zoos For? coauthored with Walter Veit. She previously worked as a researcher in animal sentience and welfare at the London School of Economics, as part of the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. There Heather was part of the research team who produced a report for DEFRA reviewing the evidence of sentience in cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans, leading to an amendment of the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act to include their protection. Heather worked for many years as a zookeeper and zoo animal welfare officer, interested in the practical application of animal welfare measurement.

Heather has a naturalistic worldview. She is vegan and has a sentiocentric moral scope.

@zoophilosophy
heatherbrowning.net
Heather on LinkedIn

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Latest work

In the classroom!

I recently gave this presentation (YouTube and podcast links below) to a network of Religious Education (RE) teachers from Northumberland in the UK. It’s aimed at helping teachers bring the […]
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“This great unresolved tension of modern life” – Monica Murphy & Bill Wasik – Sentientism Ep:214

Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy are the authors of "Our Kindred Creatures". A Sentientism conversation about "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?"
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