Close

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.

Read more

Mary Shelley

Suspected Sentientist

Mary was a novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley (also a suspected Sentientist). Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (another suspected Sentientist). Mary was an ethical vegetarian or vegan and seems to have had a naturalistic worldview, generally being considered an agnostic.
Mary on Wikipedia

Read more

Al-Ma’arri

Suspected Sentientist

Al-Ma’arri, also known under his Latin name Abulola Moarrensis (973 – 1057) was a blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer. Despite holding a controversially irreligious worldview, he is regarded as one of the greatest classical Arabic poets. He was a robust naturalist and rationalist and attacked the dogmas and practices of many religions. He was a vegan, known in his time as moral vegetarianism, entreating: “do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals / Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught / for their young”.

Al-Ma’arri on Wikipedia

Read more

Brigid Brophy

Suspected Sentientist

Brigid was a novelist, critic, and campaigner for social reforms, including the rights of authors and animal rights. Her 1965 Sunday Times article is credited by psychologist Richard D. Ryder (another Sentientist) with having triggered the formation of the animal rights movement in England. Brigid was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto and was president of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.

Brigid wrote that she and her father were “natural, logical and happy atheists”. She said: “Reason can always disarm the irrational. If reason finds itself to be irrational, it can disarm it; and if one finds reason and discovers that eating animals is immoral, unnecessary, and done largely for superstitious reasons, then one is delivered from the compulsion to do it.”

Brigid on Wikipedia
brigidbrophy.com

Read more

Michael Woodruff

Suspected Sentientist

Michael is an academic specialising in the philosophy of mind from a naturalistic perspective and in comparative consciousness. He is professor emeritus of Biomedical Sciences, Quillen College of Medicine. Michael has written on sentience as the foundation of animal rights and about the sentience of fish and invertebrates.
Michael’s research papers

Read more

Leilani Munter

Suspected Sentientist

Leilani is a professional racing driver and an activist for animal and environmental causes. She has been vegan since 2011 and seems to have a naturalistic, non-religious worldview.
Leilani on Wikipedia
@LeilaniMunter
Leilani on Instagram

Read more

Ricky Gervais

Suspected Sentientist

Ricky is a comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director. He is an advocate for animal rights and for atheism, secularism and humanism. He is vegan. He has said “It’s awful to think of people eating dogs, but some people eat pork. I don’t, but some people do. And a pig is just like a dog, there is no difference between them.”

Ricky on Wikipedia
@rickygervais

Read more

Madelaine Petsch

Suspected Sentientist

Madelaine is an actress and YouTuber. She is a vegan and is non-religious.
Madelaine on Wikipedia
@madelainepetsch

Read more

Natalie Portman

Suspected Sentientist

Natalie is an actress, filmmaker and activist. She is vegan. She has said “Three times a day I remind myself that I value life and do not want to cause pain to or kill other living beings.” Her views on naturalism are unclear. While culturally Jewish, when asked about the afterlife she has said “I don’t believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it’s the best way to live.”
Natalie on Wikipedia

Read more

Peter Dinklage

Suspected Sentientist

Peter is an actor, producer and animal rights activist. He is an atheist (lapsed Catholic) and a vegan. While working on the “Face Your Food” film, he said: “The images you’re about to see might make you want to turn away, but this is what you pay for every time you buy meat, eggs, and dairy products.”
Peter on Wikipedia

Read more

Élisée Reclus

Suspected Sentientist

Élisée was a renowned French geographer, writer and anarchist. He was an atheist and an ethical vegetarian. He said “The horse and the cow, the rabbit and the cat, the deer and the hare, the pheasant and the lark, please us better as friends than as meat.”
Élisée on Wikipedia

Read more

Benedict Cumberbatch

Suspected Sentientist

Benedict is an actor. He is vegan and, as someone who is “at least philosophically” Buddhist, it is unclear whether he holds supernatural beliefs. He has said “No, I’m quite a rationalist. I’m not superstitious. I think life is too full of natural wonders and logical complexities to worry about illogical things.”
Benedict on Wikipedia

Read more

Liz Ross

Suspected Sentientist

Liz is an activist who co-founded and runs the Vegan Advocacy Initiative. She is vegan and a secular humanist.
@Lizveg

Read more

Angela Davis

Suspected Sentientist

Angela is a political activist, philosopher, academic professor and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and is a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She is the author of over ten books on class, gender, race, and the US prison system.

Angela is vegan, implying a sentiocentric moral scope. She is non-religious, implying a naturalistic epistemology.

Angela on Wikipedia
Angela at UCSC

Read more

Michaela Coel

Suspected Sentientist

Michaela is an actress, screenwriter, director, producer, and singer, best known for creating and starring in “Chewing Gum” and “I May Destroy You”. She is vegan and an atheist (ex-Pentecostal Christian).
Michaela on Wikipedia
@MichaelaCoel

Read more

Robin Quivers

Suspected Sentientist

Robin is a radio personality, author, and actress. She is vegan (she has written a book about her vegan diet) and an atheist.
Robin on Wikipedia
@rqui

Read more

Bryan Adams

Suspected Sentientist

Bryan is a singer, guitarist, composer, record producer, photographer, philanthropist, and activist. He has been vegan since 1989 and is an atheist.
Bryan on Wikipedia
@bryanadams

Read more

Elliot Page

Suspected Sentientist

Elliot is an actor and producer. He is vegan and an atheist.
Elliot on religion: “Religion has always been used for beautiful things, and also as a way to justify discrimination—whether it’s gender, or race, or the LGBT community, or what have you. Personally, I’m an atheist, so I just have no time for it.” (Time).
Elliot on veganism: ““Why are vegans made fun of while the inhumane factory farming process regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit?” (FriendlyFig)
Elliot on Wikipedia
@TheElliotPage

Read more

Hemant Mehta

Suspected Sentientist

Hemant is an author, blogger, and atheist activist. He is either vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons.
Hemant on Wikipedia
@hemantmehta

Read more

Yuval Noah Harari

Suspected Sentientist

Yuval is a public intellectual, a historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is vegan and an atheist (secular Jewish).
He has said: “Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history” and called “[t]he fate of industrially farmed animals […] one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time.”
Yuval on Wikipedia
ynharari.com
@harari_yuval

Read more

Vivienne Westwood

Suspected Sentientist

Vivienne is a fashion designer and businesswoman. She is an atheist and either vegetarian or vegan.
Vivienne on Wikipedia
@FollowWestwood

Read more

Joaquin Phoenix

Suspected Sentientist

Joaquin is an actor, environmentalist, animal rights activist, and producer. He is vegan and an atheist.
Joaquin on Wikipedia

Read more

Rooney Mara

Suspected Sentientist

Rooney is an actress, philanthropist and founder of a vegan clothing business. She is vegan and has been reported to be an atheist.
Rooney on Wikipedia

Read more

Mary Wollstonecraft

Suspected Sentientist

Mary was a writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She was an advocate of non-human animal ethics and was an inspiration for the satire “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Brutes” that argued if women and men can have rights, then why not non-human animals. She was a rationalist and described herself as agnostic in later life.
Mary on Wikipedia
Thank you to @EileenMHunt for this context.

Read more

Jeremy Bentham

Suspected Sentientist

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. He was an atheist and an early advocate for granting moral consideration and rights to non-human animals based on their sentience, not on capacity to reason.

He wrote in 1780: “The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny… The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but, ‘Can they suffer?’”

Bentham on Wikipedia

Read more

Kristen Bell

Suspected Sentientist

Kristen is an actress, singer, producer, and voice actress. She is vegan and a non-religious humanist.
Kristen on Wikipedia
@KristenBell

Read more

Jon Stewart

Suspected Sentientist

Jon is a comedian, writer, producer, director, political commentator, actor, and television host (e.g. The Daily Show). He is non-religious (Jewish heritage) and vegan. He and his wife, Tracey, run a sanctuary for non-human animals saved from slaughterhouses and live markets.
@jonstewart
Jon on Wikipedia

Read more

Peter Tatchell

Suspected Sentientist

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

Read more

James Cameron

Suspected Sentientist

James Cameron is a filmmaker and environmentalist. He is vegan and an atheist.
James on Wikipedia
@JimCameron

Read more

Naomi Smith

Suspected Sentientist

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

Read more

Jose Gonzalez

Suspected Sentientist

Jose Gonzalez is an Argentinian-Swedish musician. He is an atheist, a vegetarian/vegan and an effective altruist.
Jose on Wikipedia
@_JoseGonzalez_

Add my name to the wall!

Strong Testimonials form submission spinner.

Latest work

Seb Alex standing at a lecturn while giving a lecture. He is smiling towards the audience out of shot on the right.

“You can be a victim of oppression and also oppress others” Seb Alex‬ on Sentientism Ep:231

Seb Alex is an animal and human rights activist, as well as a lecturer, photojournalist and author. He is Founder of the Middle East Vegan Society.
More

Sci-fi and Sentientism

Happy belated World Sentientism Day (21st December Solstice), happy end of 2024 and a happy start of 2025 too. I had the pleasure of talking to Joel McKinnon here on […]
More

Peter Singer – Consider The Turkey Then Pardon Them All – Sentientism Ep:218

Peter Singer is considered the world's most influential living philosopher. A Sentientism conversation about his speaking tour in China and his book, "Consider the Turkey".
More

“Collective liberation for all!” – Writer Noella Williams on Sentientism Ep:217

Noella Williams is a freelance culture writer. A Sentientism conversation about what's real, who matters and how to make a better world.
More

Join our mailing list and stay up to date

Sentientism

Handcrafted with ♥ by Cage Undefined