What is Sentientism?

Sentientism is a simple, potentially unifying, philosophy or worldview. It commits to using evidence and applying reason and grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.

The commitment to evidence and reason means that Sentientism, like secular humanism, rejects supernatural beliefs. Granting moral consideration to all sentient beings (sentients) means sentientists see causing harm or death to a sentient as morally negative.

Sentient beings are those that can experience – both suffering and flourishing.  Sentient beings today include humans and non-human animals – the clear priority. However, sentient beings could potentially include artificial and alien intelligences should we create or encounter them.

If you’d like to dig deeper into what Sentientism is you can read this introductory piece or some published magazine articles on Sentientism here , listen to some the podcasts that have interviews about Sentientism here, watch video interviews here and find some relevant books here.

Please let me know what you think – in comments below or on one of our community groups.

Here’s another piece that compares sentientism to some related philosophies and movements.  Hopefully this helps to clarify why I think it is distinctive and valuable.

This is a short read covering my thoughts re: “Is Humanism good enough” and pointing out where sentientism is an improvement.

There’s a Sentientism Wikipedia page, a Simple English Wikipedia page and an Animawiki one – feel free to help improve them.