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

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

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

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

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

@juliana_monty

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

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)

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

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

All sentient beings have interests that deserve full and rational consideration

'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

Because it is altruism that makes sense!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Compassion

I believe in reason and am an animal

@UgandaCenter

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

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

"'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

"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

The consideration of others not based on species is virtuous

@ZCelmer

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

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".

Compassion for and kindness to every sentient creature.

Shaya Ish-Shalom

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

@Karrrisa_TD

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

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

Alex Egorov

"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 a moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues in favour of veganism, and his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he argues in favour of donating to help the global poor.

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 and the founder of The Life You Can Save.

@PeterSinger
Petersinger.info
Peter on Wikipedia

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.

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.

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

Differences don't matter, only sentience does.

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

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

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

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

@dylanbraines

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

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

"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

I think... therefore I am a sentientist.

Salanieta on FaceBook

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

"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 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

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

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

"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

*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

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.

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

@beornnmccarthy

LiteraryChange Blog

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

rohinshah.com

Without evidence why believe a thing?

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.

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.

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'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.

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

Sentientism addresses the most important blind spots of Humanism.

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.

Sentience is all that matters.
Cynthia on Facebook

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

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

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.

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.

Principles of humanism extended beyond humans.
@Dan_Ouka_Writes

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

Sentience is the only logical foundation for ethics.
@JonNugentPhoto1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 @EileenHBotting for this context.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@RafaRuizdeLira

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine "Skeptic". Michael is an advocate for naturalism and skepticism. While he has acknowledged that animal farming may come to be looked on by future generations as a moral abomination or holocaust, he continues to purchase and consume animal products.
From this 2016 Salon article: "Michael Shermer, author of 'The Moral Arc,' tweeted, 'Ugh. Watched The Earthlings last night researching moral progress. Feels like moral regress when it comes to animals,' as well as writing an article titled '“Confessions of a Speciesist.' However promising these signs were, sadly he has also admitted, 'No I’m not a vegetarian but think we should expand the moral sphere to include marine mammals and all primates as a good start.'"
Michael on Wikipedia
@michaelshermer
michaelshermer.com

Jeremy is a politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. Jeremy says he is sceptical about having God in his life. He is vegetarian. However, he has denied being an atheist and has compared his environmental concerns to a sort of "spiritualism". This implies he does not have a naturalistic worldview.
Jeremy on Wikipedia
@jeremycorbyn

Carl was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author and science communicator. He had a robustly naturalistic worldview. He said: “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking."
He counselled against anthropocentrism (centring too strongly on the human species). He called on humans “to extend our ethical perspectives downward through the taxa on Earth and upwards to extraterrestrial organisms, if they exist.”However, he was not vegan or even vegetarian, implying that, in practical terms, he didn't extend meaningful moral consideration to sentient farmed animals.
Article: "Sciences vast cosmic perspective eludes religion"
Carl on Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

Sam is an author, neuroscientist, and podcast host. Sam's book, The Moral Landscape, sets out a naturalistic ethics that is largely consistent with Sentientism, in that it grants moral consideration to conscious non-human as well as human beings. However, despite experimenting with vegetarianism and veganism, Sam continues to buy and consume products made from sentient beings, implying he doesn't personally grant them meaningful moral consideration. He is a vocal atheist and naturalist.
Sam on Wikipedia
@SamHarrisOrg

Richard is an ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. He is a vocal atheist and naturalist. He grants moral consideration to sentient non-humans in principle and hopes for a vegan world, as you can hear in these discussions (with Sentientist Peter Singer and in this talk). However, in practice he continues to buy and consume sentient animal products. The Center for Inquiry, where Richard is a founding board member, published this article about Sentientism in their Free Inquiry magazine.
Richard on Wikipedia
@RichardDawkins

Alex O'Connor, also known as CosmicSkeptic, is a YouTuber, writer and podcaster. He speaks and writes regularly about his atheism and used to speak and write about his veganism.

In this video clip he says: "I don't like calling myself a Humanist for the rather controversial reason of not thinking that we should just put humans at the basis of our ethic and morality... I would call myself a subscriber of... there's this new term going around... Sentientism" but says "if it wasn't such a terrible term that just doesn't roll off the tongue and has no wit about it - then maybe I'd call myself one... there needs to be a better word for that."

Since then he has resumed his consumption of products made from sentient animals so seems to have withdrawn his practical moral consideration from many sentient beings. He remains opposed to "factory farming".

@CosmicSkeptic
CosmicSkeptic YouTube

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

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

Jonathan is a novelist who teaches creative writing at New York University. He is known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Here I Am. His non-fiction books, Eating Animals and We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast describe his personal exploration of the ethical and environmental horrors of animal farming. Eating Animals was reviewed favourably by Sentientist Peter Singer. Eating Animals was adapted into a 2018 documentary film of the same name. It was co-narrated by Jonathan and Natalie Portman (also a Suspected Sentientist). Jonathan seems to have a naturalistic worldview, being described as Jewish agnostic.
Jonathan on Wikipedia

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

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

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

Because an unexamined life, is not worth living.

Joel is Managing Director of the Centre for International and Security Affairs (CISA), a think tank and consulting organisation working to improve international relations and foreign policy capability in Africa. He is vegan and a humanist.
@JoelOkwemba
joelokwemba.com

Greta is an environmental activist who has gained international recognition for promoting the view that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change. Her views on naturalism/supernaturalism aren't clear, but she seems committed to a science-led approach. She is vegan.
Greta on Wikipedia
@GretaThunberg

Deborah is a businesswoman who ran a multimillion-pound family holiday business, before completing a management buyout, but is now best known for her appearances on the BBC Two business programme Dragons' Den. She supports a range of charitable initiatives spanning human and non-human animal causes. She is ~vegan and an atheist.
Deborah on Wikipedia
@DeborahMeaden

Cory is a politician, attorney and author who has served as the junior United States Senator from New Jersey since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Cory is the first African-American U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Cory is vegan and a vocal political advocate for non-human animals. The Humane Society gave him a 100% 2019 scorecard for his positions. He is sponsoring the Farm System Reform Act which aims to restrict factory farming in the U.S. Cory is a Baptist Christian but his personal ethics and policy approach seems largely naturalistic and compassionate.
Cory on Wikipedia
booker.senate.gov
@CoryBooker

Tom is a musician, singer, songwriter, actor, and political activist (including advocacy for non-human animal rights). He is best known for his tenure with the rock band Rage Against the Machine and then with Audioslave. Tom is either vegan or vegetarian and seems to be non-religious.
Tom on Wikipedia
@tmorello

Stevan is a Hungarian-born cognitive scientist based in Montréal, Canada. His research interests are in cognitive science, open access and animal sentience. Stevan is currently Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal Animal Sentience. He is an activist for non-human animals and is vegan. He has a naturalistic, non-religious worldview.
Stevan on Wikipedia
SkyWritings
@amsciforum

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

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

Love Our Mother on Instagram
@LoveOurMother1

Alice is a biological anthropologist, biologist, television presenter and author. Since 2012 she has been Professor of the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham. Since 2019, she has been President of the charity Humanists UK, which campaigns for "a tolerant world where rational thinking and kindness prevail". Alice does show concern for sentient non-human animals and seems to be working on removing them from her consumption (no meat, but does eat fish, eggs and dairy).
Alice on Wikipedia
@theAliceRoberts
alice-roberts.co.uk

Lucius is a postdoctoral researcher in moral psychology at Harvard University. His research focuses on investigating how people give to charity, how they morally value animals, and how they think about the future of humanity. He co-founded and directed the Effective Altruism Foundation (Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus) and remains an advisor for the foundation. He has a naturalistic worldview. A central focus of his work is countering speciesism and on helping humans extend their moral consideration to other sentient beings.
@LuciusCaviola
luciuscaviola.com

Adam is a geneticist, author and broadcaster. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal Nature for a decade, and is a frequent contributor to the newspaper The Guardian. He hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science, has produced several science documentaries and has published books related to genetics and the origin of life. He is an atheist and a humanist. He describes himself as vegetarian.
Adam on Wikipedia
@AdamRutherford

Woody is an actor and playwright. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. He has rejected the Christian faith he was brought up with but it's unclear whether he still holds some supernatural beliefs. He has said: "I was getting into theology and studying the roots of the Bible, but then I started to discover the man-made nature of it. I started seeing things that made me ask 'Is God really speaking through this instrument?' My eyes opened to the reality of the bible being just a document to control people." He is vegan.
Woody on Wikipedia
@WoodyHarrelson

Jasmin is an animal rights activist, writer, speaker and actress. She is vegan and describes herself as an atheist. She is the co-founder of the non-profit organization Our Hen House and has been the senior editor of VegNews since 2016. She also supports LGBTQ+ and overlapping social justice issues.
Jasmin on Wikipedia
jasminsinger.com
@jasmin_singer

Rachel is a multi-award winning writer, podcast host and media consultant. Her memoir, "Open - An Uncensored Memoir Of Love, Liberation, And Non-Monogomy" was published in 2022. She is on the advisory board for Sentient Media and the board of directors of Our Hen House. Rachel does nonprofit media consulting, especially for vegan organizations and brands.

Rachel is vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

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

@RachelKrantz
racheljkrantz.com

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)

Sentimental towards Pets.
@Mahi_773

Commitment to scientific morality.

Brian is Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and a Research Fellow in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. His work is cross-disciplinary, following training in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, history and sociology of science and medicine, and ethics. He has written extensively on resisting religious justifications for causing harm - particularly to children through genital mutilation / circumcision. He wrote the book "Love Drugs" with Julian Savulescu. In his spare time he is a professional actor and singer.

He seems to be ~vegan and have a naturalistic, non-religious worldview.

You can find Brian's Sentientist Conversation with me here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism podcast.

Brian on Academia.edu
@briandavidearp
Brian on YouTube
Brian on Wikipedia

Chris is a naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, best known for his television work including the CBBC children's nature series The Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995. He has also presented the BBC nature series Springwatch, including Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, since 2009. He is a Humanist and announced his veganism during his 2020 Darwin Day Lecture, hosted by Humanists UK.
Chris on Wikipedia
chrispackham.co.uk
@ChrisGPackham

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

Steve is a cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature  argues that violence in human societies has generally declined over time. Enlightenment Now  uses social science data to show a general improvement of the human condition over recent history. Steve is a Humanist who is also comfortable also identifying as a Sentientist given he grants moral consideration to all sentient beings. He doesn't yet seem to have applied that stance to his consumption decisions.

The closing paragraph of Enlightenment Now includes the phrase "The story belongs... to any sentient creature with the power of reason and the urge to persist in its being." The book analyses the decline in "animal cruelty" as a sign of progress yet largely ignores the clearly anti-progress story of the rapid, relentless growth of animal farming. Maybe the next edition will be titled: "Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Sentientism, and Progress"?

Steve on Wikipedia
@sapinker
stevenpinker.com
Steve in conversation with suspected Sentientist Stephen Fry, where he says: "To treat other people and ultimately other sentient creatures as equivalent in interests to my own."

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

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

Jann is a singer-songwriter, actress and author. She is vegan, campaigns against animal cruelty and seems to have a naturalistic, non-religious worldview.
Jann on Wikipedia
jannarden.com
@jannarden

Siân is a politician who has served as Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales since 2018. She currently is a member of the London Assembly and the only Green Party councillor on Camden Council, representing Highgate. While she has substantially reduced her consumption of animal products, she does eat meat occasionally. She is a Humanist and a patron of Humanists UK.
Siân on Wikipedia
@sianberry

Leslie is a public speaker and philosopher. While studying philosophy and the history of religions at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, he received the David Hume prize for outstanding achievement in philosophy. He created and runs Rational Realm, which hosts writing by Leslie and other authors taking a rational approach to philosophy, history and science. He is a Humanist and has written popular articles and academic papers (for example, Animal Rights and the Wrongness of Killing) about how a naturalistic worldview should lead us to grant moral consideration to other sentient beings.
@leslieallan
Leslie at RationalRealm

Donald was an animal rights advocate who founded the Vegan Society in 1944. In the same year, Donald and his wife, Dorothy, coined the word 'vegan' from the first three and last two letters of 'vegetarian'. Donald described himself in this interview as agnostic, saying, "I've never been clever enough to be an atheist - an agnostic, yes." He died in 2005 at the age of 95.
Donald on Wikipedia

Amanda is an actress. She was born in Adelaide, South Australia and spent her childhood in Papua New Guinea before moving to Britain. A longstanding member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she received an Olivier Award for her role as Emilia in the 2004 RSC production of Othello. She won the Clarence Derwent Award in 2007. Amanda is vegan, has a naturalistic world view and identifies as a Sentientist. Here she is on our "Wall"!
Amanda on Wikipedia
@popcornjotter

Jim is a theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on BBC radio and television, including The Life Scientific. In 2014, he was named as a RISE (Recognising Inspirational Scientists and Engineers) leader by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). He is not vegetarian or vegan. He was President of the British Humanist Association between January 2013 and January 2016.
@jimalkhalili
jimal-khalili.com

Brian is a musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and astrophysicist. He is the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He is vegan. He has described himself as an agnostic, but has also said that, at times, be believes that some sort of a god does exist.
Brian on Wikipedia
@DrBrianMay
brianmay.com

Because it's sensical.
@Allison23829042

Optimus Prime is a fictional character created by the Transformers franchise. He is a Cybertronian, a fictional extraterrestrial species of sentient self-configuring modular robotic lifeforms (e.g.: cars and other objects), a synergistic blend of biological evolution and technological engineering. In almost every version of the mythos, Optimus is the leader of the Autobots, a faction of Transformers who are rivals of the Decepticons, another faction. He is defined by his strong moral character. He seems to have a naturalistic worldview and has said "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings".
Optimus on Wikipedia

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

Gary is a musician from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a guitarist, the bandleader, and the main songwriter for thrash metal band Exodus and was a member of Slayer from 2011 to 2019. He is vegan and an atheist.
Gary on Wikipedia
@garyholt_official

A.C. or Anthony is a philosopher and author. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He frequently appears in British media discussing philosophy and public affairs.

Anthony is the author of over 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights and ethics, including The Future of Moral Values (1997), What Is Good? (2000), The Meaning of Things (2001), The Good Book (2011), The God Argument (2013), The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind (2016) and Democracy and its Crises (2017). He was a trustee of the London Library and a fellow of the World Economic Forum, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.

Anthony has a naturalistic worldview. He is a vice-president of Humanists UK and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

Anthony has been vegetarian since around 1980, saying in this interview "The kinds of animals that people eat – cows, chicken, sheep and so on – are capable of fear and suffering, and experiences of pleasure. They’re sentient to that extent, and I don’t think there’s any argument about that. There is an argument about fish, and certainly an even bigger argument with shellfish, about whether they’re having a pleasant time or can be afraid or suffer – but I’m rather inclined to draw the line well beyond where it might need to be drawn, just on as-it-were safety’s sake. I can eat healthily, pleasantly and well, and enjoy myself without being involved in too much killing of sentient beings capable of suffering and fear. Now, I wear leather shoes and a leather belt and people point out this is inconsistent, and I tell them they are right. Moreover vegetarianism is actually an illogical position, because if you actually were going to take all this very seriously you should really be a vegan, but I find veganism takes up time and thought and attention and is a bit of a struggle, and there are other things to do with one’s life – so being a vegetarian is really a halfway house where you’re personally self-minimising the involvement you have in factory farming – in the slaughter of sentient beings."

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

A.C. Grayling on Wikipedia
acgrayling.com
@acgrayling

Architects are a British metalcore band from Brighton, East Sussex, formed in 2004 by twin brothers Dan and Tom Searle. The band now consists of Dan Searle on drums, Alex Dean on bass guitar, Sam Carter on vocals, and Adam Christianson and Josh Middleton on guitars. They have been signed to Epitaph Records since 2013. The band members are vegan and atheist.
Architects on Wikipedia
architectsofficial.com
@Architectsuk

Theophrastus (~371 – ~287 BCE) , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was vegetarian or vegan, on the grounds that farming animals robs them of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do.  He seems to have had a naturalistic worldview. He doubted the idea of a spirit independent of organic activity, although stopped short of completely rejecting it.
Theophrastus on Wikipedia

Strato (~335 – ~269 BCE) was a Peripatetic philosopher, and the third director of the Lyceum after the death of Theophrastus. He devoted himself especially to the study of natural science, and increased the naturalistic elements in Aristotle's thought to such an extent that he denied the need for an active god to construct the universe preferring to place the government of the universe in the unconscious force of nature alone. He wrote three books relating to animals but his stance on the moral salience of sentience is unclear. He may well have been vegetarian/vegan given the philosophy of Theophrastus, his predecessor, and others in the Peripatetic and Pythagorean traditions.
Strato of Lampsacus on Wikipedia

?

@sarah_boka

Henry was a writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of non-human animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian/vegan, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist.  Salt is considered, by some, to be the "father of animal rights," having been an early writer to argue explicitly in favour of the topic, in his "Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress" (1892).

He wrote: "[The] notion of the life of an animal having 'no moral purpose,' belongs to a class of ideas which cannot possibly be accepted by the advanced humanitarian thought of the present day—it is a purely arbitrary assumption, at variance with our best instincts, at variance with our best science, and absolutely fatal (if the subject be clearly thought out) to any full realization of animals' rights."

Henry also wrote extensively on his rationalism and naturalism, saying: "Religion has never befriended the cause of humaneness. Its monstrous doctrine of eternal punishment and the torture of the damned underlies much of the barbarity with which man has treated man; and the deep division imagined by the Church between the human being, with his immortal soul, and the soulless “beasts”, has been responsible for an incalculable sum of cruelty."

Henry on Wikipedia
henrysalt.co.uk
Thanks to @maddyogoodall for the suggestion.

Because and effect!
David on FaceBook
@daftguru

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

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

Yves is a philosopher, essayist and editor. He is a libertarian, an egalitarian and an antispeciesist activist. He is one of the founding members of the French-language journal Cahiers antispécistes ("Antispeciesist Notebooks") and of the events Veggie Pride, Les Estivales de la question animale ("The Summers of the Animal Question") and the march to close all slaughterhouses.
Yves is an atheist who is critical of humanism, describing it as a form of elitism. He is a hedonistic utilitarian, who advocates placing sentient individuals at the center of moral concern because they have desires, perceptions, emotions and a will of their own. Yves was influenced by Peter Singer's Animal Liberation and is a supporter of Singer's conception of speciesism, seeing it as instrumental in deconstructing anthropocentric morality.
Essay by Yves on Speciesism, Humanism and Sentientism
Documentary Interview with Yves (en Francais)
Yves on Wikipedia
yves-bonnardel.info
@yvbonn

David is a philosopher and antispeciesist activist. He is founder of the French journal Cahiers antispécistes ("Antispeciesist Notebooks"), the annual event Veggie Pride and of the annual meeting Les Estivales de la question animale ("The Summers of the Animal Question"). Olivier is also the creator of the term "veggiephobia" and of numerous articles and conferences. He is an atheist. He is an advocate of utilitarian ethics and defines himself politically as a progressive.
david.olivier.name
@David_Olivier_
David on Wikipedia

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

Michael is an actor and voice actor. He is best known for his role as Worf in the Star Trek franchise. He is vegan and seems to have a non-religious worldview.
Michael on Wikipedia
@akaworf
Thanks to @cgbessellieu for nominating!

Massimo is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. He co-hosted the Rationally Speaking Podcast, and was editor in chief for the online magazine Scientia Salon. He is an outspoken critic of pseudoscience and creationism and an advocate for secularism, science education and Stoicism.

Massimo argues that people, particularly Stoics, should be either vegetarian or vegan. Personally, he remains vegetarian. He says: "I’m going to redouble my personal efforts to follow this path and further reduce my intake of other [sentient animal] foodstuff. I hope you will join me, to reduce both suffering in the world and our carbon footprint as a species. And Seneca adds, you’ll also feel better and think more clearly."

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

Massimo on Wikipedia
massimopigliucci.com
@mpigliucci

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

@haadalee

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

Sentientism for justice and equality.
@MelloDinossauro

"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

Kat Dennings (Katherine Victoria Litwack), is an actress. She is known for starring as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls and as Darcy Lewis in the Marvel superhero films Thor and Thor: The Dark World. Since making her acting debut in 2000, Dennings has appeared in films including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Big Momma's House 2, Charlie Bartlett, The House Bunny, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Defendor, and Suburban Gothic.
Kat seems to have a naturalistic worldview, having said that Judaism "is an important part of my history, but, as a whole, religion is not a part of my life." In late 2020 she said she was adopting a plant-based diet, although primarily for environmental rather than ethical reasons.
Kat on Wikipedia
katdennings.com
@katdenningsss
@OfficialKat

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

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

Charles Darwin was a naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science.
While he seemed to recognise the moral worth of sentient non-humans, there seems to be little basis to the suggestion that he was vegan or vegetarian, but his great-great grandson is confident he'd be vegan if he was alive today. Darwin had a naturalistic worldview and considered himself agnostic.
He said: "We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.", "There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties ... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind", and "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."
Darwin on Wikipedia

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

Matt is a novelist and journalist. He has written both fiction and non-fiction for children and adults, often in the speculative fiction genre. He is vegan and describes himself as both an atheist and a humanist.
Matt on Wikipedia
matthaig.com
@matthaig1

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

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

Sean is a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. He is a research professor at the California Institute of Technology Department of Physics. He has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, and has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. He has appeared on the History Channel's The Universe, Science Channel's Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, Closer to Truth and Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Carroll is the author of Spacetime And Geometry, a graduate-level textbook in general relativity, and has also recorded lectures for The Great Courses on cosmology, the physics of time, and the Higgs boson. He is also the author of four popular books. He began a podcast in 2018 called Mindscape, in which he interviews other experts and intellectuals on a variety of science-related topics.

Sean is an atheist and describes himself as a "poetic naturalist". While he does recognise that needlessly causing suffering to sentient beings is morally negative, he considers it acceptable to kill a sentient being without causing suffering if we think it lacks an ability to plan for or conceive of its own future. He uses this perspective to justify his continued use of animal products although remains open minded on the topic.
Sean on Wikipedia
preposterousuniverse.com
@seanmcarroll

Alex is an American animal rights activist, Holocaust survivor, and co-founder and president of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), the nation's oldest (1976) organization devoted exclusively to promoting the rights of animals not to be raised for food. He has played a prominent role in movements for religious freedom and environmental quality, including a term serving on the board of the American Humanist Association.
He has said: "My first hand experience with animal farming was instrumental [in devoting my life to animal rights and veganism]. I noted the many similarities between how the Nazis treated us and how we treat animals, especially those raised for food. Among these are the use of cattle cars for transport and crude wood crates for housing, the cruel treatment and deception about impending slaughter, the processing efficiency and emotional detachments of the perpetrators, and the piles of assorted body parts - mute testimonials to the victims they were once a part of."
Alex on YouTube talking to Alex O'Connor (CosmicSkeptic) - also a Suspected Sentientist.
@AlexHershaft
Alex on Wikipedia
theveganblog.org
neveragain.global

All of us & this planet.
@runsthruit

Kerry is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East since 2005. On World Vegan Day in November 2011, McCarthy became the first British MP to set out in Parliament the case for becoming vegan. She is a vice-president of the League Against Cruel Sports and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society. She is an atheist.
Kerry on Wikipedia
kerrymccarthy.wordpress.com
@KerryMP

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

Jim is a lawyer, journalist and animal rights activist. He was introduced to philosopher Peter Singer in 1974. Their book Animal Factories was first published in 1980 and revised in 1990. It provides a critical review and photographic documentation of factory farming practices in North America. Jim was elected to the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2001. He is a vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview. He criticises the dominionism often present in supernatural and religious thinking, saying "Dominionism is the worldview or belief held by one species that it has a divine right to use animals and everything else in the living world for its own benefit." He has said "Drop the mysticism and the phony irrelevant stories and recognize reality. Biology. We are animals who evolved from other animals who evolved into our animal cousins. Science. Biology. Reality please."
Jim on Wikipedia
jimmason.website

Henry was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philosophy for his utilitarian treatise The Methods of Ethics. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society and promoted the higher education of women. His work in economics has also had a lasting influence. In 1875 he co-founded Newnham College, a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Newnham College's co-founder was Millicent Garrett Fawcett. In The Methods of Ethics he granted moral consideration to sentient beings, not just to humans. The term "sentient" appears 47 times in the text.

Henry had a lifelong interest in the paranormal. Despite his role in institutionalizing parapsychology as a discipline, apparently he had upon it an “overwhelmingly negative, destructive effect, akin to that of recent debunkers of parapsychology”. He and his Sidgwick Group associates became notable for exposing fraud mediums. While he was brought up in the Church of England by a Reverend father, he turned away from the church and was later agnostic. Much of his ethical work focused on developing foundations for morality that did not require any supernatural basis.
Henry on Wikipedia

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

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

Peter is an actor known primarily for his roles in television shows such as Big Breadwinner Hog, Prince Regent, Ever Decreasing Circles and Downton Abbey.
Peter is a longtime animal lover and vegan. Starting in 2010, he began to campaign publicly on behalf of animal rights. He works with animal advocacy organisations and sanctuaries in Asia, Bosnia and the UK. He describes himself as a "lapsed Roman Catholic" with a personal morality centred on compassion.
Peter on Wikipedia
@PeterEgan6

"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

@I_run_I_think

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

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

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.

Why not?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Christine is a philosopher and Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Her main scholarly interests are in moral philosophy and its history; the relation of issues in moral philosophy to issues in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the theory of personal identity; the theory of personal relationships; and in normativity in general. She has a naturalistic worldview and is vegan. Christine wrote Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to Other Animals which argues that Kantian ethics supports animal rights. She has said: "it is right to think that the real source of all value in the world lies in people and animals."

Christine at Harvard
Christine on Wikipedia

George was a lawyer, politician, cricketer, and an advocate of the Shakespeare authorship question. He chaired the first meeting of the Secular Education League, wrote a book on rationalism called "The Faith of an Agnostic" and was a well known animal welfare advocate. This "brief biography" includes a memory from his daughter, Elsie, that he died half way through writing a letter about animal welfare.
George on Wikipedia
Thanks to Maddy Goodall from Humanists UK for this suggestion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

James was a philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights. His best-known work is The Elements of Moral Philosophy. James wrote a number of papers defending moral veg*anism. His best known paper on the subject was The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism which argued that it is wrong to cause pain unless there is a good enough reason and that wishing to consume animal products does not come close to justifying the cruelty of animal farming. James argued that the primary reason why cruelty to animals is wrong is because tortured animals suffer, just as tortured humans suffer. James was an atheist and had a naturalistic worldview.
jamesrachels.org
James on Wikipedia

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

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

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

Suffering is the most important moral issue.
@erniebornheimer

"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

Ziya is a television presenter, producer, author and board member. She was the co-host of Discovery Channel's long-running primetime science magazine, Daily Planet. In 2019 she wrote the book "The Reality Bubble". Ziya serves on the boards of a range of NGOs and charities, including PEN Canada, We Animals Media and WWF International.
She seems to be vegan and to has a broadly naturalistic worldview - while seeing science as only one way of accruing evidence about reality.

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

@ziyatong
Ziya on Wikipedia
ziyatong.com

Rebecca is a philosophy researcher at the University of Oxford, specialising in political philosophy and migration. Her current research focuses on the political rights of refugees in various settings and the concept of 'membership' in political and social theory. Rebecca is also interested in migration studies, the history of political thought, non-human animals and feminist philosophy/political theory. Rebecca co-edited "The Philosopher Queens", a 2020 book about women philosophers by women philosophers.
Rebecca is vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.
@RebeccaBuxton
rebeccabuxton.com

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

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

Billie is a singer-songwriter. Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, two Guinness World Records, three MTV Video Music Awards, and one Brit Award. She is the youngest person and the second in history to win the four main Grammy categories—Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year—in the same year.
Billie is a regular advocate on social media for animal rights and veganism. In 2019, she won a PETA "Best Voice for Animals" award for her activism.
While she was "super-religous" as a child, she says in this article "And then at one point, I don't know what happened. It just completely went away." She now seems to have an agnostic/atheistic worldview.
@billieeilish
Billie on Wikipedia
Billie on YouTube
billieeilish.com

@KieraLawley

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

Lawrence "Kris" Parker, better known by his stage name KRS-One, an abbreviation of "Knowledge Reigning Supreme Over Nearly Everyone", and Teacha, is a rapper and producer. He rose to prominence as part of the hip hop group Boogie Down Productions, which he formed with DJ Scott La Rock in the mid-1980s. KRS-One is best known for his hits "Sound of da Police", "Love's Gonna Get'cha (Material Love)", and "My Philosophy". Boogie Down Productions received numerous awards and critical acclaim in their early years.
KRS-One is politically active, having started the Stop the Violence Movement. He's also a vegan activist, as expressed in songs such as "Beef":

"So just before it dies, it cries
In the slaughterhouse full of germs and flies
Off with the head, they pack it, drain it, and cart it
And there it is, in your local supermarket"

While KRS-One has turned away from traditional religions he doesn't have a naturalistic worldview. Referring to his book, The Gospel of Hip Hop, he has said: "this book will be a new religion on the earth ... I think I have the authority to approach God directly, I don't have to go through any religion..."

KRS-One on Wikipedia

Khnum Muata Ibomu, better known by his stage name stic.man, is a rapper, activist and author known for his work as one half of the political hip-hop duo Dead Prez with M-1. He is vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview. The Dead Prez song "Propoganda" includes the lyric: "Man made God, outta ignorance and fear."
stic.man on Wikipedia

Marcus Jamal Hopson, known professionally as Hopsin, is a rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, music video director and actor from Los Angeles, California.

He follows a straight edge lifestyle which often implies a serious stance re: non-human animal ethics, including veganism. He seems to have a naturalistic worldview, having left Christianity and not believing in a god - although still saying "I want god to be real".

@hopsin
Hopsin on Wikipedia

Ezra is a American journalist, political analyst, New York Times columnist, and the host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast. He is a co-founder of Vox and formerly served as the website's editor-at-large. He has held editorial positions at The Washington Post and The American Prospect and was a regular contributor to Bloomberg News and MSNBC. His first book, Why We're Polarized, was published in 2020.

Ezra is ~vegan and has published on the ethics of animal farming. He has described himself as an agnostic and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Ezra on Wikipedia
@ezraklein

James Timothy "Tim" Holland Jr., better known by his stage name Sole, is an underground hip hop artist from Portland, Maine. He is one of eight co-founders of the record label Anticon. He has been a member of the groups Northern Exposure, Live Poets, Deep Puddle Dynamics, So-Called Artists, Da Babylonianz, Sole and the Skyrider Band and Waco Boyz. While living in Denver, Sole was active in the local outpost of the Occupy Wall Street political movement. He has been involved in various anarchist projects and he hosts a podcast about revolutionary politics and radical philosophy called "The Solecast."

Sole is vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

@mcsole
soleone.org
Sole on Wikipedia

Empathy

It just makes sense!
@williford_teri

"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

Because suffering sucks

@georgeliot
Marjorie on Facebook

Richard (Dick) Claxton Gregory was a comedian, civil rights and animal rights and vegan activist. Gregory became popular among the African-American communities in the southern United States with his "no-holds-barred" sets, poking fun at the bigotry and racism in the United States. In 1961 he became a staple in comedy clubs, appeared on national television and released comedy record albums. Gregory was at the forefront of political activism in the 1960s, when he protested against the Vietnam War and racial injustice. He was arrested multiple times and went on many hunger strikes. He later became a speaker and author. He said: " Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it."

While he was described as a religious skeptic, it doesn't seem that he held a naturalistic worldview. He said "I am god, you are god." He often talked of spirituality and supported a number of poorly-evidenced conspiracy theories.

Dick on Wikipedia

Fiona on FaceBook

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

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

Christopher "Soul" Eubanks is a public speaker, author, musician, photographer, animal rights activist and the founder of Apex Advocacy. He is vegan and has said he is no longer religious - although it's not clear whether he has a more broadly naturalistic worldview.

@soul_eubanks
souleubanks.com
apexadvocacy.org

Colleen on Instagram

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

@aokellermann

Susan is a writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known for her book The Meme Machine. She has written or contributed to over 40 books and 60 scholarly articles and is a contributor to The Guardian newspaper in the UK.

She has a naturalistic worldview and is a patron of Humanists UK. In this article, she recognises the strong evidence that many non-human animals are capable of experiencing suffering, but refers to "vegetarians" in the third person, saying "Many people become vegetarians because of the way farm animals are treated".

Susan on Wikipedia
Susan at Humanists UK
susanblackmore.uk

Love the belief that ALL sentient beings have emotions.

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

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

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.

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

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

I'm a Sentientist because: ethics.
@JacksoneraMaria

I hate bricks

"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

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

Paul on Facebook

Evidence. Reason. Compassion.

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

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.

Harm Not for All

Sharing Animal Activism on Facebook

Martha was nominated as a "Suspected Sentientist" via our "I know a Sentientist" form (thank you!). More details are forthcoming, but in the meantime, here is Martha on Wikipedia.

Martha has written extensively on non-human animal ethics. While she has focused on developing a capabilities approach she does seem to grant moral consideration to all sentient beings regardless of capabilities. While she seems to have a broadly naturalistic worldview she converted to Judaism in 2008.

Everything that lives is holy.

Love and compassion for all sentient beings.

Kishan on LinkedIn

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.

Elizabeth is a philosopher. She is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. Elizabeth's research covers topics in social philosophy, political philosophy and ethics, including: democratic theory, equality in political philosophy and American law, racial integration, the ethical limits of markets, theories of value and rational choice, the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, and feminist epistemology and philosophy of science.

Elizabeth was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and has received a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship to support her work. Anderson was named a Progress Medal Laureate in February 2018 by the Society for Progress for her book "Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It)". In 2019, she received a "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program. Elizabeth was also listed in the 2020 Prospect list of the top 50 thinkers for the COVID-19 era. Elizabeth's book "The Imperative of Integration" won the American Philosophical Association's 2011 Joseph B. Gittler Award. She also wrote the book "Value in Ethics and Economics".

Elizabeth has a naturalistic worldview and grants moral consideration to “beings capable experiencing joy or suffering” per her recent appearance on Sean Carroll's MindScape podcast and her chapter, "Animal Rights and the Values of NonHuman Life" in Nussbaum and Sunstein's 2004 book "Animal Rights - Current Debates and New Directions". She starts the chapter with "I believe that animals have intrinsic value".

Elizabeth on Wikipedia
Elizabeth at UMichigan

Ethical reason, cannot justify speciesism.

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

@DavidCMcLean1

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

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'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

“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

Yasmine is a rights activist, advocating primarily for the rights of women living within Islamic majority countries. Yasmine founded the charity Free Hearts Free Minds which provides mental health support to freethinkers in Islamic majority countries. Her book, Unveiled, recalls her experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Islamic household, her arranged marriage to a member of Al-Qaeda, her escape and how she built a new life.

She is veg*an and has a naturalistic worldview.

You can find Yasmine's Sentientist Conversation with me here.

@YasMohammedxx
yasminemohammed.com

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

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

@gzed777

Christopher is the director of social media for Peace Advocacy Network, he sits on the Advisory Council for Encompass, he is a senior fellow at Sentient Media, he is co-founder of VGN, and he lectures at Columbia University in the Department of Social Work for the graduate course POP: Power, Oppression, & Privilege. Using a multidisciplinary approach that includes media theory, political science, and social psychology, he focuses on how human relationships with other animals shape our attitudes about race, sexuality & class.

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

Christopher on Patreon
Christopher on Instagram
christophersebastian.info

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

@bindu832

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

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

@liberanimal

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).

Richard is a philosopher at the City University of New York. His work is focused on the philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, and the foundations of cognitive science. He also has interests and projects in the philosophy of language, metaethics, philosophy of physics, logic and the philosophy of logic, as well as the history of philosophy. He blogs at Philosophy Sucks! and hosts the Consciousness Live! podcast.

He is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Richard's Sentientist Conversation with me will be out soon on YouTube and Podcast.

@Onemorebrown
onemorebrown.com

Henry is the chief features writer for the Financial Times newspaper. He is the author of "How to Love Animals in a Human Shaped World."

Henry is vegan and is an Anglican Christian.

Find his Sentientist Conversation with me here on YouTube and here on Podcast.

@henrymance

Because treat others the way you want to be treated.

@appa4ever

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

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

Catia is a moral philosopher and activist for animal rights and feminism. She is a postdoctoral researcher for the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology at the University of Minho and is a board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics. Previously, Catia was a lecturer in Ethics and Sustainability at Pompeu Fabra University and a visiting researcher at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.

Catia's PhD thesis was the first of its kind to defend the idea that humans should help non-human animals in the wild to reduce the problem of wild animal suffering. In 2015, Faria co-edited, with Eze Paez, a double volume of the journal "Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism", on the problem of wild animal suffering and ways to reduce it. In 2020, Faria co-authored, with Oscar Horta, a chapter on welfare biology in The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics.

Catia is vegan, grants moral consideration based on sentience and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Catia on Wikipedia
@catiaxfaria

Eze is a Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellow at the Law & Philosophy Group of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He is also a board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics, a think tank dedicated to the promotion of the full consideration of nonhuman animals in all areas of public life.

His current research focuses on the alleviation of wild animal suffering and on developing a neorepublican approach to the political status of nonhuman animals that focuses on their freedom through immunity from domination.

He says: " I strongly believe in the need to engage in politics in order to create a better world for all sentient beings, including nonhuman animals."

Eze is vegan and an atheist.

@Eze_pz
ezepaez.com

Frans is a primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory and the author of numerous books including "Chimpanzee Politics", "Our Inner Ape" and "The Bonobo and the Atheist". He has featured in TV/radio productions and TED talks viewed by tens of millions of people. His research centers on primate social behavior, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion, and food-sharing. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

While Frans does largely grant moral consideration based on sentience he does still consume some non-mammalian sentient animal products. Frans is an atheist and has a naturalistic worldview. He has written extensively on the evolutionary histories and naturalistic bases for ethics.

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

Frans on Wikipedia
Frans on FaceBook
fransdewaal.com

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

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

Why cruelty?

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

Tom was a philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2001. Tom was the author of numerous books on the philosophy of animal rights, including The Case for Animal Rights, one of a handful of studies that have significantly influenced the modern animal rights movement. In these books he argued that non-human animals are what he called the "subjects-of-a-life" (approximately sentient - capable of experience), just as humans are, and that, if we want to ascribe value to all human beings regardless of their ability to be rational agents, then to be consistent, we must similarly ascribe it to non-humans.

From 1985, he served with his wife Nancy as co-founder and co-president of the Culture and Animals Foundation, a nonprofit organization "committed to fostering the growth of intellectual and artistic endeavors united by a positive concern for animals."

Tom was vegan and seems to have had a naturalistic worldview. While relying on a secular perspective he also worked to encourage those with religious worldviews to take the rights of sentient animals seriously, as in this piece.

Tom on Wikipedia
regan.animalsvoice.com

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

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

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

Barbara is emerita professor of anthropology at William & Mary and a freelance science writer and public speaker. The author of seven books, including the new Animals’ Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild, Barbara focuses on animal emotion and cognition, the ethics of our relationships with animals, and the evolutionary history of language, culture, and religion. Her book How Animals Grieve has been translated into 7 languages and her TED talk on animal love and grief has now received over 3 million views.

Barbara is "pretty close to vegan" and, as an atheist, seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

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

@bjkingape
barbarajking.com
Barbara on Wikipedia

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

Roos is a professor of social psychology at Radboud University and a public speaker. She conducts scientific research and teaches about topics including first impressions, self-knowledge, behavioral change and human-animal relationships.

Roos is vegan and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Roosvonk.nl
@Roosvonk
Roos on Wikipedia

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.

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

@BarisBayram2045

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

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

All beings want to live.

@berilsirmacek
berilsirmacek.com

Andy Norman, PhD is the author of "Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think". His work has appeared in Scientific American, Psychology Today, Skeptic, Free Inquiry & The Humanist. He has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, public radio, The BBC’s Naked Scientist & The Young Turks. He champions the emerging science of mental immunity as the antidote to disinformation, propaganda, hate, and division. He likes to help people develop immunity to bad ideas. Andy directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University & is the founder of CIRCE, the Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative.

He has a naturalistic worldview and does grant moral consideration based on sentience but is still working on removing sentient animal products from his lifestyle.

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

andynorman.org
@DrAndyNo

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Einstein is known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics.

Einstein did talk about "the god of Spinoza" but seemed to see these in a firmly naturalistic context. He preferred to describe himself as agnostic rather than atheist. He did not believe in a personal god or an afterlife saying "No. And one life is enough for me." He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York and was an honorary associate of the Rationalist Association. He also said: "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. ... I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

He seems to have been vegetarian by the end of his life. He said: "Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures..." and “If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.”

Thanks to @its_sethlee for suggesting Einstein as a "proto-Sentientist" and for his research shared in our Sentientism FaceBook Group (all welcome - Sentientist or not!).

Einstein on Wikipedia

"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.

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

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

@dre4earth

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.

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.

Chris is an artificial intelligence researcher working on the reverse engineering and interpretability of neural networks. He works at @AnthropicAI and has worked at @distillpub, the OpenAI Clarity Team and Google Brain.

He is an ethical vegan and an atheist, implying he has a sentiocentric and naturalistic worldview.

@ch402
colah.github.io

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

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

@yorkyfreckles

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

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.

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

C Lou / Carrie is an author, editor, historian & translator. She wrote the book "Veganism, Sex & Politics: Tales of Danger & Pleasure" about her vegan journey & how veganism relates to wider social justice issues including feminist, queer & anti-racist politics as well as environmentalism.

She is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

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

@clouhamilton
veganismsexandpolitics.com
drcarriehamilton.com

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

Timothy on FaceBook

Kate is an economist working for the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. She is best known for her work on 'doughnut economics', which she describes as an economic model that balances between essential human needs and planetary boundaries.

Kate seems to be vegan and have a naturalistic worldview.

@KateRaworth
kateraworth.com
Kate on Wikipedia

Stephen Woodford is a YouTuber. His Rationality Rules channel focuses on debunking and refuting religious and supernatural arguments.

He seems to grant moral consideration based on sentience and is either vegetarian or vegan. He has a naturalistic worldview.

@RationalityRule
Rationalityrules on Patreon

Michael is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has defended ethical intuitionism, direct realism, libertarianism, veganism (see his book Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism), and philosophical anarchism.

He grants moral consideration based on sentience (sentiocentrism), is vegan and has a methodologically naturalistic worldview.

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

Michael's FakeNous Blog
Michael at Colorado (enjoy his "Scary Bible Quotes")
Michael on Wikipedia
@FakeNousBlog

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

Pablo is a Research Asst at the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law & a Junior Fellow of the Animals & Biodiversity prog of the Global Research Network (GRN) think tank. He is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway (UoL). His research in Philosophy focuses on understanding the importance of human language in producing human dominion over animals. He also investigates the role animal language can play in relation to the participation of animals in political decision-making processes & the construction of zoodemocratic systems. His interests include ecofeminism, postcolonialism, critical race theory, critical disability studies, animal law, conservation, continental philosophy & critical animal studies.

Pablo is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

Find our Sentientist Conversation here on YouTube or on our Podcast here on Apple and all on the other platforms too.

@PabloPCastello
LinkedIn

Evanna is an actress, activist and author of "The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting". She is best known for portraying Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series. As an activist, Lynch advocates for veganism and animal rights. She has been involved with several non-profit organisations and launched both a vegan-themed podcast (The ChickPeeps Podcast) and the cruelty-free cosmetics brand Kinder Beauty Box.

Evanna was brought up Roman Catholic but now seems to have a more naturalistic worldview although I'm not sure of her views on a broader sense of spirituality. She has said "I stopped going to mass a few years ago, mainly because I disagree with the rules... I don't like anything that's about punishing yourself and making you feel bad about yourself, and growing up I felt bad about indulging myself or doing anything for fun." She has also said: "I never found a religion or a faith that was exactly in line with what I believed because there are so many things I’m not sure about, but I strongly believe in non-violence, that we shouldn’t be hurting other people or creatures."

Evanna on Wikipedia
Evanna's ChickPeeps Podcast
Evanna on Instagram

Nandita is the ED of Population Balance which works to address the impacts of human overpopulation & overconsumption on the planet, people & animals. As faculty with the Institute for Humane Education, Nandita teaches a course “Pronatalism & Overpopulation” about the pervasive pressure on women to have children & the impacts on them, families, non-human animals & the planet. Previously, Nandita worked as a high school physics & math teacher & an administrator in both the public & independent school systems as well as an engineer at Bombardier Aerospace. She has a B.Eng. (Aerospace Engineering) from Ryerson University, a B.Ed. from University of Toronto & an M.Ed. (Humane Ed.) from Antioch University.

Nandita is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview, although is open minded about whether things beyond the natural might exist.

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

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

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

@JessLohm

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

Jazar on FaceBook

Cameron ([email protected]) 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.

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.

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.

Lee McIntyre is a Philosopher of Science. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy & History of Science at Boston University & an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. Lee is the author of How to Talk to a Science Denier as well as many other books, essays & papers. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Scientific American, the Boston Globe, the New Statesman & the Humanist.

Lee has a naturalistic worldview and is sympathetic to a sentiocentric moral scope - although is working on applying its practical implications.

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

leemcintyrebooks.com
@LeeCMcIntyre

Ethical vegan for over 54 years.

Helen (@hkopnina) is Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Business at Northumbria University & The Hague University. Her research focuses on environmental education, biodiversity & corporate sustainability.

She is an atheist and has a naturalistic worldview. Helen has an ecocentric ethics and describes herself as a flexitarian, implying she doesn't yet grant moral consideration to all sentient beings.

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

Jordi is an ethical vegan, a zoologist and a veganism content writer and consultant. He has been involved in different aspects of animal protection for many years. He became well-known for securing ethical veganism as a protected characteristic under the UK Equality Act 2010 in a landmark Employment Tribunal case. He has worked doing campaigning, lobbying, scientific research, undercover investigations and consultancy. He has authored several books, including "Ethical Vegan: A Personal and Political Journey to Change the World”.

Jordi is vegan and describes himself as a "profoundly non-religious" atheist, so seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

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

jordi-casamitjana.animal-protection-consult.com
@Jayseecosta
Jordi on Wikipedia

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

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

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.

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

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

Dr. Richard Firth-Godbehere PhD is one of the world’s leading experts on disgust and emotions. He is an independent researcher and consultant in the history, language, science & philosophy of emotions & an honorary research fellow at the centre for the history of the emotions, Queen Mary University of London. Richard’s first book, "A Human History of Emotions" (also known as "Homo Emoticus") will soon be published in over a dozen languages in countries ranging from Japan to the USA, from Australia to Brazil.

Richard is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview. He describes himself as "firmly atheist", having never heard a coherent description of the concept of god: "If it's timeless it doesn't exist anywhen, if it's spaceless it doesn't exist anywhere... so it doesn't exist!".

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

drrichfg.com
@DrRichFG
Richard on LinkedIn
Richard on YouTube
Richard on TikTok

Carter is Policy Director and Board Member of the Fair Start Movement, an organisation dedicated to giving every child a fair start in life. He is the author of Justice as a Fair Start in Life. Carter began his career as an Honors Program appointee to the U.S. Department of Justice. He later served as a legal adviser to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in the national security law division. He wrote his thesis reformulating the right to have children under Jeremy Waldron, his extensive academic work on family planning has been published by Yale, Duke, and Northwestern Universities, as well as in peer-reviewed pieces.. He has served on the Steering Committee of the Population Ethics and Policy Research Project and was a Visiting Scholar at the Uehiro Center, both at the University of Oxford. He has taught at several law schools in the U.S., served as a peer reviewer for the journal Bioethics, and most recently managed an animal protection strategic impact litigation program.

Carter is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

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

Carter on LinkedIn

Angela is a stand-up comedian and comedy show panellist, mostly known for her appearances on the UK TV shows Mock the Week & Live at The Apollo and her solo shows. Angela is also co-host of the ‘less than serious’ history podcast We Are History alongside comedy writer and author John O’Farrell.

Angela is vegan, implying a sentiocentric compassion, and a Humanist, so has a naturalistic worldview. She is a patron of Humanists UK. Angela says of humanism: "A place for those of us who believe that morality is not linked to religion or superstition and that we each have the agency to know right from wrong without the threat of intervention from a higher being or consequences in a future life."

Angela on Wikipedia
angelabarnescomedy.co.uk
@AngelaBarnes

Compassion for animals.

Nicolas is a research associate at INRAE (L’institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement) and the Toulouse School of Economics. His work focuses on risk and decision theory, environmental economics, benefit-cost analysis and, more recently, on animal welfare. He has published scientific papers on subjects including the precautionary principle, the value of statistical life, and climate policy. He has organized several international conferences and written numerous articles for the general public, as well as reports on risk policy issues.

He has a sentiocentric moral scope and a naturalistic worldview. His paper “The Dasgupta Review and the problem of anthropocentrism” sets out what might come to be called a Sentientist Economics.

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

nicolastreich.com
Nicolas at the Toulouse School of Economics
@Treich13

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

Magnus Vinding is the author of Why We Should Go Vegan, Speciesism: Why It Is Wrong and the Implications of Rejecting It, Reflections on Intelligence, You Are Them, Effective Altruism: How Can We Best Help Others?, Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications, and Reasoned Politics.

In 2020, Magnus co-founded the Center for Reducing Suffering, whose mission is to reduce severe suffering, taking all sentient beings into account.

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

magnusvinding.com
@MagnusVinding

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.

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

Constantine is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, Director of Lex Academic and a Fellow of the RSA. He describes his philosophical interests as "unfashionably broad, but I work primarily in the philosophy of action, moral psychology, and interpersonal understanding. I also have an interest in the psychology of philosophy, as advanced by Hume, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein." He spent most of his twenties as a theatre director and playwright. Constantine writes a quarterly opinion column for The Philosophers' Magazine, contributes to Times Higher Education and The Times Literary Supplement, and frequently appears as a guest on radio programmes such as The Moral Maze, Analysis, and Free Thinking.

Constantine is vegan and has a naturalistic worldview.

His Sentientist Conversation with me is here on the Sentientism YouTube and also on the Sentientism Podcast.

@csandis
constantinesandis.com
Constantine on Wikipedia

Macken is a writer and science educator. He hosts a weekly podcast about animals, Species, recommended by both Apple and BBC’s Wildlife magazine. He is currently studying anthropology at the University of Oxford. He has written a children's book about animal symbiosis, Animal SideKicks.

Macken is vegan and has a naturalistic, sentiocentric worldview.

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

mackenmurphy.org
@MackenMurphy
@SpeciesPodcast

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

Erika on WordPress

Jane is a designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is also the author of two books about games and one about futurism. Jane has taught game design and game studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2008 she became the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future and in 2012 Chief Creative Officer at SuperBetter Labs. Jane's TED Talk "Gaming Can Make a Better World" has been watched over 6 million times.

She is vegan (implying a sentiocentric moral scope) and an atheist (implying a naturalistic worldview).

janemcgonigal.com
@avantgame

Shelly is Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, where he has taught since 1995. He is best known for his writings about moral philosophy and normative ethics. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.

Shelly has a naturalistic worldview (see his debate with William Lane Craig on "Is god necessary for morality" (spoiler alert: "no")) and seems to have a sentiocentric moral scope - while also considering agency as an additional factor. In his book "How to count animals, more or less" he sets out a hierarchical approach to the moral consideration of animals.

He has said: "My view [is] that what morality boils down to is, 'Don’t harm, and do help.' And now the question is, 'Can creatures like chickens and cows be harmed?' And the answer is, 'Of course they can.' Consequently, I think it’s immoral to harm them."

Shelly at Yale
Shelly on Wikipedia

Thanks to Ronald Wilson for the nomination!

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

Meike on FaceBook

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

George is a writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding and Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis. He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom.

George is vegan, implying a sentiocentric moral scope, although his primary motivation was environmental. In 2020, while making the film Apocalypse Cow, he shot a deer, seemily justifying the killing for bio/ecocentric reasons that undermined his sentiocentric compassion. He seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Monbiot.com
George on Wikipedia

Joel was a political and legal philosopher. He is known for his work in the fields of ethics, action theory, philosophy of law, and political philosophy as well as individual rights and the authority of the state. Feinberg is seen as one of the most influential figures in American jurisprudence.

He proposed an interest-based approach to non-human animal rights that saw interests as requiring mental states (hence sentience), implying a sentiocentric moral scope. He was an atheist and had a naturalistic worldview. He said "Conceptual clarity is neither more or less important for public policy than factual discovery. Each is vitally necessary and the two are mutually dependent."

Joel on Wikipedia

David is a moral philosopher specializing in bioethics and animal ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1989, and the author or editor of several books on ethics, including Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status, Human Identity and Bioethics, and Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life.

He seems to have a naturalistic, sentiocentric worldview. He has written extensively on taking a sentiocentric approach to animal ethics and extends the same approach to potentially sentient artificial intelligences. He has written: "So do ethicists have a greater obligation than other people to maintain ethical diets? No, they have the same obligation as everyone else. But unlike a lot of people, ethicists have no excuses for failing to understand dietary ethics and living accordingly."

David on Wikipedia
David at George Washington University

Kathryn Gillespie PhD is a writer, multispecies ethnographer, & feminist geographer. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Geography & the Applied Environmental & Sustainability Studies Program. Her research & teaching interests focus on: ethnography & qualitative methods; feminist & multi-species theory & methods; food & agriculture; political economy; critical animal studies; human-environment relations. She is the author of The Cow with Ear Tag #1389. She has also published in numerous scholarly journals & has co-edited three books: Vulnerable Witness: The Politics of Grief in the Field; Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World; and Economies of Death: Economic Logics of Killable Life & Grievable Death. Kathryn has volunteered with Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, Food Empowerment Project and Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Kathryn has a broadly naturalistic worldview and a sentiocentric compassion.

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

kathrynagillespie.com

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

Ingrid is an animal activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world's largest animal rights organization. She is the author of several books, including The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble and Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries About Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion. Ingrid has worked for the animal-protection movement since 1972. She has been given the following awards: Washingtonian of the Year, 1980; Courage of Conscience Award, 1995; Shining World Compassion Award, 2007; Ahimsa Award, 2014 and the Peter Singer Prize for Strategies to Reduce the Suffering of Animals, 2016.

Ingrid is an abolitionist and a vegan, implying a sentiocentric moral scope. She is also an atheist, implying she has a naturalistic worldview.

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

Ingrid on Wikipedia
ingridnewkirk.com

Fearne is a television and radio presenter. She has presented television programmes such as Top of the Pops and the Red Nose Day telethons. In 2007, she became the first regular female presenter of the Radio 1 Chart Show, which she co-hosted with Reggie Yates for two years. She went on to present her own Radio 1 show, airing every weekday morning from 2009 to 2015. She joined BBC Radio 2 in 2016. In 2007, Fearne presented The Xtra Factor, an ITV2 spin-off from the main show. She hosted the show for one year before being replaced by Holly Willoughby for the following series. From 2008 to 2018, Fearne appeared as a team captain on the ITV2 comedy panel show Celebrity Juice alongside host Keith Lemon and fellow team captain Holly Willoughby. She quit the series in December 2018 to pursue other projects. In 2018, Fearne began presenting the podcast Happy Place. She has written a number of books, including the "Happy Vegan" cookery book.

Fearne is vegan, implying she has a sentiocentric moral scope. She doesn't seem to be religious but holds spiritual beliefs that don't seem to be naturalistically grounded.

Fearne on Wikipedia
HappyPlaceOfficial.co.uk

Miyoko is a chef, cookbook author, animal sanctuary founder and owner of dairy-free cheese brand Miyoko's Creamery. She is a leading advocate for the right of vegan food products to use "traditional" meat and dairy terms on their labels. Miyoko is the author of "The Now and Zen Epicure" and "The Homemade Vegan Pantry".

Miyoko is vegan and has said: “We need to move all of humanity to recognize animals as sentient beings that have their own lives, and their own right to having their own lives...”  I'm not sure whether she has a naturalistic worldview but her ethics don't seem to be grounded in the supernatural. She has said: "We need to create a culture that’s based on compassion and love. Those are the only things that matter."

Miyoko on Wikipedia
The Miyoko's Creamery Story
@MiyokoSchinner

Jo-Anne is a photojournalist, humane educator, animal rights activist and author. She is known for her We Animals project, a photography project documenting human relationships with animals. Through the We Animals Humane Education program, Jo-Anne offers presentations about human relationships with animals in educational and other environments, and through the We Animals Archive, she provides photographs and other media for those working to help animals. We Animals Media, meanwhile, is a media agency focused on human/animal relationships.

Jo-Anne was the primary subject of the 2013 documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine, directed by Liz Marshall, and with Keri Cronin, she is the founder of the Unbound Project, which aims to celebrate and recognize female animal activists. Her first book, We Animals, was published in 2013; her second, Captive, was published in 2017; and a third, Hidden, which featured a foreword by Joaquin Phoenix, was published in 2020. Jo-Anne has been awarded a range of commendations for her photography and activism, including several commendations in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards and joint first place in the COP26 photography competition.

Jo-Anne is vegan, implying a sentiocentric moral scope. I'm not sure whether she has a naturalistic worldview, but she doesn't seem to ground her ethics in supernatural beliefs.

Joannemcarthur.com
Jo-Anne on Wikipedia

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

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.

Dale is Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at New York University, a scholar of environmental ethics and animal rights, and an analyst of climate change discourse. He also serves as a faculty affiliate for the NYU School of Law and as director of NYU's Animal Studies Initiative. In addition to his affiliation with the NYU Departments of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, Dale also holds positions at The Dickson Poon School of Law and at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

Dale is the author of "Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic", Co-editor with Marc Bekoff of "Readings in Animal Cognition", "Morality's Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature", "Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction", "Reason in a Dark Time" and (with Bonnie Nadzam) "Love in the Anthropocene".

Dale seems to have a broadly sentiocentric moral scope but is also open to considering agency as an additional moral qualifier as part of a pluralistic approach. He has said “The animals... that are supposed to have had happy lives probably did not have happy lives and were almost certainly not painlessly killed." He seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Dale on Wikipedia
Dale at NYU

Steven is a philosopher, writer, speaker and activist with 30 years work in diverse social movements such as animal rights, species extinction, human overpopulation, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media and culture, globalization, and capitalist domination. He is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso. Steven has published 13 books and over 200 articles and reviews, spoken in nearly two dozen countries, interviewed with media throughout the world, appeared in numerous documentaries, and in 2007 was voted by VegNews as one of the nations “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.”

Steven is co-author (with Douglas Kellner) of a trilogy of postmodern studies. More recently, he introduced and co-edited four anthologies: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals; Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth; Academic Repression: Reflections on the Academic-Industrial Complex; and The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. His most recent book is: The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century.

Steven is a vegan and animal rights activist. He seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Steven on Wikipedia
drstevebest.wordpress.com
Steve talking about "The Politics of Total Liberation" on the ARZone podcast

Jonathan is an ethologist and author. He was Director of Animal Sentience with the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy and Department Chair for Animal Studies with Humane Society University. He lectures internationally on animal behavior and the human-animal relationship. Jonathan also served as Associate Editor of the journal Animal Sentience from 2015 to 2019.

Jonathan's books include: The Use of Animals in Higher Education; Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good; Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals; What A Fish Knows and SuperFly.

Jonathan is vegan and has written extensively about the reality and moral salience of non-human animal sentience. He seems to have a naturalistic, scientific worldview.

Jonathan on Wikipedia
@Jonathanpb1959
jonathan-balcombe.com
Interview with Jonathan by previous Sentientism guestJordi Casamitjana

Robert is a political scientist, political theorist, and intellectual historian. He is a Professor Emeritus in the politics department at the University of Leicester, where he has worked for much of his career. Much of his work concerns animals in politics and ethics including his books Animals, Politics and Morality; Political Animals; Animal Ethics; The Political Theory of Animal Rights; The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation (with Gary Francione); A Theory of Justice for Animals; and The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Rights (with Yewande Okuleye).

Robert proposes an "enhanced sentience" stance on animal ethics and seems to have a naturalistic worldview.

Robert on Wikipedia
robert-garner.com
@robleicester1

Aph is a writer, vegan activist, and digital media producer. She is the author of Racism as Zoological Witchcraft; co-author (with Syl Ko) of Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters and creator of the website Black Vegans Rock.

Aph is vegan. She was raised Catholic but "isn't Catholic any more" and seems to have a naturalistic worldview. She has said "Racism uses animality as a vehicle to oppress any being that is not considered ‘human'."

Aph on Wikipedia
aphko.wordpress.com

"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

Mark is a psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, best known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming and his use of psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association. Mark has received numerous awards, notably Honorary Membership of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, the American College of Psychoanalysts and the American College of Psychiatrists. He has published more than 250 articles and book chapters, and 6 books. His second book, The Neuropsychology of Dreams, was a landmark contribution to the field. His 2002 book (with Oliver Turnbull), The Brain and the Inner World was a best-seller and has been translated into 13 languages. His latest book, on the hard problem of consciousness, is The Hidden Spring.

Mark has a naturalistic worldview and a sentiocentric moral scope. However, although his son and daughter in law are vegan, Mark hasn't yet put this aspect of conceptual Sentientist worldview fully into practice.

Find our Sentientist Conversation here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe!

Mark on Wikipedia
@Mark_Solms

Susana is assistant professor based at the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of Science of UNED, working on animal ethics and the philosophy of animal minds. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Complutense University of Madrid, an MA in Global Ethics and Human Values from King’s College London and a PhD in Philosophy from UNED, Spain. She has been a post-doc fellow at the University of Graz and at the Messerli Research Institute in Vienna. Susana describes her research interest as focusing on "what animals are capable of feeling, thinking, and doing, and what this means for the sort of treatment that we owe them."

Susana led the project "Animals and the Concept of Death" which culminated in her book, "La Zarigüeya De Schrödinger" or "Schrödinger's Possum".

@Susana_MonsO
susanamonso.com
Susana at UNED

Marina is a journalist, currently focusing on factory farming and the criminalization of activists who fight it. Marina has written for Vox, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Intercept and many other publications. She used to be an editor for Harvard Magazine. Before that, she wrote and edited for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Toledo Blade and The Harvard Crimson.

Marina grants moral consideration to all sentient beings so is vegan. She also has a broadly naturalistic worldview, although is comfortable describing her sense of connection with the world and other sentient beings as "spiritual".

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

@mbolotnikova
marinabolotnikova.com

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

@BevyAllen

Greg is a singer and evolutionary biologist. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist and only constant member of punk rock band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1980. He embarked on a solo career in 1997, when he released the album American Lesion. His follow-up album, Cold as the Clay, was released nine years later. His newest solo work is Millport, released in 2017. Greg obtained his PhD in zoology at Cornell University and has lectured courses in natural sciences at both the University of California, Los Angeles and at Cornell University.

Greg writes that he is an atheist: "I've never believed in God, which technically makes me an atheist". However, he prefers to identify as a naturalist rather than as an atheist, saying: "Evidence is my guide. I rely on observation, experimentation and verification."

He describes himself as Straight Edge which often includes a vegan philosophy but I'm not sure of his views on non-human sentient animal ethics.

Greg on Wikipedia
@doctorgraffin

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

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

Rutger is a historian and author. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics, including "Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World" and "Humankind". His work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and the BBC. Rutger has been described by The Guardian as the "Dutch wunderkind of new ideas" and by TED Talks as "one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers". His TED Talk, "Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash", was chosen by TED curator Chris Anderson as one of the top ten of 2017.

Rutger was brought up in a Christian family but is now an atheist and seems to have a naturalistic worldview. He is either vegetarian or vegan, implying he's at least moving towards a sentiocentric moral scope.

Rutger on Wikipedia
rutgerbregman.com
@rcbregman

@liberiachimprescueprotection

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

@IndraGesink

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

Erin is the Deputy Director of Investigations at Animal Outlook, a national animal-advocacy nonprofit organisation. Erin was an undercover investigator for two years. She left the field after her last investigation at the Dick Van Dam Dairy in California, where she saw cruelty, abuse & suffering every day. Through her new position with Animal Outlook, Erin works closely with investigators, providing support & resources.

Erin has a sentiocentric moral scope so is vegan. She has an open-minded, naturalistic worldview.

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

Erin on the Our Hen House podcast
Profile of Erin by Unbound Project

Ana is Executive Director of Sentient Media. Sentient Media is a non-profit journalism outlet aimed at making transparent the suffering that goes on in our food systems and inspiring readers to think more about the implications of what we eat. Ana also hosts the Sentient Media podcast.

Ana is vegan, grants moral consideration to all sentient beings and has a broadly naturalistic worldview.

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

@AnaBrdly

Christopher was an author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books and countless articles (with the New Statesman, The Nation, Vanity Fair and many others) on culture, politics, and literature.

Christopher described himself as an anti-theist who saw all religions as false, harmful and authoritarian. He argued for a naturalistic approach including free expression and scientific discovery and asserted that these provided superior groundings (vs. religion or the supernatural) for ethical codes of conduct. He also advocated separation of church and state. The dictum "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence" has become known as Hitchens's razor.

Although he seemed to grant moral consideration to non-human sentient beings he continued to consume products made from farming animals. In this Atlantic piece he wrote: "the shepherd protects the sheep and the lambs not for their own good but the better to fleece and then to slay them."; "when I read of the possible annihilation of the elephant or the whale, or the pouring of oven cleaner or cosmetics into the eyes of live kittens, or the close confinement of pigs and calves in lightless pens, I feel myself confronted by human stupidity, which I recognize as an enemy." and "Like the quality of mercy, the prompting of compassion is not finite, and can be self-replenishing."

Christopher Hitchens on Wikipedia
2010 Archive of Hitchensweb

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

Alex on GitHub

Philip is a writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, of Pākehā (NZ European) and Māori (Ngāi Tahu) descent. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, affiliated with the Sydney Environment Institute. He holds a Master of Arts in Philosophy from The University of Auckland & diplomas in te reo Māori (the Māori language) from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. Philip has written for publications such as the Guardian, Newsroom, & Takahē. His book, Love Notes: for a Politics of Love, is published in New York by Lantern Books. In 2018, he co-organised 'The Politics of Love: A Conference' at All Souls College, Oxford. Philip was also kaiwhakatipu (editor) of He Ika Haehae Kupenga.

Philip is vegan and grants moral consideration both to all sentient beings and to non-sentient entities. He has a broadly naturalistic, atheist/agnostic worldview although he takes spirituality seriously - albeit considered through a critical filter. He has said: "Those who know me best appreciate the contradiction between my strong interest in spirituality, and my deep, often very vocal, opposition to religion."

philip-mckibbin.com
thepoliticsoflove.com and Love Notes
Philip on FaceBook
@philip_mckibbin

If something can suffer it deserves consideration for its wellbeing

Lisa is an activist and academic who specialises in anymal and environmental ethics. She was an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Montana State University Billings until she retired in 2020 to found and lead the educational, vegan umbrella organization, Tapestry. Lisa is the author or editor of ten books including Animals and World Religions. She has also written over 100 articles and book chapters. Lisa coined the term anymal as a "correct" term for non-human animals.

In her book, In Search of Consistency, she said " We have extended ethics outward from self to family to community to all of humanity. We are now called to extend moral consideration to other species."

Lisa grants moral consideration to all sentient beings and is vegan. She doesn't publicly disclose her epistemological worldview.

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

Lisa on Wikipedia
LisaKemmerer.com
Lisa on ResearchGate
@L_Kemmerer

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

@CambriaMetallic

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

Thomas is a philosopher and emeritus professor of theoretical philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, a co-founder of the German Effective Altruism Foundation, president of the Barbara Wengeler Foundation and on the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. From 2008 to 2009 he served as a Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study; from 2014 to 2019 he was a Fellow at the Gutenberg Research College; from 2019 to 2022 he was awarded a Senior-Forschungsprofessur by the Ministry of Science, Education and Culture. From 2018 to 2020 Thomas worked as a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. Thomas is a founding member of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness.

In 2009, he published a popular book, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, which discusses the ethical, cultural and social consequences of consciousness research.

Thomas seems to have a naturalistic worldview (see his essay on Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty) and a sentiocentric moral scope. In a recent episode of  The Sentience Institute Podcast (otherwise focused on his proposal for a moratorium on artificial sentience development) he says: “And for an applied ethics perspective, I think the most important thing is if we want to minimize suffering in the world, and if we want to minimize animal suffering, we should always err on the side of caution, we should always be on the safe side.”

@ThomasMetzinger
Thomas at JGU Mainz
Thomas on Wikipedia

Evidence and reason.

Pearl describes herself as "poly-vocational". She is a foreign relations & management consultant with an MA in International Relations & an MBA in International Business. She is a vegan whole foods advocate via her "Le Twisted Spoon" club. Pearl is also a community organiser and public speaker.

Pearl generally has a naturalistic worldview but does believe there is "someone bigger than myself that clearly loves me". She is vegan.

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

@BruntPearl
pearlbrunt.com

Emerson is the host of the Counter Apologetics & Walden Pod podcasts. Both are also available on his  @Emerson Green  YouTube channel.

He is an atheist and has a naturalistic worldview. He is "nearly" vegan, so is working on putting his sentiocentric moral scope into practice.

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

Emerson's LinkTree
Emerson's Blog

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

Clive is a Labour politician in the UK who has been the Member of Parliament for Norwich South since winning the seat at the 2015 general election. He was a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party in the 2020 leadership election. Clive previously served as vice-president of the National Union of Students, worked as a TV reporter for BBC News and served as an infantry officer with the Territorial Army. He served a three-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2009. Clive became shadow defence secretary in June 2016 and shadow business secretary in October 2016. He left the Shadow Cabinet in 2017 in protest over the Labour Party's decision to whip its MPs into voting to trigger Article 50, but rejoined the front bench a year later as shadow minister for sustainable economics.

Clive is a Humanist. He is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanists Group and was elected as its chair in 2015. He seems to be veg*an, possibly implying a sentiocentric moral scope.

Clive on Wikipedia
@labourlewis
clivelewis.org

Adrian is a multi-award winning fantasy and science fiction author. He is known best for his series Shadows of the Apt and for his novel Children of Time. Children of Time was awarded the 30th Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016.

Adrian has a naturalistic worldview and, conceptually (not yet in practice), a sentiocentric moral scope.

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

@aptshadow
Adrian on Wikipedia
adriantchaikovsky.com

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

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