Sentientism Jamie Woodhouse

Randall is an author and environmental, animal, climate and constitutional law professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey. His books include “What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?” and “Climate Change and the Voiceless: Protecting Future Generations, Wildlife, and Natural Resources”.

In these Sentientist Conversations (subscribe!), we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

Full show notes here: https://sentientism.info/how-can-i-have-been-morally-asleep-for-so-long-prof-randall-abate-new-sentientist-conversation

Watch the video here. 

We discuss:


Academic silos between animal/environmental/constitutional law and between law, philosophy and advocacy
The disconnect between environmental and animal ethics and law
Growing up in a Catholic household, more social than spiritual
Appreciating religion as a topic of study, not as something to practice
Exploring Eastern religions and spirituality
Feeling deeply spiritual without religion
Compassion as a theme in many religions
Remaining open-minded about religious ideas
Agnosticism and atheism
Awe, wonder and connectedness within a naturalistic worldview and their commonality with supernatural/spiritual emotions
Freedom of belief, but not freedom to use supernatural beliefs to harm others
Compassion for all living things & respect for nature, but not realising the link to animal product consumption (even as an environmental law professor) until teaching animal law “How can I have been morally asleep for so long?”
The brain-washing of animal product consumption: health, normality
Not knowing any v*gans
The difficult social process of giving up animal products
How much easier going v*gan is now
Is the ethical argument re: animal farming over?
Anthropocentrism & human supremacy
Biocentrism & ecocentrism. Does Sentientism go far enough?
Instrumental vs. intrinsic value
Christian dominion & stewardship
And more... (see here)

You can find Randall here at Monmouth.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here on FaceBook.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu.

Josh Gellers is an associate professor at the University of North Florida. His work spans animal, environmental and artificial intelligence ethics and law. He is a research fellow with the Earth System Governance Project and is a Fulbright scholar. He is Author of “Rights for Robots: Artificial Intelligence, Animal and Environmental Law” (open access!).

Full show notes are here: https://sentientism.info/de-centring-the-human-new-sentientist-conversation-with-josh-gellers-also-happy-new-year

In these Sentientist Conversations (subscribe!), we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

Our conversation is also here on YouTube.

We discuss:


Seeing the impact of climate first hand in South Florida
Spanning “hard” and social sciences, rights, ethics and law, animal, environmental and artificial intelligence… inter-disciplinary
Sophia the robot and non-human entity rights
Growing up in a culturally Jewish household, with a mix of conservative religious and more secular liberal perspectives
Doubting religion from an early age
How could there be an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving god when there is so much suffering?
Seeing examples of sexism and societal shaming within orthodox religion
Kosher laws as historic public health recommendations
Exposure to Buddhist animal ethics in Sri Lanka (living with spiders)
“Other ways of knowing and worlding” and pluralism
Wanting to say there are certain universals, but hesitating to say “I have the right way”
Guilt and consciousness about how to be in the world
Learning, respecting, humility, open-mindedness, compassion
Doing the above without slipping into a relativism that allows the powerful to oppress others
Critical environmental ethic with underlying pillars: Compassionate, resilience, sensitivity to the needs of others – ground rules as a safety net vs. relativism
Needlessly causing harm isn’t compassionate, whatever your cultural norms
People who care about people they know and people who care about people they don’t know
And more... Full show notes are here: https://sentientism.info/de-centring-the-human-new-sentientist-conversation-with-josh-gellers-also-happy-new-year

Josh is @JoshGellers and his home page is at joshgellers.com.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here on FaceBook.

Full show notes at: https://sentientism.info/diverse-sentients-could-live-in-mutual-symbiosis-graham-bessellieu-new-sentientist-conversation. The video is here on the Sentientism YouTube channel.

Graham is an artist, a photographer and a video/audio content producer.

In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

We discuss:


Being raised Christian
Going from a soprano to a bass during a church choir tour
Love and compassion as central to Christian ethics
Eternal torture in hell maybe isn’t ethical – a trigger for re-thinking
Comparative religion, logical contradictions
The weakness of theodicies (explanations for evil)
New Atheism, Dennett, Harris and naturalism
Are most religious people more moral than their religions?
A naturalistic grounding for ethics
Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation”. Developing ethics through evidence and reason
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and factory farming
Earthlings, the documentary
How ethical conviction helped Graham work through the practical and social challenges of giving up animal products
How some of the most fundamental philosophical challenges have the simplest answers, but social norms get in the way
Is animal farming a “necessary evil”?
Our non-human animal friends make a cameo appearance
The amazing ethical gymnastics people do to try and justify continuing to consume animal products (toddler farming anyone?)
Normalising rationality and sentiocentrism. Getting them to be mainstream
Why people should adopt Sentientism quickly while it’s still edgy and cool
Clean meat and plant-based meats
Ending animal farming and exploitation and using sanctuaries as part of transition
Zoonotic disease risks
The common ground, even a political majority, re: ending factory farming: Sentience Politics, Cory Bookers’ farm bill
Extending legal personhood to non-humans
Mitigating wild animal suffering (see Animal Ethics and Wild Animal Initiative orgs)
Difficult problems and uncertain solutions don’t justify excluding sentient beings from moral consideration
Effective Altruism – how to do the most good
David Deutsch & “The Beginning of Infinity”… Getting to better problems
Steven Pinker & “Enlightenment Now”
...and more... Full show notes here

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Join hundreds of others on our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu.

Gill is an author, coach & counsellor. She was a UK parliamentary candidate for the Green Party. She focuses on helping people live in balance with themselves & the rest of the living world. Her books include “The Trembling Warrior”, “Hearing our Calling” & “The Game”.

In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment & compassion for all sentient beings.”

Full show notes are at https://sentientism.info/being-in-balance-with-ourselves-and-the-biosphere-author-gill-coombs-new-sentientist-conversation.

The video of our conversation is here on the Sentientism YouTube.

You can find Gill at gillcoombs.co.uk and on Twitter at @CoombsGill.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Join hundreds of others on our “wall” using this simple form.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu.

This episode is a cross-post from the Future Based Podcast where Annika van den Born interviewed me (Jamie) about Sentientism.

The podcast is part of the Future Based initiative that aims to facilitate inter-disciplinary discussions and collaborations about our collective future.

Annika and I discuss how naturalism and sentiocentrism come together in Sentientism. We talk about the risks of environmental movements extending their moral circles too far (biocentrism, ecocentrism or holism) while ignoring sentient non-human animals. We also talk about what a Sentientist utopia might look and how we might move towards it.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Why not join our “wall” using our simple “I’m a Sentientist” form?

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook. We have a fascinating range of compassionate, rational people there from around 90 countries so far!

Full show notes are here: https://sentientism.info/how-can-we-do-the-most-good-for-non-human-animals-jamie-harris-animal-advocacy-careers-co-founder-sentience-institute-researcher-new-sentientist-conversation

You can find the video of our conversation here https://youtu.be/ea_v6kWCGZQ

Jamie is co-founder of and researcher at the non-profit Animal Advocacy Careers, a researcher at the Sentience Institute and host of the Sentience Institute Podcast (subscribe!)

In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”. Sentientism is “evidence, commitment and compassion for all sentient beings.”

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Help normalise compassion and rationality by joining our “wall” using this simple form https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

Thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-prod work on this video. Follow him @cgbessellieu.