A Unifying Morality?

How is Sentientism
Different?

I wrote about the basics of sentientism in this paper. In

short, sentientism applies evidence and reason and extends moral
consideration to all sentient beings. What I want to do here is
compare sentientism with some related philosophies and
movements. Hopefully that will help clarify what sentientism is and
why I think it’s valuable and distinctive.

Atheism

Atheism in its broadest sense is the absence of a belief

in deities. Given the absence of good evidence for the existence of
deities it is well founded. There are also an infinity of things for
which there is no or weak evidence so I’m not sure why you would
choose to believe in any particular one.

Sentientism is committed to applying evidence and reason, so I’d

argue you can’t really be a sentientist if you’re not also an atheist.

Sentientism differs, in that it applies reason and evidence in all

domains – not just when it comes to religion. Strictly speaking an
atheist could believe in fairies and ghosts, but I’d argue
a sentientist would not.

Atheism also says nothing explicit about morality – except implying

that our morality shouldn’t be based on a belief in deities. Atheists
may or may not grant moral consideration to various sentient
beings – human or otherwise. Sentientism goes further in that it
explicitly grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.

Humanism

Modern Humanism commits to the application of evidence, reason

and the scientific method. It extends moral concern to all humans –
regardless of their characteristics. Humanism focuses on the
agency of humans to define meaning and happiness and to work to
alleviate suffering and enable flourishing.
Humanism has a strong overlap with sentientism. I see the latter as
a simple upgrade. Rather than focusing on the boundary of the
human species, sentientism grants moral consideration because of
sentience, the ability to experience. Humans are sentient, but so
are most (if not all) non-human animals. We may also create or
encounter other sentient beings – whether artificial or even alien
intelligences.

Many humanists do grant moral consideration to non-human

sentient beings. They are already sentientists whether they know it
or not. However, despite some humanist organisations including a
“concern for other sentient animals” the very term humanism
implies a species-specific morality. Humanist organisations focus
their programmes on the human species, many humanists are still
not yet vegan or vegetarian (implying they do not grant even a base
level of moral consideration to farmed animals) and a few
humanists even use their humanism to justify the exploitation of
non-human animals. I’ve written more about this here.

Secularism

Secularism centres on maintaining an independence from religion or

religious considerations. Secularist approaches include enabling
freedom of and from religion and the separation of religion from the
mechanisms of government. In the political context, many religious
people are secularists – in that they hold personal religious views
but believe these should not be privileged.

Secularism is compatible with sentientism – but sentientism differs

in explicitly rejecting beliefs not founded in evidence or reason, not
just proposing to be independent from them. As with humanism,
secularism also focuses strongly on the human species
whereas sentientism extends consideration to all sentient beings.

Brights

The Brights is an intellectual movement that adopts a naturalistic

worldview and works towards civic equality for those who hold a
naturalistic worldview. The naturalistic worldview goes further than
atheism in that it rejects any supernatural or mystical
beliefs. All Brights are atheists, but not all atheists
are Brights. The Brights’ focus on civic equality ties closely to
secularism.
Sentientism’s commitment to evidence and reason matches the
naturalistic worldview. Sentientists – given their granting of equal
moral consideration for all humans – also want civic equality for all.

As with humanism, the Brights movement has tended to focus on

the human species. Their morality project has collated insights
about morality in non-human animals – but mainly to explain the
naturalistic basis for morality among humans. Sentientism goes
further and extends moral consideration to those non-human
animals as well as any other sentient beings.

Veganism

Veganism aims to avoid the exploitation of or cruelty to animals for

any purpose – most obviously food or clothing.

Sentientism differs from veganism in using sentience, rather than

the animal kingdom classification, as its basis for granting moral
consideration. This means sentientists would not grant moral
consideration to any animals conclusively found not to be sentient
(sea sponges?), but would grant moral consideration to sentient
beings that aren’t animals such as artificial or alien intelligences.

In practical terms, it is interesting to debate the fuzzy boundaries of

animal sentience. However, these debates shouldn’t distract from
the fact that the vast majority of farmed animals and fish are
sentient.

Veganism is also open about the basis for its moral consideration for
animals. Many vegans hold supernatural or religious views,
whereas sentientists show compassion for non-human animals
because of scientific evidence that they can experience suffering and
flourishing.

Some sentientists may claim to grant moral consideration to

sentient non-human animals while still consuming products made
from them – but to me this is an instance of cognitive dissonance
rather than a coherent moral position.

Painism
Painism grants moral standing to any being that can experience
pain. That extends to humans, non-human animals and also
potential alien or “artificial” beings. Pain is defined broadly, to
include any form of negative experience, whether physical pain,
fear, injustice or boredom.

Painism has a strong overlap with sentientism. Both extend their

moral consideration beyond humans and non-human animals based
on an ability to experience.

However, whereas painism only recognises negative

experience, sentientism also acknowledges the moral validity of
positive experiences.

Painism is also silent on any commitment to evidence and reason –

where sentientism is explicit about evidence and reason being the
basis for extending moral consideration to sentient beings.

Painism is also more specific about trying to find a balance between

utilitarianism (adding up costs and benefits – which can lead to
causing pain to some) and rights theory (granting rights that
sometimes clash). Sentientism is open to any combination of those
approaches – as long as moral consideration is granted to all
sentient beings.

Anti-speciesism

Speciesism involves assigning different rights or consideration to

individuals based on their species. Anti-speciesism argues that it is
wrong to grant different consideration purely on species
membership and that species membership in itself is morally
irrelevant. In its most extreme form, anti-speciesism claims that all
beings (presumably only animals) should be accorded equal moral
consideration.

Sentientism agrees that species membership shouldn’t be the prime

driver of moral consideration, but instead argues that sentience
should be. Sentientism’s commitment to evidence and reason
involves an understanding that there are differing degrees and types
of sentience between species – implying that it makes sense to
grant differing degrees of moral consideration based on that level of
sentience. A purist anti-speciesist might argue that a slug and a
human are of equal moral importance. A sentientist would not.
Anti-speciesism is also silent about evidence and reason. Many
anti-speciesists hold supernatural beliefs. Sentientists do not.

Animalism

Animalism in its simplest terms is the philosophical position that

humans are animals. It has also been developed, as in this article,
as an extension of humanism to all sentient animals.

In the latter context it shares sentientism’s commitment to evidence

and reason. Animalism also acknowledges sentience as the reason
for granting compassion to non-human animals.

Where sentientism differs is in being more explicit about sentience

being the prime driver of moral consideration. That
makes sentientism more open to other types of sentient being such
as artificial or alien intelligences.

Sentiocentrism

Sentiocentrism is the philosophy that sentient individuals, primarily

humans and most animals, are the centre of moral concern. It
contrasts with anthropocentrism (humans are what matters),
biocentrism (all living things matter) and ecocentrism (all nature
matters).

Sentiocentrism has much in common with sentientism in that it uses

sentience as the arbiter of moral consideration.

Where sentientism differs is in its explicit commitment to applying

evidence and reason in all domains. In that context, a sentiocentric
worldview could be motivated by supernatural beliefs, whereas a
sentientist worldview is explicitly naturalistic.

Conclusion

Each of these philosophies and movements has much to commend it

and they have a great deal in common. To my
mind, sentientism represents a powerful integration of their
strongest elements and addresses their
weaknesses. Sentientism’s explicit focus on evidence and reason
ensures a sound foundation in reality rather than in the
supernatural. Using sentience rather than species labels helps
concentrate on the characteristic that really matters – helping us
limit, vary and extend our compassion appropriately.

To date, there’s little mention of sentientism outside of philosophical

circles. Given its importance — I feel that’s odd. If you’re interested
in talking about the topics raised or finding out more, there’s
a Facebook group, a sub-Reddit and a Twitter list of
suspected sentientists (mostly by searching for humanist or
atheist vegans and vegetarians).