Sentientism
Jamie Woodhouse
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Top 10 Sentientism Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Sentientism episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Sentientism for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Sentientism episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
03/11/25 • 75 min
Heather Browning is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. Her primary research interests are animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness.
Walter Veit is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading and an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at the Ludwig MaximilianUniversity of Munich. Much of Walter’s recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare and ethics, as well as evolution.
As we've already covered our standard Sentientism "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" questions in our previous conversations in episodes 48, 54 and 158, here we focus on Heather and Walter's new book "What Are Zoos For?"
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"
Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
Find our previous conversations with Walter and Heatherhere, here and here.
00:00 Clips
01:12 Welcome
Heather's episode 54, Walter's episodes 48 & 158
02:15 Intros (see bios above)
Heather "How do we study what's happening inside theminds of animals... what the world is like for them... the ethical implications"
Walter "I study the diversity of minds... in animals... neurodiversity... in humans... in AI systems"
"Our zoo book... how should zoos run... take a non-anthropocentric perspective"
03:40 What Are Zoos For? And Who Are They For?
The range of human views about zoos: entertainment /conservation / fascination vs. exploitation
Heather's background as a zookeeper and a zoo animalwelfare officer
Combining an understanding of zoos from the inside plusphilosophy
Instead of the zoo industry vs. total animal liberation"a more balanced perspective... from the point of view of the animals and not just human ethics"
06:44 Pillars of Human Zoo Justification
Entertainment, conservation, education and research
"There's definitely been a shift over time"
"In the beginning they were very much places of entertainment. The original proto-zoos were owned by rich and powerful people... to demonstrate their power"
"This history... entertainment... domination of animals... leads people to be very concerned about what zoos do"
Monica Murphy & Bill Wasik episode
08:35 Types of Zoo Today
"There's a great diversity of zoos... we're not just defending all zoos as they currently exist"
Best practices, improving welfare standards "they should increase"
16:15 Challenges to the idea of “good zoos”
25:52 Zoos, the wild, agriculture, companions, sanctuaries
35:50 Parallels with human situations?
44:25 The life histories of zoo animals
59:55 Should human animals just leave other animals alone?
01:10:12 What can we do?
01:11:44 Follow
And more... full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our...
1 Listener
08/10/22 • 57 min
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", "Animalkind" and the 30th anniversary new edition of "Freeing The Animals". 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.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:24 Ingrid's Intro
Building PETA, the world's largest animal advocacy organisation
Writing 14 books including "Free The Animals" about the Animal Liberation Front
03:39 What's Real?
"We are all creatures of our upbringing"
A strict, "victorian" father & a very kind mother
"I was shipped out to boarding school & raised by some disciplinarian nuns"
Nuns took out their bitterness on the "little rich girls" in their care
Rejecting the nuns' oppression helped motivate Ingrid to be rebellious, to fight for the powerless & seek justice
Earliest memory: Family dog "was like my brother"
Church on Sunday, but "it never really stuck with me"
Being lured into religiosity, but "it was a passing phase"
"I rejected what the nuns said because they were so ghastly"
Roman Catholicism. Praying at 6am every morning, "a lot of silence"
"We didn't respect the nuns... they were barbaric... even of the little kids... 5 & 6 year olds who would cry themselves to sleep"
A visiting Jesuit priest got one of the school-girls pregnant
"For a while I would cross the road if I saw a nun coming the other direction"
Later re-engaging with Christianity (bible, church)... "ultimately I completely rejected it... it made no sense at all... if there is a god it's... a cruel god or a powerless god"
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
"I'm not afraid to say I'm an atheist"
"Ricky Gervais & Bill Maher... are not kowtowing... are not intimidated"
The imperative to speak out (where others can't)
Being told to accept "mystery" on face value, "absurd" stories & blind faith
Lisa Kemmerer's views on religious compassion for non-human animals
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Thanks Graham.
08/01/22 • 102 min
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, Vegan FTA (For The Animals). She also co-hosts their podcast and live shows. Jackie is also an author and public speaker.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
Jordi Casamitjana (https://youtu.be/vtCwoq1XnUg) as a "vegan godfather" :)
02:28 Jackie's Intro
From beef & dairy farming to animal advocacy & veganism
Erin Wing (https://youtu.be/NAh1kLrp99Y)
04:20 What's Real?
Growing up in a UK village in the 1970's
Naturalist Gilbert White "England's first ecologist?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_White
Christian community & school "If you're good to go to heaven & if you're bad Satan's going to get you"... "Nobody ever questioned it"
Fitting in & FOMO "everybody went to church on Sunday"
Joining the church choir, but not being religious
Losing son Luke at 2 days old
"If god loves us all... how come there are all these bad things happening?"
"Any shred of belief I ever had... just went straight out the window"
Spirituality? Unexplained things... a clock starting without batteries... "things happening for a reason?"
"Maybe there's something greater out there... not god"
Exploring Buddhism after going vegan "All you have to do is just be kind"
Meditation & Yoga
"There is such synergy between veganism & Buddhism"
30:38 What Matters?
Good: "Not being mean... not killing" vs. god compliance
"I don't think there is a hell..." except for what we do to non-human animals
Sons coming home from Xtian school saying "god's going to strike me down!"
Being most authentic & open at times when "I had nothing"
Buddhism "has taught me not to judge other people... I get a lot of peace from it... being kind."
"Being compassionate towards yourself is the hardest thing to do"
Dairy farming: "What they are doing is evil... but you can't write them off as being inherently evil"
"Everyone's got a reason for being the way that they are"
41:50 Who Matters?
Killing a spider, terrified, at 8 yrs old, then feeling "mortified that I had ended that life... that's never left me"
Husband Gareth carries a card to rescue bees with
Reading an IWAF leaflet about seal culling
Going vegetarian in 1987 after a Viva campaign on factory farming
"I couldn't believe that humans could be so cruel"
Father going shooting, being attacked by animal activists
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Thanks Graham.
03/16/21 • 53 min
Michael Dello-Iacovo (http://www.michaeldello.com/ and https://twitter.com/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 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 AUS$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.
In these Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings."
Our conversation is also on the Sentientism YouTube Channel - don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications.
We discuss:
Michael's PhD (pending) in space mining, terraforming, colonisation and asteroid deflection
Effective Altruism. Earning to give to do good vs. doing good directly
Peter Singer's TED talk
Leaving industry for a full time PhD and becoming an Animal Justice Party political candidate
Michael's Morality is Hard podcast, blog and Vegan Space Scientist YouTube
Growing up Catholic and attending a very religious school
Taking the Christian god, hell and heaven for granted. Being told every day it was true
Struggling with the fear of death without an afterlife. The comforting fiction of heaven
The painful realisation at 19 yrs that "not any of it was true" and becoming an atheist
The centrality of our own experience and the difficulty of conceiving of not existing
Searching for meaning after religion. Exploring and identifying with utilitarianism and consequentialism
"The only things sentient minds can value are suffering and wellbeing". Everything else we think we value is a means to an end or we're tricking ourselves
Our common evolutionary history with other sentient beings
Panpsychism and whether atoms are sentient/conscious
If electrons are "conscious" it must be very boring and they're still not sentient
Caring for companion animals but eating other animals as a child
Going vegetarian for environmental reasons, becoming more open to ethical veganism, then switching
Insect, digital mind and alien sentience
"Sentientism just captures everything and its future proof"
CosmicSkeptic grudgingly identifying as Sentientist: "The term has absolutely no wit about it"
Is Sentientism the only moral discrimination?
And much more!
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join Michael on our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks Graham for the post-prod: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.
08/21/24 • 72 min
This episode is a cross-post of my discussion with Louisa Jane Smith on "The RE Podcast". Her audience are some of the most important people in the world - religions and worldview teachers and their students. Make sure you go and subscribe there too.
As well as hosting the podcast Louisa is a Religious Education Teacher and Head of Life Skills at a school in England. She a member of the National Association for Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE) executive committee as well as being a public speaker and author. Louisa was also my guest on Sentientism episode 205 if you want to hear more about her philosophical journey so far.
If you're a teacher or are just interested, why not join our next free webinar on "Teaching the Sentientism Worldview"?
I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did talking - feedback and suggestions are always welcome. As ever I'm only one Sentientist so others will disagree!
I also wanted to extend a warm welcome to everyone who has recently joined one of our online Sentientism communities. More people join us there every day - whether they think of themselves as Sentientists or not. The groups are open to everyone. Just search for the word "Sentientism" on your favourite platforms and you'll find us there. FaceBook is our biggest group so far with 2,300 members from over 100 countries.
Soon we'll have 14,000 subscribers on YouTube too. It's great to have your support there.
Also check out the new "In action" section of Sentientism.info. We're building pages there about Sentientist Education, Politics, Rights, Economics, Justice, Agriculture, Environmentalism and more - come and help us work out what a more Sentientist world might look like.
A final thank you to Denise and Tarabella who found our secret Sentientism Patreon and are kindly contributing to our production costs - helping us steadily nudge the world towards "evidence, reason and compassion".
Thanks for listening!
Follow Louisa
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
06/08/22 • 70 min
LoriKim (she/her/we/our) describes herself as an educator, organiser, activist, conservationist, abolitionist, naturalist & healer. Originally from Jamaica & now living in the Bronx, USA, LoriKim has dedicated her life to working for social & environmental justice specifically organizing around LGBTQIA+, Black, Brown & Indigenous communities. LoriKim’s work in anthropology & her training as a biologist has helped her work against environmental racism, in providing environmental education for People of Color & in working towards decolonialism & liberation through veganism for over 25 years. LoriKim works as a founder, facilitator and organiser with organisations including BlackVegFest https://blackvegfest.org/ & The Cypher.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:26 LoriKim's Intro
Educator, organiser, activist, conservationist, abolitionist, naturalist, healer
"Black liberation practice" with "a queer & vegan lens"
02:38 What's Real?
Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica
"Being a Black country... what that means is that we had to really hold tight to our traditions, our histories that were muddled, were removed... because of slavery"
"Highly colonised", stringent laws, highly carceral
"Missionaries saw opportunity to come in and bring their various and sundry versions of the truth"
Synchronising traditions into Christianity as the only way they could survive
Growing up Catholic "A very white and blond Jesus... this is not someone I can relate to."
"I never believed in Santa Claus"
"Religion... as the framework I had to live under in order to go about my daily life"
Communion, saying rosary, prayer
"What I saw in the natural world did not reflect this idea that god created all of these things... I watched creation happen."
Moving to the US at 13
"This religion doesn't make any sense to me" & "bruk out" from church
Coming out & stopping eating meat at 14
"I could not equate this idea of loving all beings... and also eating them"
"Yes - I'm an atheist... I don't believe any of this"
"However, spirit moves you."
Talking with ancestors "I thought that was me talking to myself, but..."
"I would ask for things in my head & it would happen"
"I never really strayed away from thinking about the world beyond"
A multitude of universes & studying science
"A hybrid of really being rooted in science... & there's so much more that's unknown that I know that I feel"
"I'm an Aquarius & we don't follow anybody else's rules"
Practising things that come from a lot of African ancestral traditions, "but not strictly"
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Thanks Graham.
Is Veganic the Future of Farming? "We grow plants using plants" - Jimmy Videle - Sentientism 192
Sentientism
04/15/24 • 105 min
Jimmy Videle is a farmer, naturalist & researcher. He is author of The Veganic Grower’s Handbook and co-founder of NAVCS-Certified Veganic. His writing has appeared in many publications including CounterPunch, Countercurrents & LA Progressive.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips! 01:01 Welcome 03:08 Jimmy's Intro - 20 years in farming - A naturalist... observes and scientifically tries to understand nature "my passion". Over 10,000 hours of field research "a lot of time outside" - Author of The Veganic Grower's Handbook "how to grow... without the products of animals or having any animals on the farm" 04:50 What's Real? - German Roman Catholic mother, Italian Catholic father - Church every Sunday, communion at 5-6 yrs old - 12 yrs old heading toward confirmation - Only child, parents divorcing, a tough patch at high school "It's probably a little easier if you have siblings... I went into my own little bubble... I always felt very comfortable alone" - Attending weekly catechism, dad asks if Jimmy still wants to go... "Dad... I really wanna just play baseball... this was our religion!" - "When you're really worried about what people are thinking about you you spend less time delving into the bigger questions... at that time it was the purpose of... 'I want people to like me'" - Music scholarship to college in California... meeting lifelong friends... hippy influence... "this idea that love could rule all... the biggest moment - flash of my life... wow love" - "The idea of god... I was never totally comfortable" - Having to confess sins "I didn't have any... I'd have to make something up..." - "I always believed that there was god... but I always had a tough time with this god... always judging us... always making us feel bad... like victims... and we're only going to be saved when we die... when we have a chance... to go to heaven" - In my 19-20''s "I realised that wasn't going to be my path" - The #iching & "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven Farmer "Maybe nature is also telling me something... nature has a message and all I have to do is listen and learn" - "I have my hands actually in the earth... I'm feeling something that most people don't" - Living on top of some of the earth's oldest rocks "I also want to believe that that rock has knowledge from 4 billion years ago" - "For me... a bacterium is as sentient as I am" - "Maybe it is all natural... maybe there's nothing mystical about it at all... start thinking about what it is to be a wolf or a deer or a hemlock tree... how can we see the world then?" - "To even believe that we are the only sentient being on the planet... it's as arrogant as we can get" - "What I believe now... #animism... the original religion... maybe it's the way nature looks at the world... every living being has a breath or a soul... anima..."
32:03 What and Who Matters? 01:09:03 A Better World? 01:41:32 Follow Jimmy - Facebook - The Veganic Growers Handbook - observatory.wiki/Jimmy_Videle - humaneherald.org/publications/ - Certified Veganic - Boileau Biodiversity Crowdfunder
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wal...
Nigerian Food Revolution - Hakeem Jimo of Veggie Victory and ProVeg Nigeria - Sentientism 196
Sentientism
05/06/24 • 51 min
Hakeem Jimo is co-founder and CEO of Veggie Victory, Nigeria’s first plant-based food tech company. Hakeem and his partner, Bola Adeyanju, also founded Nigeria's first vegan restaurant, V Café, and now run the VChunks meat alternative product company - designed to help veganise Nigerian cuisine. Hakeem is also country director for ProVeg Nigeria.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips!
00:36 Welcome
01:59 Hakeem's Intro
Nigerian father, German mother, growing up in Germany, now in Nigeria
10 years of veganism and vegan entrepreneurship
Establishing ProVeg Nigeria
03:45 What's Real?
Not much supernatural thinking in small-town Germany "there were more cows than humans"
Lutheran evangelical protestant society but "we went to church twice a year... it was not a very religious background"
Nigeria: "A completely different ballgame... the spiritual, religious world plays a much bigger role in Africa... religion is everywhere here... and I like it... In Africa I started to pray... you don't have that sense of control."
Christianity, Islam as well as natural / traditional religions from the pre-colonial era
08:33 What Matters?
"Every day I see these two sides", Germany (enlightenment, studying philosophy) and Nigeria (travelling as a journalist in W.Africa: "a completely different way people see the world")
Only recently exploring the Bible (via podcasts) "just to understand historically"
Finding references to treatment of animals in the Old and New Testaments
Nigeria: "Religion is much more taken... by the letter" vs. the German way "it's just a parable"
"If you're coming from a western background you just shape your belief system" vs. "people are handing over authority to another level"
"How do we actually convince people... whether I'm in Germany or Nigeria?"
"I walk through the streets here... it's funny... even though everybody is black and in Germany everybody is white I see features... very similar behaviours"
"I see really the universal parts... that's where things come together... trying to change the world and not just a few enlightened people"
13:16 Who Matters?
Step-father in Germany was a farmer "neighbours got together and bought a pig... the butcher coming to the farm"
Hearing stories about factory farming "they were using nicotine to disinfect the chickens... there's something wrong here"... overfishing... foot and mouth disease
"Nobody in rural Germany was talking about sentientism or veganism "
University in Hamburg "there was an alternative meal in the canteen"... a vegetarian partner aware of history of US colonialist animal agriculture
Travelling to West Africa and eating #streetfood "when I'm on a #vegetarian diet I don't get sick!" vs. getting typhoid fever from a road-side meat barbecue
"You start learning... what's the implications... I realised... this is good... let me become vegetarian"
24:35 A Better Future?
48:41 Follow Hakeem
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hakeemjimo/ - https://veggievictory.com/ “We are winning with the veggies!”
https://proveg.com/ng/...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is
08/04/23 • 69 min
Delci is an animal protection lawyer, scholar, teacher and programme builder. She is an associate professor of law and Director & Founder of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. The Institute is committed to training animal advocacy leaders (e.g. masters degrees and programmes, Farmed Animal Advocacy Clinic) and serving as a resource hub.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
02:30 Delci's Intro
A non-traditional path, straddling academic & activism
Pragmatic idealism "I was there to help animals"
05:38 What's Real?
"My mom grew up in a fundamentalist, fear-based #cult"
"She really didn't want us to experience that - so we didn't go to church at all"
Mom still had strong religious beliefs "but she didn't force them on us", #agnostic dad
"I grew up... naturalistic and being critically minded and making decisions based on what I observed in the world"
"I probably have disappointed my mum in that I'm an #atheist"
"I was just born argumentative... always pushing back and asking questions"
Hearing about the trauma of family because of the cult "it gave me a critical lens on religion... what is the agenda here? Who is this serving?"
"I've always had a really strong moral compass... why would someone in a position of authority create terror and suffering in children?... an early anti-authoritarian"
"I do have a tremendous respect for evolution... for systems that have evolved over millennia"
#meditation & secular #buddhism "There is a whole lot we don't know"
12:19 What Matters?
"For as long as I can remember have had a very strong moral compass that is not based on any external... religious document... fear of punishment..."
"Just a deep sense of #justice in my core... and as sense of needing to speak up about that"
Shyness, social anxiety "but there are times when something just bubbles up in me and I need to speak out... do something about it"
Featuring in #OphrahWinfrey 's "O" magazine as "The Crusader"
"I have this very strong conviction of what's right and wrong"
"Fairness... not causing unnecessary suffering"
Being pragmatic, so considering specific situations but "informed by an overlay"
Authoritarianism, harming others for profit, lacking transparency
16:29 Who Matters?
A traumatic experience at 14 yrs. Raising two pigs from birth as companions then "they were unexpectedly slaughtered"
"I loved animals before then... but that really set me on a journey... I just started reading about factory farming, animal rights... Peter Singer's Animal Liberation"
"It resonated with me very much that sentience mattered... that has been a fundamental touch-point for me... I've added complications to it over the years"
Precautionary principle re: assessing sentience
"My focus tends to be on individuals & sentience... overlaid with a respect for systems... and interconnectedness"
"I loved eating meat and didn't really think about the connections to animals"
"It was a huge wake-up call for me... I felt like I had been living a lie... I had been betrayed... there was all of this awfulness & corruption in the world that I had been totally unaware of"
A Better Future?
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on ...
02/11/25 • 99 min
Matthew Halteman is professor of philosophy at Calvin University and a fellow in theOxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He wrote Compassionate Eating as Care of Creationand co-editedPhilosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments about the Ethics of Eating (with Andrew Chignell and Terence Cuneo). His latest book,Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan, was published in November 2024.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"
Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips
01:12 Welcome
Our Sentientism guest mutuals: Jasmin Singer, Mariann Sullivan, Christof Koch, Elan Abrell, Christopher Sebastian, John Sanbonmatsu...
04:19 Matt's Intro
"A kid from the mid-west - my people are agriculture people"
04:30 What's Real
"A Mennonite boy... anabaptist tradition of the Christian faith"
"A group... who focuses much more on... the ethics than the meta-physics"
"I remember being really surprised... to realise that other kids had different versions of the Christian faith..."
"The tradition I grew up in was really focused on... god is love and Jesus said... love god with all your heart... love your neighbour as yourself"
"The question in my tradition... was 'are you loving people'... unconditional love, unconditional grace... are you being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ on the ground"
"My family... the group of Mennonite scholars that gets tapped to write the book about Mennonites... my dad was the Mennonite economist... my aunt was the Mennonite feminist theologian..."
"My uncle... wrote a systematic theology...the Catholics and the Protestants had been doing this for centuries and the Mennonites were always focused on what happens on the ground... being the hands and feet of Jesus showing unconditional love to a suffering world."
"I've always thought that arguments about what is real tend to distract us from the real question... how do we show love to our neighbour... lifts up the people who are suffering... brings the people on the margins to the centre"
"Culture wars... debates over worldviews... have not shown a very impressive track record of success in this regard"
"We spend so much time fighting over what is real that we miss the fact that in a lived experiential way we have way more in common than we disagree about"
"For finite, error-prone creatures like us the really interesting conversations are on the ground where we're grieving, where we're suffering, where we're celebrating..."
And more... full show notes atSentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More atSentientism.info. Join our"I'm a Sentientist" wall viathis simple form...
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FAQ
How many episodes does Sentientism have?
Sentientism currently has 224 episodes available.
What topics does Sentientism cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Podcasts and Philosophy.
What is the most popular episode on Sentientism?
The episode title 'What Are Zoos For? - Heather Browning and Walter Veit - Sentientism 223' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Sentientism?
The average episode length on Sentientism is 75 minutes.
How often are episodes of Sentientism released?
Episodes of Sentientism are typically released every 5 days, 22 hours.
When was the first episode of Sentientism?
The first episode of Sentientism was released on Nov 12, 2020.
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