Sentientism

Sentientism is a naturalistic ethical philosophy according to which all sentient beings deserve moral consideration.[1] In extending compassion to non-human animals as well as to any potential artificial or alien sentient beings, sentientism can be seen as an extension of or replacement for humanism. As in humanism, supernatural beliefs are rejected in favour of critical, evidence-based thinking.[2][3]

Part of a series on
Animal rights
Around the world Timeline Animal cruelty Veganism Primate rights in research
The Movement Advocates Vegans Groups
Aspects Censorship Killing Mutilation Wild animals Consumption Dogs Horses Cats Cattle Bloodsports Bullfighting Hunting Fishing Animal testing Cosmetic Captivity Zoos Circuses Oceanariums Companion animals Puppy mills Abandonment
Ideas Abolitionism Animal protectionism Carnism Personism Sentientism Sentiocentrism Speciesism
Related Environmentalism
Animals portal

According to sentientism, the ability to experience suffering or positive feeling should determine whether we grant moral consideration to an entity.[4] Non-sentient entities such as protons, plants, rivers or planets do not warrant direct moral consideration because, based on our current scientific understanding, they do not experience anything at all, including effects of the moral decisions and actions of other beings.

Sentience as a moral criterion has a long history, from Jeremy Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation[5] to contemporary philosophers such as Richard D. Ryder[6] and Peter Singer[7].

Sentiocentrism and Sentientism both grant moral consideration based on sentience. Sentientism, however, like secular humanism, is explicitly naturalistic across all domains, so rejects supernatural beliefs of all kinds. Someone who holds supernatural or religious beliefs while granting moral consideration based on sentience would therefore be a sentiocentrist but not a sentientist.

Sentientism differs from anti-speciesism in that it bases moral consideration on sentience and potentially on degrees of sentience, rather than just on rejecting species boundaries. Sentientism is also explicitly naturalistic [8].

Unlike painism[9], sentientism takes into account the full range of experience rather than just pain.

As all human beings are animals, sentientism is in agreement with animalism that all sentient animals warrant moral consideration; but sentientism adds that if there exist sentient non-animal beings, such as artificial or alien beings, then they too would warrant moral consideration.