We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined.
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Aysha (https://twitter.com/DrAyshaAkhtar & http://www.ayshaakhtar.com/) is a neurologist, public health specialist & author. She is President & CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences (https://contemporarysciences.org/). She worked for the Office of Counterterrorism & Emerging Threats of the FDA & served as Lieutenant Commander in the US Public Health Service. She is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Aysha wrote: “Animals & Public Health: Why treating animals better is critical to human welfare.”
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:
0:00 Welcome & Sentientism
2:10 Aysha Intro
– Neurology, public health, emerging threats (e.g. pandemics)
– Setting up CCS to replace all animal research and testing with human relevant methods
4:27 What’s Real? Renouncing Islam, becoming atheist
– Growing up in a Pakistani Muslim family, but more culturally than strictly religious
– Calling herself a Muslim, but then seeing how her father & Muslim society treated girls & women differently
– Feeling pressure to dress modestly
– Announcing “I renounce Islam” at 11 yrs old
– Still believing in a god, then becoming an atheist
– “Why would a god care about me and not someone else living a miserable life?” “If there is a god, why is there so much suffering?”
– How can the suffering we cause animals be something a god could allow?
– Religion helps people feel less lost. Understanding why people cling to it
– Meaning, value, moral structure, purpose, community, love, awe & wonder are available naturalistically too.
15:50 What Matters Morally? All suffering & flourishing beings
– Keeping the good parts of religious morality
– “Living a life that causes the least amount of harm & the greatest amount of joy possible”
– “Of course that includes non-human animals because they feel, they have emotions”
– Our moral basics can be very simple
– Rights, dignity, personhood, sentience
– Why so much philosophy assumes only humans matter. The fundamental mistake of disregarding so much suffering
– People seem more concerned about the potential suffering of AI & mini organic brains, while not caring about animals
– Experiencing sexual abuse & finding solace with Sylvester the dog “my best friend”
– Finding out Sylvester was being physically abused & calling that out, then finding the confidence to stand up for herself
– Accidentally being sent PETA materials about the life of a dairy cow. The family went vegetarian that evening
– Being a vegetarian in the Pakistani community in the 1980’s was unheard of
– Being made fun of my other kids, but “I didn’t give a damn”. “I didn’t care what they thought about me I cared what they thought about the issue”
– Reading Regan, Singer. Finding the connections between human & non-human ethics & rights
– “We were such nerds”
31:05 What are sentience & consciousness?
– And more – see YT!
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our “wall” https://sentientism.info/wall/ w/this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups e.g.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Josh (https://josh-milburn.com/ & https://twitter.com/JoshLMilburn & https://www.instagram.com/aveganphilosopher/) is a moral & political philosopher with research interests in animal ethics, the philosophy of food, liberal & libertarian political theory & applied ethics. He is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Dept …continue
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Raffael Fasel is University Assistant Professor in Public Law at the Cambridge Law Faculty and Fellow of Jesus College. He specialises in public law, with a particular interest in constitutional theory, human rights law, and animal rights law. Raffael is …continue
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Isabella La Rocca Gonzalez is an artist, writer, photographer, teacher and activist. She describes her work as “part of a long tradition in art and photography: to bring to light and find beauty in the hidden, unconscious, or disregarded. As …continue
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