54: Suffering matters even if we didn’t cause it – Heather Browning – from Zookeeping to Philosophy

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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Heather (https://twitter.com/zoophilosophy & https://www.heatherbrowning.net/) is a scientist, philosopher & a former zookeeper & welfare officer. She is now a researcher at the London School of Economics specialising in animal sentience, welfare, & ethics. 

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 the Sentientism YouTube.

We discuss:

1:33 Heather Intro – biology to zookeeping to philosophy

– Volunteering, later working at zoos. Getting to know animals

– Studying zoology/biology

– Studying philosophy, shifting to PhD focus on measuring animal welfare

– “Cheetahs don’t really like to run”

– How do “natural behaviours” relate to animal welfare

– Trying to take the animal’s point of view

– The Foundations of Animal Sentience programme at LSE

– The power of interdisciplinary work

10:55 What’s real?

– Growing up in a fairly naturalistic household. Occasional church visits

– Being encouraged to question & explore

– Joining a church group for the community

– Balking at religious rules/restrictions

– Asking questions & not getting answers

– “Science just seemed like the best way of investigating the world”

– Scientists are flawed humans too

– There are many things we don’t know & some we may never understand

– We’re evolved creatures that have developed heuristics that have been useful to us for survival/procreation

– The dangers of a need for/expectation of perfection

– Dangers of over-confidence/dogma/motivated reasoning in science

21:54 What matters morally?

– Naturalism does involve giving up meaning, but we can create our own meaning

– Hedonist nihilism. What matters to me?

– Sitting between naturalising or eliminating morality, vs. moral realism

– Evolutionary basis of human consciousness, including empathy, fairness, co-operation (and not just in humans)

– “What matters is the subjective pleasure and pains we have in our lives”

– “Our wellbeing is an objective fact about the world”

– Empathy is caring about the wellbeing of others

31:42 Which entities matter? Moral scope

– “I’ve always loved animals”

– At 5 yrs “When I grow up I want to be a zookeeper”

– Finding it difficult to eat meat. Feeling disgust 

– Saying “I’m vegetarian” to get out of cooking meat in a class, then realising “I could just do that” and going vegetarian at 12 yrs

– Supportive parents: “Now you need to learn to cook!” & being joined by a sister

– A friend was told “You can’t go vegetarian”

– And much more… See Sentientism.info or YouTube for full notes.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join Heather on our “I’m a Sentientist” wall https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

Thanks Graham for the post-prod https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.