50: “Animal activists don’t have to be on the political left” – Josh Milburn – Sentientist Conversation

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.

SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcast | Website | Spotify | RSS

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 of Politics & International Relations at the University of Sheffield. He co-hosts the Knowing Animals podcast.

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.” The video of our conversation is here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/akBBFREpveU.

We discuss:

– Taking an interdisciplinary approach to academia & activism

– Encountering various religious traditions as a child

– Thinking “I don’t believe that” at 8 years old re: Noah’s ark

– Being a “militant atheist” as a teenager

– Studying religions to undergrad level

– What is real & what we can know to be real

– There is a world out there but we don’t know all about it

– Science & naturalism

– Dogma vs open-mindedness & humility

– Moral realism & different kinds of claim/evidence

– The dangers of moral relativism & nihilism

– Grounding morality in a naturalistic understanding of sentient beings & sentience. “I don’t suffering & I don’t think you do either”

– Pluralism

– Religious studies didn’t cover philosophy

– Being very resistant to vegetarianism. A fundamental challenge

– Reading Peter Singer at 17 while considering studying philosophy

– “Philosophers are often not the best activists”

– Philosophical arguments don’t have the same impact on everyone

– Some people “get it” but still don’t change. Others just don’t get it

– “Imagine animals had rights – how would we feed the world?… It would’t be a vegan food system.” Clean/cultivated meats & milks

– “Can we get to an ethical food system without people having to change their practices at all?”

– Animals where it’s less certain whether they are sentient. Invertebrates, oysters, jellyfish, insects, sponges

– Deciding how to act in the face of uncertainty

– “It’s got to be a high bar to say ‘you cannot do that thing that is central to your life'” but “Sentient animals have rights” and that’s enough to tell pig farmers to stop

– Edge cases re: veganism & animal ethics

– Liberalism & state coercion. Only using coercion when injustice is clear

– Having compassion for human sentients too, even those doing harm

– #JustTransition

– The history of the term “Sentientism”. Rodman, Ryder, Singer

– It’s hard not to be consequentialist in its broadest sense

– Deontological rules do have to pay attention to what happens

– Gary Francione’s abolitionism

– Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka’s Zoopolis

– Sentientism as a pluralistic philosophy

– “Animal activists don’t have to be on the political left”

– Sentientism rules out intra-human discriminations. Racism/homophobia etc. don’t belong

– Robert Nozick was a vegetarian & a libertarian

– And much more. See https://sentientism.info/ or YouTube for full show notes.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. 

Join Josh 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. Main one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

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