Sentientism

Yamini is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University. Her work makes substantive contributions to the rapidly emergent field of South Asian Animal Studies through a twin focus on animals in political and urban life in India. It addresses species as an explicit identity category in Indian national politics through the intersections of #anthropocentrism, #sectari...

Welcome to episode 182 of the Sentientism Podcast. A podcast about what's real, who matters and how we can make a better world. The Sentientism worldview answers those deep questions by committing to evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings. This episode is a bonus cross-post of my discussion with Adrian David Nelson. His Waking Cosmos podcast (here on Apple) explores the nature...

Christof is a neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness on which he worked with Nobel Prize winner  Francis Crick  for 24 years. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. Christof describes his passion in life as "to understand how I came to be in this wonderful, mysterious...

Tobias co-founded the  Center for Reducing Suffering  with  Magnus Vinding . CRS is a research center that works to create a future with less suffering, taking all sentient beings into account. More broadly, Tobias is involved in the effective altruism movement which applies evidence and reason to find the most effective ways to help others. In his new book,  Avoiding the Worst: How to Prevent a M...

Melanie Joy, PhD , is a Harvard-educated psychologist specializing in relationships, communication, and social transformation. She is the award-winning author of six books, including the new  How to End Injustice Everywhere  and the bestselling  Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows  and  Getting Relationships Right: How to Build Resilience and Thrive in Life, Love, and Work . Melanie is also...

Kendra is a professor at Huron University and a fellow of the OxfordCentre for Animal Ethics. She is a leading expert on animals and work, animal protection organizations and policy, and gender equity. Kendra has led multiple research projects enriching our understanding of human-animal work and animals’ own forms of labour in important new directions including through development of the concepts...

This episode is a bonus cross-post of my discussion with Jordi Casamitjana on his Vegan Reflections series for the VeganFTA YouTube channel . Make sure you go and subscribe if you haven't already.  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did talking to Jordi - feedback and suggestions are always welcome. As ever I'm only one Sentientist so others will disagree! If you want to hear me inter...

Arin Greenwood describes herself as an animal writer, novelist and lawyer. Her young adult book " Your Robot Dog Will Die " was published in 2018. Arin was animal welfare editor for The Huffington Post and now writes about dogs, cats, and other animals for The Today Show , The Dodo,  The Washington Post , Slate, Creative Loafing, the  American Bar Association Journal and many other publi...

Molly is a writer, copywriter, editor, creative strategist and an animal rights activist. She is Founder and CEO of the non-existent farm, Elwoods Organic Dog Meat . 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 ⁠⁠...

Dr Iyan Offor is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Birmingham City University conducting interdisciplinary, theoretical research focusing on global animal law, environmental justice, intersectionality, posthumanism and law in the Anthropocene. Iyan is passionate about delivering legal education and research that will lead to the improvement of protections for animals and the environment in law. Iyan tea...

Jane is an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Deakin Law School. Jane obtained degrees in Commerce, Law (with Honours), and a PhD in human rights law from Deakin University, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching (Teach for Australia) from the University of Melbourne. Jane has published research in relation to the human right to education, the human rights of disabled people, animal rig...

This episode is a bonus cross-post of my discussion about Sentientism with Claudia Hirtenfelder on her wonderful podcast, The Animal Turn . Make sure you go and subscribe if you haven't already. Go back and listen from the start too! Claudia has hosted so many mind-expanding conversations spanning five seasons so far. In ⁠Sentientist Conversations⁠ we talk about the three most important questi...

John is a writer, philosopher, cultural critic and magician. He is best known for his book, The Postmodern Prince , and for his more recent work in Critical Animal Studies where he edited the collection " Critical Theory and Animal Liberation ". Also in that field his book " The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and the Nature of Moral Life " will...

Luke is a lecturer working in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. His research examines social and moral development between childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Between 2017 and 2020 he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on the Wellcome Trust, ESRC and NSF funded “STEM Teens” project. This project examined the role of youth educators in informal science learning...

This episode is a bonus cross-post of a salon session about Sentientism with the American Ethical Union back in February 2022 hosted by Hugh Taft-Morales . Amy Halpern-Laff and I ( Jamie Woodhouse ) presented the Sentientism worldview and we had a great Q&A session with the group. If you prefer video you can watch the session on the AEU YouTube channel here . Find out more about the AEU on the...

Tania is the Arthur W. Marks Professor of Psychology at  Princeton University . She oversees the  Concepts and Cognition Laboratory , which uses the empirical tools of cognitive psychology and the conceptual tools of analytic philosophy to study the human mind. Their research focuses on topics including explanation, learning, causal reasoning, and folk epistemology.  Tania is the recipient of nume...

Jamie talks to actress, singer/song-writer, author and activist Carole Raphaelle Davis about Sentientism, what she believes and what matters morally.  If you prefer reading to listening, we've posted an article based on this conversation here . You can watch the video of our conversation here on our Sentientism YouTube channel . Why not subscribe there as well as to this podcast? Carole Rapha...

Jared is a researcher at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Until the summer of 2023 he was a lecturer at the University of Washington School of Computer Science. While there he created a class on the philosophy of AI and created and taught an ethics course as well as teaching technical artificial intelligence   courses . His satirical novel "The Strength of The Illusion" w...

Kat is an effective altruist who co-founded Nonlinear (incubating artificial intelligence extinction risk non-profits), Charity Entrepreneurship (helping people start new, effective charities), and Charity Science Health. She describes her main focus today as trying "to make transformative artificial intelligence go well instead of poorly." In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the...

Alexandra is an actress, activist and health coach. She has appeared in more than 100 feature films and television programs starring alongside actors including Tom Hanks, Pamela Anderson, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Costner and Dan Ackroyd. She is internationally recognized for her 5-year starring role in the tv series Baywatch. Alexandra has been a lifelong and often award-winning (and arrested!) activ...

This episode is a bonus cross-post of my conversation about Sentientism with Josh Milburn on his Knowing Animals podcast , founded by the late and much loved Siobhan O'Sullivan, as part of their Protecting Animals series. Make sure you subscribe to Knowing Animals wherever you listen. Of course Josh has also been my guest on Sentientism back in episode 50 . You can find it here on the Sentient...

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 Co...

Jo-Anne McArthur is a photojournalist, public speaker, animal rights activist and author. She is best known for her We Animals Media project, a media agency and photography project documenting human relationships with animals. Jo-Anne offers presentations about human relationships with animals in educational and other environments and provides photographs and other media for those working to help...

Varda Mehrotra is an animal advocate and movement builder, exploring intersectional solutions. Most recently, she founded  Samayu  to undertake intersectional work and apply a systems approach for issues surrounding justice and animals in food systems. Under her decade-long leadership,  FIAPO  - India’s federation for animal organisations - was recognized as one of the most effective animal charit...

Nicolas is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at the New College of Florida. In Fall 2023, he will join the College of Charleston as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. 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 vide...