Sentientism

Sentientism (or sentiocentrism) is an ethical view that places sentient individuals at the center of moral concern. It holds that both humans and other sentient individuals have interests that must be considered. Gradualist sentientism attributes moral consideration relatively to the degree of sentience.

Sentientists consider that arbitrarily giving different moral weight to sentient beings based solely on their species membership is a form of unjustified discrimination known as speciesism. Many self-described humanists see themselves as "sentientists" where the term ''humanism'' contrasts with ''theism'' and does not describe the sole focus of humanist concerns. Sentientism stands in opposition to the philosophy of anthropocentrism.

Origin

The term sentientism was used by John Rodman in 1977 who referred to Peter Singer's philosophy as "a kind of zoöcentric sentientism". Andrew Linzey defined the term in 1980 to denote an attitude that arbitrarily favours sentients over non-sentients.

History

The 18th-century utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham was among the first to argue for sentientism. He maintained that any individual who is capable of subjective experience should be considered a moral subject. Members of species who are able to experience pleasure and pain are thus included in the category. In his ''Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation'', Bentham made a comparison between slavery and sadism toward humans and non-human animals:

The late 19th- and early 20th-century American philosopher J. Howard Moore, in '' Better-World Philosophy'' (1899), described every sentient being as existing in a constant state of struggle. He argued that what aids them in their struggle can be called ''good'' and what opposes them can be called ''bad''. Moore believed that only sentient beings can make such moral judgements because they are the only parts of the universe which can experience pleasure and suffering. As a result, he argued that sentience and ethics are inseparable and therefore every sentient piece of the universe has an intrinsic ethical relationship to every other sentient part, but not the insentient parts. Moore used the term "zoocentricism" to describe the belief that universal consideration and care should be given to all sentient beings; he believed that this was too difficult for humans to comprehend in their current stage of development.

Other prominent philosophers discussing or defending sentientism include Joel Feinberg, Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mary Anne Warren.

Concept

Sentientism posits that sentience is the necessary and sufficient condition in order to belong to the moral community. Other organisms, therefore, aside from humans are morally important in their own right. According to the concept, there are organisms that have some subjective experience, which include self-awareness, rationality as well as the capacity to experience pain and suffering.

There are sources that consider sentientism as a modification of traditional ethic, which holds that moral concern must be extended to sentient animals.

Peter Singer provides the following justification of sentientism:
Utilitarian philosophers such as Singer care about the well-being of sentient non-human animals as well as humans. They reject speciesism, defined by Singer as a "prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species". Singer considers speciesism to be a form of arbitrary discrimination similar to racism or sexism.

Gradualist sentientism proposes that the value of sentient beings is relative to their degree of sentience, which is assumed to increase with the cognitive, emotional and social complexity.

Criticism

John Rodman criticized the sentientist approach, commenting "the rest of nature is left in a state of thinghood, having no intrinsic worth, acquiring instrumental value only as resources for the well-being of an elite of sentient beings".

The sentientism of Peter Singer and others has been criticized for holding the view that only sentient creatures have moral standing because they have interests. A human corpse for example may deserve respect and proper treatment even though it lacks sentience and can no longer be harmed. The claim that only sentient beings have interests has also been questioned as a person in a coma is not sentient but is still being cared for. Philosopher Gregory Bassham has written that "many environmentalists today reject sentientism and claim instead that all living things, both plants and animals, have moral standing".

A biocentrist may argue that valuing lifeforms that have sentience more than other lifeforms is just as arbitrary as doing the same with any other trait.

See also

* Ethics of uncertain sentience
* Moral circle expansion
* Speciesism
* Veganism
* Wild animal suffering

References

Further reading

* MacClellan, Joel P (2012
"Minding Nature: A Defense of a Sentiocentric Approach to Environmental Ethics"
''University of Tennessee''.

{{Animal rights, state=expanded, topics

Animal ethics
Animal rights
Normative ethics
Ethical theories
Effective altruism