Sentientism has much in common with humanism. Like humanism, it is pro-human rights and focused on our common global humanity. It is anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-ageist, anti-ableist, anti-nationalistic and anti-LGBTQ+phobic. Both humanism and sentientism help us focus on what we have in common—our humanity and our sentience. While identity politics can help identify problems and provide mutual support within groups, humanism and sentientism can develop collective solutions that we can all identify with and work on together.

Like humanism, sentientism is pro-science, reason and evidence and therefore  against fabrication, fake news, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, cultural relativism and religious and supernatural thinking.

All the problems and opportunities we face — from the existential threats of climate change, nuclear war and biological or technological development, including AI, to the immediate challenges of global poverty, conflict prevention, development and health—  are better addressed with facts and critical thinking, rather than dogma.

There are two areas in which sentientism goes further than humanism. For many, animal welfare is a critical issue in its own right, given the more than 100 billion animals we kill every year for food, drink and other animal products. Transitioning away from animal farming is also an important step towards reducing our negative impact on the environment in terms of land, water and energy use, emissions and pollution. While many humanists (including Humanists UK) already grant moral consideration to non-human animals, sentientism makes that explicit, as it views causing the suffering and death of sentient animals as ethically wrong.

Read the full article about how sentientism could save the world by Jamie Woodhouse at Areo Magazine.