"Animal activists don't have to be on the political left" - Josh Milburn - Sentientist Conversation

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.