Humanism Versus Sentientism

In his essay, Humanism Needs an Upgrade: Is Sentientism the Philosophy That Could Save the World?, Woodhouse [2019a] writes about the virtues of his new philosophy of 'Sentientism':

Like humanism, it commits to using evidence and reason and grants moral consideration to all humans. Sentientism then goes further. It grants degrees of moral consideration to all sentient beings—anything that can experience suffering or flourishing.

As Woodhouse explains, Sentientism is the better philosophy because, unlike humanism, 'it grants moral consideration to all sentient beings, not just humans'.

It may seem as if Woodhouse is criticising humanism for rejecting the moral worth of non-human sentients. That's not the case. He recognizes there is no inconsistency between being a humanist and recognizing our moral obligations to non-human sentients. As he notes: 'moral vegans and vegetarians are more likely to be atheists or humanists than the general population'. His problem is that while 'many humanists already grant moral consideration to non-human animals . . . sentientism makes that explicit'.

But is it really the case that when Woodhouse wrote this in 2019, humanism only explicitly 'grants moral consideration to all humans'? Oddly, in that very sentence extolling how sentientism remedies humanism's blind spot, Woodhouse illustrates how the 'national organization Humanists UK includes this [moral consideration of non-human animals] in its definition of humanism'.

Further, in that same month that Woodhouse had his article published, the American Humanist Association conducted its Environmental Justice Summit, one outcome of which was the release of its Resolution on Environmentalism [American Humanist Association 2019]. In that document, readers will find the following: 'WHEREAS all life on this planet has intrinsic value and holds the right to access clean air, clean water, and healthy habitats . . .'

More than a decade previous, the American Humanist Association [2003] drafted and released Humanist Manifesto III. In it, it states: 'Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond.' Humanists UK and the American Humanist Association are two of the largest humanist organizations in the world.

During that same period, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) [2002] (now Humanists International) released its Amsterdam Declaration 2002. Humanists International (HI) is the global body that represents over 160 Humanist organizations in over 80 countries. That Declaration states: 'Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world.' Similarly, The Brussels Declaration [Humanists International 2007] states: 'We recognise our duty of care to all of humanity including future generations, and our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world'.

In Canada in 2012, the Executive Director of the BC Humanist Association, Ian Bushfield, explained our obligations to non-humans thus: 'We respect the rights of animals because it is a mere extension of the rights that we grant to other human beings' [Bushfield [2012].

Moral concern for all sentients is again emphasized in Humanists International's [2019a] Reykjavik Declaration on the Climate Change Crisis in which it advocates for urgent action to protect 'non-human animals and natural ecosystems'. Summarizing its Advocacy Issues, Humanists International [2019b] states unambiguously that 'Humanists care about many things: humanity and other non-human animals, human rights, democracy and secularism, the environment, and the future.' To gain membership of Humanists International, Humanist organizations around the world are required to agree to this moral philosophy of inclusion. In their application for membership [Humanists International 2019c], they are required to confirm that they support the IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism, which states in part that humanism 'stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values' [Humanists International 1996]. What I have tried to show here is that even back in 2019 when Woodhouse was beginning his advocacy, his claim that humanism as a philosophy neglected to include specifically non-human sentients within its moral orbit is historically untrue.

In his 2021 article co-authored with Amy Halpern-Laff, Woodhouse aspires to 'A New Dimension for Humanism?' He asks rhetorically, 'Why does humanism center human needs and interests alone?' [Woodhouse and Halpern-Laff 2021]. It's difficult to see how humanists' moral concern for non-human sentients is so 'new' when in the same article they point to how for 'many humanists, animal well-being is already a critical issue in its own right' and how 'many humanist organizations already grant moral consideration to animals other than humans'. And again, 'humanists are leading the way' on being vegan and vegetarian. I'm somewhat sympathetic here towards Woodhouse and Halpern-Laff in their quest for more Humanist organizations to put 'sentience as the central qualifier for moral consideration, not an add-on to humanity'. However, I do think their hyperbole about concern for all sentients being 'new' in a supposedly exclusively human-focused philosophy is unwarranted and misleading.

It's in Woodhouse [2022a] short essay, Can Humanists and Atheists Break Free From Human Supremacism?, that he is most confrontational and misleading. Writing of the humanist and atheist movements, he charges that 'the centres of gravity of these movements remain firmly anthropocentric – even human supremacist'. His reference to 'firmly anthropocentric' links directly to the text of the American Humanist Association's [2003] Humanist Manifesto III where readers can view it for themselves. Just how grounding values in 'human welfare' and the 'global ecosystem and beyond', as the Manifesto proposes, is 'anthropocentric' and 'human supremacist' is left unexplained by Woodhouse. In fact, this Manifesto extends values even beyond Woodhouse's narrower concern with only sentients, including as it does 'nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty'. This leaves Woodhouse open to the similar charge of being unethically sentiocentric and sentio supremacist.

Woodhouse further undoes his own case by citing Humanists International's and Humanists UK's current definition of 'humanism'. These include 'a duty of care to all of humanity, including future generations, and beyond this to all sentient beings' [Humanists International 2022b] and 'a concern for human beings and other sentient animals' [Humanists UK 2023e].

Is there some semblance of truth in Woodhouse's accusation? Is there a sense in which humanism could be 'anthropocentric', and 'firmly' so? Here is how three reputable dictionaries render the meaning of this word:

1 : considering human beings as the most significant entity of the universe

2 : interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and experiences

[Merriam-Webster]

considering humans and their existence as the most important and central fact in the universe

[Cambridge]

regarding humans as the most important and central factor in the universe

[Collins]

I think the documents I cited from the major Humanist organizations referencing the 'intrinsic value' of all life, the grounding of values in 'the global ecosystem and beyond' and our 'responsibility for the natural world' can hardly be counted as seeing ourselves as the 'most significant' and 'central factor in the universe'. Seeing this as 'firmly' so is on even more shaky ground.

Now, what Woodhouse may mean here by 'anthropocentric' is simply the behaviour of spending more activist time on human justice issues compared with non-human sentient concerns. So, on this meaning, a Marxist organization is 'anthropocentric' in virtue of it spending little to no time on non-human sentient campaigns. On this account, a Marxist can also be a sentientist with no hindrance, just as a humanist can be a sentientist with no contradiction. In this case, Woodhouse's charge of being 'anthropocentric' loses its sting. Different movements simply focus on different kinds of injustice.

Just how we should read Woodhouse is not clear. In Woodhouse's [2020a] earlier essay on A Unifying Morality? How is Sentientism Different?, he defines 'anthropocentrism' as the view that 'humans are what matters'. In this earlier essay, he explicitly contrasts 'anthropocentrism' with 'sentiocentrism', the latter being 'the philosophy that sentient individuals, primarily humans and most animals, are the centre of moral concern'. There, Woodhouse is not casting 'anthropocentrism' as merely giving practical focus to certain human issues (such as workers' rights). If this weaker meaning of 'anthropocentrism' (i.e., merely giving different focus) is all that Woodhouse's intends, many sentiocentrists and Woodhouse's Sentientists would be equally guilty of 'animal-centrism', considering their almost single-minded focus on non-human sentients. In this case, just as Woodhouse points the finger at humanists (and, potentially, Marxists) for not caring enough about animals, fingers point back to many sentiocentrists and Sentientists (on Woodhouse's meaning) for not caring enough about sexual slavery, child poverty, nuclear proliferation, war, pandemics, totalitarianism, and a host of other egregious injustices and human sufferings. (I say more on the criticism that humanists are focussed too heavily on the wrong issues in Sec. 4 below.)

So, the question raised for Woodhouse is this: Is a movement 'anthropocentric' when it:

1. explicitly disregards the moral worth of all non-human sentients, or
2. leaves open the possibility of the moral worth of non-human sentients, or
3. actively spends most of its time and resources on rectifying human injustices?

On Woodhouse's own rendition of 'humanism', charging the movement with a. is clearly mistaken. Charging it with b. or c. leaves humanism neither more nor less 'anthropocentric' than many other world views, such as Marxism, Objectivism, Anthroposophy, Existentialism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That being the case, I do question why Woodhouse is not writing opinion pieces and running seminars and training programs lambasting these world views for their 'anthropocentricism'.

This lack of clarity over Woodhouse's complaint continues in his latest offerings. Woodhouse's [2024c] recent webinar for teachers is worth quoting in full on this question so as to give him a fair representation. At 14 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, Woodhouse had this to say:

So, it's worth spending a moment or two on this balance between humanism and Sentientism. Because humanism, frustratingly, many humanists seem to think that humanism is just about humans. But it really isn't. Humanism isn't about humans as moral patients. It's about humans as moral agents. So, as I was saying, humanism says, "Well, we don't need a god to tell us to be good. We, as human agents can decide our own morality or can construct or can discover it." So, humanism already technically can be open to moral consideration for non-human sentient beings. And indeed many humanists and some of the Humanist organizations are slowly edging in that direction, updating their definitions and getting more serious about animal ethics and ideas like veganism. But again, it's slow progress. I still think it's fair to say that the humanist movement today is overwhelmingly centred on humans. The technical term here is 'anthropocentric'. Whereas Sentientism explicitly rejects anthropocentrism and says that every sentient being should matter.

So, up until the last sentence in this quote, Woodhouse agrees that humanism is not 'anthropocentric' in the sense of a. above (explicit moral disregard of non-human sentients). Yet, in that final sentence, he puts Sentientism and 'anthropocentrism' in juxtaposition. They can only be in juxtaposition if he means by 'anthropocentrism' here the view that non-human sentients have no moral worth (i.e., as in a. above). But then how can humanism be 'anthropocentric' in this sense after Woodhouse has already pushed the point that humanism is 'open to moral consideration for non-human sentient beings'? This to me is a clear example of where equivocation on the meaning of 'anthropocentrism' can lead to what seems a much stronger claim against humanism than is warranted by the evidence.

My second key point about Woodhouse's webinar for teachers is that he starts by objecting to the mistaken view that 'humanism is just about humans'; that is, that humanism is human-centric. Yet, a little later, he takes that back by complaining that 'the humanist movement today is overwhelmingly centred on humans'. To be fair, perhaps Woodhouse here is making a distinction between the philosophy of 'humanism' and the 'humanist movement'. If that's the case, then it's a distinction I wish he'd taken more care to draw for his readers and listeners over the years. Headlines such as 'Is Humanism Good Enough?' and 'Humanism Needs an Upgrade' give a misleading impression that the fault is with the philosophy of humanism. I have the same concern with Woodhouse's rhetorical question, 'Why does humanism center human needs and interests alone?' [Woodhouse and Halpern-Laff 2021].

This misrepresentation of humanism extends to the way he coaches teachers in how to instruct students about Sentientism. In his teachers' guide, Ethical Veganism in RE: Unit 6, he asks teachers to explain to students how humanism fails to 'explicitly include in its circle of moral consideration, all sentient beings (sentients)' [RE Today Services 2022: 11]. At the same time, Humanists UK is advising teachers on how to avoid exactly this misunderstanding. In its Dos and Don'ts: How to Present Humanism and Avoid Misconceptions [Humanists UK 2022b], this guide for teachers recommends presenting the word 'humanist' to mean someone who 'makes their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals'. It also warns:

The word 'humanism' may contain the word 'human', but that does not mean that human beings are the sole object of concern. Humanists are typically concerned about animal welfare, believing we should work to reduce the suffering of all sentient creatures, and support work to reduce the human impact on the environment.

Why am I spending so much time on this complaint of Woodhouse's? It's precisely because charges of 'human-centrism', 'anthropocentricism' and 'human supremacism' sound quite serious to Woodhouse's readers and listeners, conjuring up as it does images of arrogance, moral indifference and even cruelty. However, that is not the impression that a dispassionate observer of the movement will get if they study the movement, its history and the people and motivations behind it.

Now, what of Woodhouse's [2022a] grievance that 'the centres of gravity of humanist movements' is 'even human supremacist'? I think this claim is both incorrect and unnecessarily inflammatory. It's particularly jarring to the leaders of humanist movements with its allusion to white supremacy and all of the racist bigotry and authoritarianism it entails. If humanism is really so 'firmly anthropocentric' and 'human supremacist' in its concerns, then it's perplexing how Woodhouse was given a '"headline Saturday night slot" at the American Humanist Association annual conference to talk about Sentientism' and how the CEO of Humanists UK released a video 'setting out a compelling case for Sentientism'. Woodhouse proudly retells both these inclusions in this self-same article. Add to that Woodhouse's [2022b] interview with the Vice-President of Humanists UK and perhaps the world's leading thinker and writer on humanism, A. C. Grayling. Woodhouse, in particular, highlights Grayling saying that 'I agree wholeheartedly with what you describe as the sentientist' which, he continues, 'is not surprising since we are both paid up humanists'. Again, this is hardly a display of 'human supremacism'.

It is with some irony that I note Woodhouse's [2018a] early advice to himself: 'I see humanism as a critically important force for good that I don't want to distract from or fragment.' It is difficult to square this supportive sentiment with his publication of articles, production of videos and teaching materials, and deliverance of talks on how 'anthropocentric', 'human-centric' and outright 'human supremacist' humanism is. In line with his earlier stated cooperative spirit, I invite him to do more of what he is already doing so admirably; that is, educating grass-roots humanists about the sufferings of non-human sentients and encouraging them to do more in alleviating and preventing that suffering.

In the meantime, Humanists International [2022a] released its updated Amsterdam Declaration 2022 (Declaration of Modern Humanism), building on its earlier sentientist and environmentalist position expressed in the 2002 version. The very first principle in the 2022 document emphasizes the moral salience of sentience, stating that 'morality is inherent to the human condition, grounded in the ability of living things to suffer and flourish, motivated by the benefits of helping and not harming'. The fifth principle further emphasizes that 'we are part of nature and accept our responsibility for the impact we have on the rest of the natural world'.

But don't think this concern for all sentient life and for the biosphere as a whole is new to humanism. Importantly, this giving of moral regard to non-human entities by key humanists goes back much further than even the current century. On the question of animal suffering, from the time of the Enlightenment, very prominent humanists such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill have been advocating for the humane treatment of non-human animals. On the broader question of preserving the natural environment with all of its living creatures, the humanists John Stuart Mill, George Lefevre, Baron Eversley and William Morris founded Britain's first conservation organisation in 1865, the Commons Preservation Society.

In 1886, humanist Henry Stephens Salt had published A Plea for Vegetarianism. In 1891, he went on to found the Humanitarian League, advocating for animal rights. With the same outlook, prominent humanist Thomas Hardy wrote in 1910 how the common origin of all species requires 'a readjustment of altruistic morals, by enlarging, as a necessity of rightness, the application of what has been called "The Golden Rule" from the area of mere mankind to that of the whole animal kingdom' [reproduced in Humanists UK 2022a]. Other prominent humanists had their own contributions to make, including Murray Bookchin, E. O. Wilson and Lester R. Brown. (For an overview of humanist activism in this area since the mid-19th Century, I refer the reader to A Brief History of Humanist Environmentalism [Humanists UK 2023b].)

This same humanist concern for animals extends to today. For example, world-renowned humanist, David Attenborough, is a tireless champion for all species. Three other internationally-known contemporary humanist advocates are Professor Peter Singer, ex-Senator Bob Brown and Lyn White. Singer received the Australian Humanist of the Year (AHoY) [Humanists Australia 2024] award in 2004, while Brown was awarded the same accolade in 2010. More recently, White received the award in 2019 'in recognition of her passionate and effective advocacy of humane treatment of animals everywhere'. Humanists Australia [2022] explains its stated value of 'Compassion' thus: 'We have compassion for all humans and other feeling beings.' In addition, Humanists Australia [2021] devoted their entire Autumn 2021 (No. 141) issue of their Australian Humanist national magazine to animal rights while Humanists UK [2021] recently endorsed the World Organisation for Animal Health's Five Freedoms for animals.

Humanist organizations around the world are taking practical steps to preserve and rehabilitate the natural environment. I noted above the work the American Humanist Association has done with its Environmental Justice Summit and their Resolution on Environmentalism [American Humanist Association 2019]. Humanists UK is also doing great work here with its Humanist Climate Action. This is 'a volunteer-led network of Humanists UK members and supporters committed to redefining lifestyles and campaigning for policies that promote low-carbon, ethical, and sustainable living in the light of the degeneration of the Earth's climate and biodiversity' [Humanists UK 2023a]. Closer to home, I can add here Humanists Australia's [2023] Climate Change and the Environment challenge. This program puts into action its stated 'Environment' value: 'We value and respect the planet and all the life it contains' [2022]. Even more locally for me, Humanists Victoria [2018] devotes an entire section of its official statement of Policy Principles to valuing and preserving the 'Environment'. This is but a very small snapshot of what Humanist organizations are doing in practice around the world, allaying any notion that humanism is anthropocentric and human-supremacist.

In fact, Sentientists perhaps owe their existence to a long line of seminal humanist thinkers and activists more than to anything else. During the Enlightenment period, naturalist utilitarian humanists such as David Hume, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill agitated against the Christian human-centric view that animals are mere chattels over which we have 'dominion'. They also developed the notion that morality is grounded in the capacity for pleasure and suffering, again opposing the religious glorification of suffering and appeals to supposed divine commands. Sentientists are also presumably indebted to the humanist biologist Charles Darwin and naturalist philosophers such as T. H. Huxley for positioning humans as animals within the broader panoply of living things. I do think if it were not for these pioneer humanists pushing back against the dogmatic religious repressions marking the previous centuries, Sentientists would be a much rarer breed today.

Copyright © 2025 Leslie Allan