Humanism Versus Sentientism

There is much more work to do in realizing the humanist aspiration for reducing egregious suffering arising from gross injustices, both of human and non-human sentients alike. I'm at one with Woodhouse in his ambition. I greatly admire the invaluable work that he is doing within humanist communities and more broadly in the public sphere of educating people everywhere on the very real impacts of their everyday buying and consuming behaviours.

Detracting from Woodhouse's good work here is his most unhelpful full-frontal attack on humanism, charging it with 'human-centrism', 'anthropocentricism' and even 'human supremacism'. These kinds of slurs and attempts to replace humanism with a supposed 'upgrade' to Sentientism is misplaced on a number of counts. First, I pointed out how humanism has a proud tradition tracing back to Enlightenment humanists such as Bentham and Mill, through the pioneer humanists of the 19th Century to today in advocating for the rights of animals and for preserving the entire ecosystem. This concern is increasingly reflected in the Humanist declarations and manifestos of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

Second, I have tried to show how the word 'human' in 'humanism' does not signify a belief in the pre-eminence of the species Homo sapiens above all others. Taking this word as indication for why Humanist organizations have historically focussed mainly on human issues is to seriously misunderstand the meaning of 'humanism'. By tapping into the inspiration of the Renaissance scholars, the early 'humanists' endeavoured to draw attention away from human dependence on a divine realm to focus instead on human capabilities for reasoning and ethical thinking. In this crucial respect, the philosophy of 'humanism' contrasts with classical 'theism' and not with valuing non-human species. Criticizing Humanist organizations for not focusing much more on non-human sentients is to seriously misconstrue the raison d'être of the Humanist movement since its earliest beginnings.

Third, I argued that it's not a real option to 'upgrade' humanism to the Sentientism 'world view' because Sentientism is not in actuality a world view. Despite Woodhouse's best efforts, 'sentientism' remains both within and outside academia the name of a very specific moral theory. Given that Sentientism groups currently do not constitute an effective 'movement' for pushing back against religious and authoritarian breaches, transitioning the many Humanist organizations around the globe doing real work on the ground to Sentientism would amount to a downgrade of an effective worldwide movement to not much more than a hope and a promise.

We need to recognize that humanism is neither the poor cousin of Sentientism nor of sentiocentrism. That is the case even if we include within the meaning of 'sentientism' the ontology of naturalism and the epistemology of applying reason to all domains of enquiry, as Woodhouse had attempted. On the other side, as Woodhouse points out, the moniker 'humanism' is easily misinterpreted to mean 'human exceptionalism'. I sometimes wonder whether a name change would help to advance the humanist cause. On the other hand, I feel the label 'sentientism' is not only a mouthful, it is also almost completely unknown outside of the discipline of professional philosophy. For the general public, my worry is that the term 'sentientism' sounds positively opaque.

In addition, co-opting that name will only generate more confusion as listeners and readers come across both its senses. For each encounter with the term, academics and informed public alike will need to think twice about which sense it is meant to convey: the usual academic sense of a certain moral theory or the divergent sense of a particular world view. Changing the name of humanism now after more than a century and a half of its modern use would also decouple humanists from a proud legacy of moving societies forward in a range of areas that people recognize instantly (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, free speech, women's and gay rights, liberal education, democracy, poverty).

Humanism is a world view broader than any specific moral theory and arising within the historical context of centuries of persecution and discrimination against those who thought outside the religious constraints of the society they lived in. From the 19th Century to the current day, I see Humanist organizations as having set themselves four specific tasks:

1. showing how we can lead moral and meaningful lives without a god or gods
2. combatting the egregious interference of religion into state matters (e.g., constitution, education, employment, taxation, ceremonies)
3. promoting social justice for the alienated and exploited (e.g., the poor, slaves, women, gays, transgender, non-religious)
4. providing safe community and support for the non-religious and ex-religious (e.g., Faith to Faithless, Recovering from Religion, Ex-Religious Support Network)

The Enlightenment project of encouraging the use of reason over authority and of promoting tolerance over bigotry is not yet finished. In some ways, we have taken a retrograde step globally. If you think the traditional work of Humanist organizations around the world is largely done, think again. As I write, Humanists International [2024] released their Freedom of Thought Report 2024. It reports that blasphemy laws still exist in at least 89 countries across the globe, affecting 57 percent of all peoples on earth. These laws target humanists, atheists, freethinkers, apostates and the religious whose beliefs are not in line with those mandated by the state religion. In seven countries, 'blasphemy' is punishable by death. In another 63 countries, the punishment is a long prison sentence. In at least 10 countries, the crime of 'apostasy' is punishable by death.

With the persistence of Humanists International and other kindred organizations, the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, has finally been released from his 24-year prison sentence for 'blasphemy'. He remains in fear of being murdered by vigilante mobs. In Afghanistan, among other harsh repressions, the Taliban authorities have banned girls from secondary school and university education and women from many forms of employment. In the United States, Evangelical and other religious conservatives have succeeded in outlawing what were legal abortions. Religious conservatives leveraging Trump have torn at the fabric of democracy in the hope of ushering in a new theocracy. The Enlightenment project of encouraging reason and tolerance is far from completion. In many places, these humanist goals are being beaten down with a new wave of religious intolerance and fanatical political authoritarianism.

Humanists International, Humanists UK, the American Humanist Association, the Humanist Association of Nigeria, along with many other Humanist organizations around the globe, are working at alleviating and preventing these egregious harms. Here in my home country, Humanists Australia is supporting a refugee fleeing from religious persecution while the Ex-Religious Support Network I run provides community and peer support for those leaving their religion. Despite Woodhouse's noble aspirations, this valuable work is not being done by Sentientist 'activists'. Whatever progress is being achieved is because of the thinly dispersed and very under-resourced Humanist and other freethinker organizations around the world.

In addition to this valuable endeavour, Humanist organizations are working on animal rights and environmental issues. To complain, however, that saving lives, protecting secular democracies, combatting religious and political persecution and providing community is not as important as other priorities diminishes the value of these efforts.

Meanwhile, there are many dedicated animal rights organizations with the necessary expertise and resources already doing very significant work in reducing animal suffering. So, let's help Humanist organizations do even more to raise awareness of animal suffering while appreciating the special work they do in alleviating egregious religious and political persecution and intolerance. Let us also not forget the significant contributions individual humanists make qua humanists in their work within animal rights and environmental organizations.

For someone who feels deeply about the massive sufferings of non-human sentients at the hands of humans, I appreciate Woodhouse's frustration with Humanist organizations not making this issue a high priority. However, we need to accept the historical fact that humanism is not solely or principally a philosophy about animal rights. Humanism as a world view encompasses the moral philosophy of sentientism while also having a much wider philosophical scope in including the virtues of reason, autonomy, democracy and secularism. Nor are the various Humanist groups aiming to mimic animal welfare organizations. As much as Woodhouse advocates for animal rights to be given a higher priority, there are existing specialist activist groups already doing marvellous work in this area. In my own part of the world, Animals Australia and Animals Australasia have achieved much. The same is true in other parts of the world.

Each organization has its specific strategic priorities shaped by the mission of the organization. Blaming Humanist organizations for not doing enough for animals is akin to pointing the finger at civil rights bodies, feminist groups and Marxist organizations for wasting too much time advocating for non-whites, women and workers respectively. Each of us is at liberty to work in more than one organization and for more than one worthwhile cause at a time. Being a feminist and working for the National Organization for Women (NOW) does not mean that feminism or feminist organizations are 'anthropocentric' or 'human supremacist'. Nor so for humanism and the Humanist movement.

I think it more productive for these organizations to work together on joint campaigns, rather than accuse each other of having misguided priorities. I can point here to how the Humanist organizations in my own country form alliances with kindred organizations to further their joint concerns. I know many humanists who also belong to two or more activist organizations. This is the spirit of mutual co-operation I want to encourage, instead of each of us finding fault with the other.

Woodhouse does make the incisive point that if Humanist organizations proclaim the intrinsic value of all sentient creatures, they need to put more focus on combatting the industrial scale of animal suffering occurring in our food chains. This is where Woodhouse is good to push Humanist organizations to do more and in this essay I've suggested revamping some current Humanist programs. I have questioned how much Humanist groups, though, ought to reallocate existing resources to focus much more on animal suffering.

Here, I look again to other advocacy groups dedicated to specific immoral discriminations. Leaders and many members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) also believe that people of colour have full moral worth. Likewise, leaders and many members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also believe that woman are due full moral consideration. And I'm convinced that the leaders and members of both groups would steadfastly object to the cruel and unnecessary suffering of factory-farmed animals on principle if only they were fully aware of the extent of that suffering.

However, it would be misguided to blame women's rights groups for not prioritizing people of colour. It would be short-sighted to blame anti-racist groups for not focusing on women. And it would be wrong to blame both kinds of groups for not spending much more of their resources on fighting against factory-farming and meat eating. To use each group's principled objections to the other forms of discrimination as a bludgeon with which to beat them with the charge of hypocrisy is to ignore the historic mission of each of these movements. In this essay, I appealed to Woodhouse to treat the Humanist movement with the same charity with which he treats other advocacy groups fighting against egregious injustices.

As I have illustrated with a number of examples, key Humanist groups are campaigning actively against animal suffering and environmental degradation. I suspect they are doing more than the representatives of many other world views. The Humanist movement has much more to achieve in these areas. I titled this essay Humanism Versus Sentientism reluctantly as it comported with Woodhouse's competitive approach to assessing the two approaches. In place of casting inflammatory accusations of 'human-centrism', 'anthropocentricism' and 'human supremacism' while quite cursorily suggesting an overwrite of the humanist programme with an 'upgrade', I'd rather see Woodhouse working in a spirit of collaboration rather than confrontation. I'd prefer to see him working with Humanist organizations in striving to alleviate animal suffering instead of further compounding misunderstandings of what humanism is and stands for. Here, I invite him to engage with Humanist groups to see how he and his fellow Sentients can move the humanist project forward in campaigning for animal rights. Woodhouse and the members of the Sentientist community have much expertise and needed human resources to offer both national and local Humanist organizations in helping to bring about real change in minimizing the suffering of non-human animals.

Note: The views expressed in this essay are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any particular Humanist organization.

I am grateful to Jamie Woodhouse, Debbie Hoad and Lyndon Storey for their many corrections to and comments on the pre-release version of this essay. I remain wholly responsible for any errors and omissions in the published version.

Copyright © 2025 Leslie Allan