Walter Veit (@wrwveit & walterveit.com) is an interdisciplinary scientist, philosopher & writer focusing on biology, minds & ethics. He publishes the ‘Science and Philosophy‘ series on Psychology Today and Medium.

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.” As well as the YouTube video above, the audio is also on our Podcast – subscribe here on Apple​​ & here on all other platforms​​.

We discuss:

• Defending Descartes, as a child!
• Studying philosophy, politics, economics & science
• Writing a phd on the philosophy of consciousness. How sentience came to arise in a purely physical universe
• Growing up in an agnostic family, attending church but “grumbling”
• Finding it strange learning about god at school. Asking annoying questions 🙂
• A brief early teenage phase of believing in god, then reverting to atheism
• Church seemed like a “weird cult-like thing.” “It just didn’t make sense.”
• There are thousands of religions. They can’t all be right. Just disbelieving in one more than religious people do
• Being a “hard-core naturalist” but still feeling the pull of superstition
• Finding naturalism reassuring. Can abandon the “f*cking scary stuff” (monsters, ghosts, hell)
• We can just enjoy our lives & explore the universe
• The pull of being part of something larger. The universe, a tribe, a sports team fan group…
• The hesitation in Germany about collectivism
• “It’s a peculiar world we live in – it’s exciting”
• Does morality crumble without the normative force of a god. “A dude in the sky making up laws and we just have to follow them”
• People sceptical of morality aren’t sceptical about laws. You can break them but there might be consequences
• Too much of morality seems arbitrary. But Bentham almost proposed utilitarianism as a sort of science, not morality
• Utilitarians in the UK were engaged in politics & in improving the world
• Instead of considering morality – just consider the facts re: “What do animals want from their own point of view”
• Facts: animals exist. They can be harmed. They don’t like suffering
• Humans evolved as a social species. That makes us care
• “Morality” might create more harms than benefits!
• There is no dividing line between humans and other animals because we all have interests
• Both morality and religion have been used to divide humans & animals
• Even oppressive groups have divided people through an appeal to morality
• The deep connection between morality and spirituality/religion. Often naturalists & atheists don’t see the danger
• Naturalists are attacked for being amoral but are no less moral
• Naturalism can ground morality, but only in a weak way
• Naturalism doesn’t need to compete with religious, super-ordinate meta-ethics
• Is sentient experience the root of all value?
• Moral realism/anti-realism
• Nature isn’t a good guide to morality
• Nietzsche’s master & slave morality
• If people with different interests appeal to different moralities (as with different gods) it’s hard to find common ground
• Hunter-gatherer morality doesn’t work on a global scale
• The risks of relativism
• Partner Heather Browning, zoologist turned philosopher
• Are zoos intrinsically bad? What do animals want?
• Humans fantasize about what life in the wild is like
• Taking the perspective of the other
• The false distinction between subjective & objective “mattering”. The only “mattering” is subjective
• We should be more neutral about what matters to each individual
• The richness of sentient experience
• Long-termism: future sentients have no voice. Democracy is just a fight between current humans
• Is Sentientism the only moral discrimination?
• Biocentrism & ecocentrism are absurd. The only things that matter, matter to a subject
• We subjects can care about the environment
• “If you don’t think chimpanzees don’t feel pain you should re-consider everything you’ve learned”
• Donald Griffin’s revival of animal consciousness science
• Humans are just one little branching point on life’s tree
• Can there be consciousness without valence?
• Dennett’s “suffering matters” and Walter’s “pathological complexity” thesis
• Even pre-Cambrian, flexible action evolved in the face of pathological complexity in the wild (not the lab!)
• Staying away from danger, seeking the good: the evolution of utility
• Getting rid of the hard problem
• Degrees of vs. binary sentience. Favouring gradualism
• When I wake up in the morning I’m not fully conscious. Coffee is needed for us to become fully sentient beings!
• Consciousness and sentience as classes of evaluative information processing
• Panpsychism is a non-starter. It has no evolutionary rationale
• “If there is something it’s like to be an electron then it’s bloody boring”
• Powerpointism!
• “Being complex in a complex world and having to make complex decisions is you need sentience as an efficient way of making choices”
• Artificial sentience might not have to have an evolutionary rationale, but biological ones do
• Living systems are goal directed. There are obstacles (pathological) to those goals
• Will even artificial sentients need some pathological drive – Robot Wars
• We are robots as well!
• We don’t yet know how it works. Maybe a whole brain wave / electrical phenomenon?
• Insect sentience. Duration, intensity, population size…
• Sentientism doesn’t have to grant equal consideration to every type of sentient
• Could we genetically engineer animals to enjoy being farmed?
• Clean/cultivated meat
• It’s hard to think beyond our own experiences
• Sentient experience is foundational, not freedom
• Peter Singer’s influence
• “We just care about suffering”. There are beings that suffer – we can do science about that
• Sentientism is a necessary stance. To find out about animal experiences we need to care about them
• Our worldview is finally changing, both re: naturalism and in how we want the world to be
• “Caring about beings that care about their lives”. There is nothing magical here
• Establishing the pluralistic foundations of naturalism and sentiocentrism in Sentientism and bringing disciplines together in that common ground.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.

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​Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is here on FaceBook.

Thanks, Graham for the post-prod: @cgbessellieu.