I wouldn’t say I’m opposed to the idea of sentientism, I agree with basically all of its claims and conclusions. But I don’t think it’d be a good to strongly associate EA with sentientism, and I don’t think it adds much to discussions of ethics.
On the first, I agree pretty strongly of the framing that effective altruism is a question, not an ideology, so I don’t want to prescribe the ethics that someone must agree with in order to care about effective altruism.
Second, as I currently understand it (which is not super well), sentientism seems to only to take one ethical stance: conscious experience is the source of all moral value. This is definitely different from a stance that gods or humans or carbon-based life are the only sources of moral value, so kudos for having a position. But it takes no stance on most of the most important ethical questions: deontology vs consequentialism vs others, realism vs non-realism, internalism vs externalism, moral uncertainty. Even assuming a utilitarian starting point, it takes no stance on person affecting views, time discounting, preference vs hedonic utilitarianism, etc. Sentientism is my favorite answer to the question it’s trying to answer, but it’s hardly a comprehensive moral system.
[Meta: I’m still glad you posted this. We need people to think about about new ideas, even though we’re not going to agree with most of them.]
Sentientism isn’t a comprehensive moral system as you say—it leaves open all of the questions you list and others. It’s similar to secular humanism in that way. My intention in promoting Sentientism is for it to be a simple, unifying baseline philosophy—rather than something comprehensive. For many in the EA community the philosophy will be unremarkable or even obvious, but billions of people around the world are very happy believing and acting without evidence, reason or broad moral compassion. To my mind that exacerbates many of the problems EA is trying to address.
I find the intricacies of traditional philosophy fascinating, but I am wondering if there is more value in bringing large numbers of people up towards a simple, common baseline.
I’m open minded about how closely linked EA could or should be to Sentientism. It feels like a strong fit in some ways, but religiously motivated EAs are likely to disagree, as are those who think only humans warrant moral consideration.
I wouldn’t say I’m opposed to the idea of sentientism, I agree with basically all of its claims and conclusions. But I don’t think it’d be a good to strongly associate EA with sentientism, and I don’t think it adds much to discussions of ethics.
On the first, I agree pretty strongly of the framing that effective altruism is a question, not an ideology, so I don’t want to prescribe the ethics that someone must agree with in order to care about effective altruism.
Second, as I currently understand it (which is not super well), sentientism seems to only to take one ethical stance: conscious experience is the source of all moral value. This is definitely different from a stance that gods or humans or carbon-based life are the only sources of moral value, so kudos for having a position. But it takes no stance on most of the most important ethical questions: deontology vs consequentialism vs others, realism vs non-realism, internalism vs externalism, moral uncertainty. Even assuming a utilitarian starting point, it takes no stance on person affecting views, time discounting, preference vs hedonic utilitarianism, etc. Sentientism is my favorite answer to the question it’s trying to answer, but it’s hardly a comprehensive moral system.
[Meta: I’m still glad you posted this. We need people to think about about new ideas, even though we’re not going to agree with most of them.]
Thanks Aidan—really appreciate the feedback.
Sentientism isn’t a comprehensive moral system as you say—it leaves open all of the questions you list and others. It’s similar to secular humanism in that way. My intention in promoting Sentientism is for it to be a simple, unifying baseline philosophy—rather than something comprehensive. For many in the EA community the philosophy will be unremarkable or even obvious, but billions of people around the world are very happy believing and acting without evidence, reason or broad moral compassion. To my mind that exacerbates many of the problems EA is trying to address.
I find the intricacies of traditional philosophy fascinating, but I am wondering if there is more value in bringing large numbers of people up towards a simple, common baseline.
I’m open minded about how closely linked EA could or should be to Sentientism. It feels like a strong fit in some ways, but religiously motivated EAs are likely to disagree, as are those who think only humans warrant moral consideration.