Thanks Holden—great article.
The Sentientism web site (and the Sentientism podcast/YouTube series of conversations) proposes Sentientism as an explicitly naturalistic, sentiocentric worldview. I summarise it as “evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings”. Feedback very welcome.
Methodological naturalism is so obvious to many that it’s often left unstated. However, given most people on the planet have their ethics shaped (warped?) by unfounded and / or supernatural beliefs it seems important to specify this epistemological stance alongside an ethical one re: our scope of moral patiency.
Arguably every human caused problem is rooted in a failure of compassion, un-founded credence/belief or a combination of the two.
As in human ethics, the perspective of the victims cuts through this topic pretty cleanly for me.
As a thought experiment, imagine writing an article considering these sorts of nuances re: a human ethics topic where individuals are needlessly being harmed & killed for the pleasure of others.