Sentientism | "Good ethics does start with what's real... with what's true" - Philosopher Joel MacClellan - Ep:208 @Sentientism | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Joel is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans. After completing his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Akron, he was a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama working in environmental education and sustainable development. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Joel was a scholar-in-residence at Wesleyan University in 2013 as the New York University Animal Studies Initiative’s Animal Ethics and Public Policy Fellow. He held visiting assistant professorships at Washington State University and Binghamton University, SUNY, before coming to Loyola. His main areas of research are applied ethics, especially environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science. One of his many academic publications is "Minding Nature: A Defense of a Sentiocentric Approach to Environmental Ethics".
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
00:50 Welcome
- Joel's PhD thesis re: #sentiocentrism
- Our Sentientism FaceBook group: facebook.com/groups/sentientism
02:47 Joel's Intro
- Asst Prof of philosophy at Loyola
- Director-elect of the environment programme
- Coaching the Ethics Bowl
- Institutional Review Board and animal usage ethicist
- Peace Corps volunteering in Panama
- Analytic philosophy focus
- Applied, environmental, animal ethics
- Philosophy of science and biology
- British #empiricists
- Grew up as a "latch-key kid" in Akron countryside "being in and messing around with nature" & rescuing animals ("Boy" turned out to be a girl...)
- Mother a nurse "seeing... the fragility of life very early on"
- Dad sold musical instruments "grew up around music and art"
- "All manner of outdoor adventuring... rock climbing, kayaking"
- "I'm a pretty hard-core board gamer... Evolution... Wingspan... nature themed board-games"
- "Within philosophy applied ethics can be a bit of a perjorative... not real philosophy"
- "I'm still trying to delay answering the question 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'"
11:02 What's Real?
- Raised in a minimally #protestant #Christian family "church on Sundays and that was about it"
- Mum was "more spiritual than religious". Church for the singing and community more than belief
- Dad: "We go to church because that's what we're supposed to do"
- An inauthenticity about it "going through the motions"
- "I've never been religious or spiritual"
- "I think we're all born atheistic at least in the sense that we don't have any active beliefs in anything supernatural... we start as empiricists..."
- Being puzzled as a kid at realising most humans are religious "I thought I might have been broken!"
- Sunday school after church at 10 yrs old hearing about Noah's ark "there's so many species of beetle - this doesn't make any sense at all... basic critical thinking"
- Anti-authoritarian and anti-dogmatism even from a young age
- "I'm probably an #atheist ... at least a weak atheist... probably also an #agnostic "
- At 12 signing in to church marking "'Do not wish to be a member of this church'... that got an invite by the pastor... where I was asked to apologise... I refused.... 'I'm here under duress against my will'... I didn't have to go to church any more after that."
- Parents "let me find my own way"
- In college reading Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the New Atheists "I learned a lot from that... but you mentioned humility... they... struck me as divisive and not welcoming to people that might be open... if you're not actively ridiculing them"
- "I grew up atheist but I'm no longer practicing" :)
- "I'm more of what one might call an #apatheist... apathy or indifference towards the existence or non-existence of god... it just doesn't play a role in my life or my thinking academically"
- "I'm a naturalist... more as a method... not as an ontology"
- "How I write treats the world as given... I don't make any assumptions beyond the empirical... supernatural entities - they just don't play a role in my work"
- Scepticism (David Hume) & naturalism in balance
- Descartes, behaviourism, Jane Goodall's fight to recognise animals as sentient individuals
32:53 What Matters?
51:50 Who Matters?
01:22:19 A Better World?
01:46:30 Follow Joel
- http://cas.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/joel-macclellan
- linkedin.com/in/joel-macclellan-2038292b9
- philpeople.org/profiles/joel-macclellan
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Joel is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans. After completing his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Akron, he was a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama working in environmental education and sustainable development. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Joel was a scholar-in-residence at Wesleyan University in 2013 as the New York University Animal Studies Initiative’s Animal Ethics and Public Policy Fellow. He held visiting assistant professorships at Washington State University and Binghamton University, SUNY, before coming to Loyola. His main areas of research are applied ethics, especially environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science. One of his many academic publications is "Minding Nature: A Defense of a Sentiocentric Approach to Environmental Ethics".
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
00:50 Welcome
- Joel's PhD thesis re: #sentiocentrism
- Our Sentientism FaceBook group: facebook.com/groups/sentientism
02:47 Joel's Intro
- Asst Prof of philosophy at Loyola
- Director-elect of the environment programme
- Coaching the Ethics Bowl
- Institutional Review Board and animal usage ethicist
- Peace Corps volunteering in Panama
- Analytic philosophy focus
- Applied, environmental, animal ethics
- Philosophy of science and biology
- British #empiricists
- Grew up as a "latch-key kid" in Akron countryside "being in and messing around with nature" & rescuing animals ("Boy" turned out to be a girl...)
- Mother a nurse "seeing... the fragility of life very early on"
- Dad sold musical instruments "grew up around music and art"
- "All manner of outdoor adventuring... rock climbing, kayaking"
- "I'm a pretty hard-core board gamer... Evolution... Wingspan... nature themed board-games"
- "Within philosophy applied ethics can be a bit of a perjorative... not real philosophy"
- "I'm still trying to delay answering the question 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'"
11:02 What's Real?
- Raised in a minimally #protestant #Christian family "church on Sundays and that was about it"
- Mum was "more spiritual than religious". Church for the singing and community more than belief
- Dad: "We go to church because that's what we're supposed to do"
- An inauthenticity about it "going through the motions"
- "I've never been religious or spiritual"
- "I think we're all born atheistic at least in the sense that we don't have any active beliefs in anything supernatural... we start as empiricists..."
- Being puzzled as a kid at realising most humans are religious "I thought I might have been broken!"
- Sunday school after church at 10 yrs old hearing about Noah's ark "there's so many species of beetle - this doesn't make any sense at all... basic critical thinking"
- Anti-authoritarian and anti-dogmatism even from a young age
- "I'm probably an #atheist ... at least a weak atheist... probably also an #agnostic "
- At 12 signing in to church marking "'Do not wish to be a member of this church'... that got an invite by the pastor... where I was asked to apologise... I refused.... 'I'm here under duress against my will'... I didn't have to go to church any more after that."
- Parents "let me find my own way"
- In college reading Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the New Atheists "I learned a lot from that... but you mentioned humility... they... struck me as divisive and not welcoming to people that might be open... if you're not actively ridiculing them"
- "I grew up atheist but I'm no longer practicing" :)
- "I'm more of what one might call an #apatheist... apathy or indifference towards the existence or non-existence of god... it just doesn't play a role in my life or my thinking academically"
- "I'm a naturalist... more as a method... not as an ontology"
- "How I write treats the world as given... I don't make any assumptions beyond the empirical... supernatural entities - they just don't play a role in my work"
- Scepticism (David Hume) & naturalism in balance
- Descartes, behaviourism, Jane Goodall's fight to recognise animals as sentient individuals
32:53 What Matters?
51:50 Who Matters?
01:22:19 A Better World?
01:46:30 Follow Joel
- http://cas.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/joel-macclellan
- linkedin.com/in/joel-macclellan-2038292b9
- philpeople.org/profiles/joel-macclellan
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
