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SentientismAuthor: Jamie Woodhouse
We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined. Find out more at https://sentientism.info/ or join a group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism. Also on YouTube! Language: en Genres: Philosophy, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Should Constitutions Protect All Sentient Beings? - John Adenitire & Raffael Fasel - Sentientism 241
Episode 241
Wednesday, 10 December, 2025
Raffael Fasel is University Assistant Professor in Public Law at the Cambridge Law Faculty and Fellow of Jesus College. He specialises in public law, with a particular interest in constitutional theory, human rights law, and animal rights law. Raffael is co-founder and co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law. John Adenitire is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen Mary University London and a Co-Director of the Forum on Decentering the Human. He is also a trustee of Humanists UK . John's research is primarily focused on Public Law, Legal Theory, and Comparative Constitutional Law, with distinct specialisations in conscientious exemptions and including non-human animals in constitutional law.Together, they are the co-authors of "Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism"In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.00:00 Clips00:57 Welcome- John's appearance on Sentientism #703:30 John and Raffael Intros06:33 What Are Constitutions and Why Are They Important?Maneesha Deckha, Jane Kotzman, Josh Milburn, Michael Dorf Sentientism episodes and our Sentientist Law playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcXzG-dxoZHBBwA0Ek2k29sh2MqLjdLBz RF: “…Constitutions are the most fundamental legal documents… the apex documents that a legal system has… that contain its most fundamental principles…”“…very difficult to amend those principles and indeed some constitutions don't even allow the amendment of certain very fundamental things like democracy or human rights.”“…the most important legal tools that exist if we're interested in in doing anything, including improving the lives of animals.”06:33 What Are Constitutions and Why Are They Important?21:03 Why Include Sentient Beings and Who Is Sentient?30:15 What Protections Do Constitutions Provide?38:52 What Rights Should Constitutions Provide?58:52 Trade-offs and Proportionality01:06:18 Rule of Law01:13:25 Democracy01:21:41 How Would the World Change Under Sentientist Constitutions?01:26:45 How Would a Sentientist Constitution Affect Human Sentients?01:29:35 How Do We Make This Happen?01:33:00 Follow Raffael and John:- https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/people/academic-staff/items/adenitire.html- https://twitter.com/JohnAdenitire- https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/rn-fasel/77852- https://bsky.app/profile/raffaelfasel.bsky.social- https://academic.oup.com/book/59826 And more... full show notes at Sentientism.info.Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
