What does “sentience” mean?
“Sentience” refers to the capacity to have subjective experiences and feelings, such as the capacity to feel pain, pleasure, emotions, and other sensations. It is a key term in discussions on ethics, animal rights, and consciousness, describing beings that can sense and meaningfully respond to their environment.
In the context of animal welfare, sentience is particularly important because it acknowledges that animals can suffer and experience well-being. This recognition raises ethical questions about how animals should be treated, emphasising the moral responsibility to protect them from harm.
Which animals does Sentience focus on, and why?
Sentience primarily focuses on farmed animals, but we are committed to the welfare of all sentient beings. We prioritise farmed animals because this is where we can achieve the most significant impact. In Switzerland alone, over 85 million animals are killed each year for food, with almost 80 million of these being chickens. By focusing on farmed animals, we aim to benefit the largest number of non-human animals possible.
However, our work extends beyond farmed animals. Our vision is a society in which all animals are protected from suffering. This is why we ran the Fundamental Rights for Primates Initiative, as well as our Invisible Animals campaign – which champions the welfare of liminal species – i.e. those who are neither fully wild, nor domesticated, such as pigeons and rats.
What are your effectiveness criteria?
At Sentience, we use three effectiveness criteria to decide where and how to allocate our resources: scale (potential impact), tractability (how likely it is that efforts can lead to significant progress), and neglectedness (how few resources are currently devoted to the cause). These criteria encourage us to use resources such as time, money and skills in the most effective ways to help others, and to choose carefully causes and actions that have the greatest impact.
In the field of animal welfare, these criteria help us focus on reducing animal suffering by addressing issues like factory farming or promoting plant-based diets, to create the most significant impact possible.
What is antispeciesism?
Antispeciesism is the belief that all sentient beings, regardless of their species, deserve equal consideration and respect. It challenges the idea that humans are superior to other non-human animals, and it questions practices like factory farming that harm animals simply because they are not human. Antispeciesism advocates for treating all non-human animals ethically and fairly, promoting a more compassionate approach to all sentient beings.
Aligned with the philosophical and ethical stance of antispeciesism, Sentience is on a mission to place the interests of non-human animals at the center of society.