Varner, Gary E. "Sentientism," in Dale Jamieson, ed.,
A Companion to Environmental Philosophy (Blackwell, 1999), pp. 192-203.
This essay surveys the sentientist ethics of Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Joel Feinberg, and
then critically examines the notion of an "adequate" environmental ethic. One of the few
points of consensus to emerge among environmental ethicists during the field's first two
decades was the claim that an adequate environmental ethic cannot be sentientist. Although
not a sentientist myself, I argue that the inadequacy of sentientist environmental ethics has
been more assumed than adequately demonstrated.
Descriptors: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, ANIMAL RIGHTS
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