INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL INQUIRIES (IJOCIN)

Peter Singer’s sentience principle, which is drawn from utilitarian foundations, has emerged as one of the most influential frameworks for grounding animals’ moral considerability in contemporary bioethics and moral philosophy. The principle holds that the capacity to feel pleasure and pain is the sole criterion for inclusion within the moral community. This is a position that challenges speciesist assumptions but raises its own set of philosophical difficulties.Despite its wide acceptance, Singer’s sentience principle suffers from several critical inadequacies, including its reductionist tendency, its failure to account for non-sentient living beings, its problematic implications in the marginal cases argument, and its neglect of relational and communal conceptions of moral status as found in African philosophical traditions.This paper adopts a critical-analytical methodology, engaging closely with Singer's primary texts and subjecting them to rigorous philosophical scrutiny. It draws on Western analytic philosophy as well as African philosophical thought, particularly Ubuntu ethics and Ibuanyidanda complementary ontology, to construct a multi-perspectival critique.The paper finds that while Singer’s principle is a significant advance over speciesist frameworks, it remains philosophically incomplete. Its utilitarian calculus reduces moral worth to a single criterion, excludes vast categories of living beings, and fails to engage meaningfully with relational and communitarian dimensions of moral life. A more adequate framework for animals’ moral considerability must transcend the limitations of the sentience principle and embrace a pluralistic, relational, and ecosystem-sensitive approach to moral status, one that incorporates the insights of both Western and African philosophical traditions.

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