---

---

What makes a living organism valuable in Jainism, and how does that value shape the ethic of nonviolence? Jain ethics is often conceived as sentiocentric, founding the value of living beings in their capacity to feel. Yet the Jain tradition attributes sentience to plants, microorganisms, and even some animals that modern science generally regards as insentient. So, what is “modern” Jainism to do? Drawing on the work of Christopher Framarin and Kristi Wiley, this lecture examines the relationship between value and violence in Jain environmental ethics. It asks if Jainism bases inherent worth in sentience, or if it offers other grounds for establishing value. In doing so, it explores how Jain environmental ethics might be reinterpreted in light of mainstream views in science and philosophy while retaining its commitment to nonviolence to its borderline beings.

---

Jonathan Dickstein, PhD, is the Tirthankara Shreyansanath Endowed Assistant Professor of Jain and Vegan Studies at Arihanta Institute and Affiliated Assistant Professor of Religion at Claremont School of Theology. Jonathan specializes in South Asian Religions, Religion and Ecology, Critical Animal Studies, and Comparative Religious Ethics. Jonathan has published in a wide array of interdisciplinary journals and edited volumes on topics such as animals and politics, yoga and diet, Jain veganism, and the ethic of nonviolence (ahiṃsa). You can read their work in Politics and Animals, Philosophy East and West, Food Ethics, Capitalism Nature Socialism, and Religions.