Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer, ACis an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book, Animal Liberation, a canonical text in animal liberation theory, and his essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality, a key text...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 July 1946
CountryAustralia
chicken conscious hard life recognize work
We recognize the chicken as another conscious being. It's different from us, but it has a life, and if something is really important for that chicken, if it would work hard to try to get it, and if we can give it without sacrificing something that's really important to us, then we should.
amount clearly enjoyment extreme failing good moral somebody using
If somebody has an extreme amount of wealth and is not using it for some good purpose, only for their own enjoyment or satisfaction, then clearly there's a moral failing in the world in which we live.
conscious enjoying whatever
Animals, or at least those who are conscious and capable of suffering or enjoying their lives, are not things for us to use in whatever way we find convenient.
difficult ethical framework glue hold shared societies struggling together
It's going to be a shared set of values, a shared ethical framework that's going to be the glue that will hold together societies struggling with enormously difficult choices.
decisions face hold immense individual society struggle technical together
It's not going to be the individual ... technical (public health) decisions that are going to hold our society together in the face of an immense struggle with an influenza pandemic,
lack missing numbers spending stunning wounded
The lack of numbers - missing on everything from how much we are spending to how many are being killed or wounded - is just stunning for this day and age.
allowed britain changing decide draining environment individual influence islam key poison radical success trying whether
Britain has to decide whether it's trying to influence the individual or influence the environment that has allowed this radicalism to exist. The key to success is changing the environment to make radical Islam completely unacceptable. . . . It's not just draining the swamp. You have to poison the sea.
australian-philosopher global national people purely realise wanting
As we realise that more and more things have global impact, I think we're going to get people increasingly wanting to get away from a purely national interest.
public shift visit
This kind of visit is oversold; you would not have a shift in the public opinion. It's a one day story.
becomes consider crisis ethical fairness glue hold intense key lesson major pandemic processes questions relation sars shared threatened time together values
A shared set of ethical values is the glue that can hold us together during an intense crisis. A key lesson from the SARS outbreak is that fairness becomes more important during a time of crisis and confusion. And the time to consider these questions and processes in relation to a threatened major pandemic is now.
australian-philosopher competing compromise ethics itself rather true within
So the compromise itself is within ethics rather than between competing ethics, and I think that's true in geo-political concerns.
country dog animal
As for cages themselves, an ordinary citizen who kept dogs in similar conditions for their entire lives would risk prosecution for cruelty. A pig producer who keeps an animal of comparable intelligence in this manner, however, is more likely to be rewarded with a tax concession or, in some countries, a direct government subsidy.
world internet steam-engines
The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world.
access disease far life people slowly universal
More people with HIV/Aids are getting inexpensive anti-retroviral drugs, and their life expectancy has increased, but universal access is still far off, and the disease is still spreading, if more slowly than before.