Peter Singer

For other people named Peter Singer, see Peter Singer (disambiguation).

Peter Singer
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Analytic · Utilitarianism
Main interests	Ethics

Peter Albert David Singer (born July 6, 1946 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Australian philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), University of Melbourne. He specializes in practical ethics, approaching ethical issues from a preference utilitarian and atheistic perspective.

He has served, on two occasions, as chair of philosophy at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he ran unsuccessfully as a Green candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, he was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.

Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.

Life and career

Singer's parents were Viennese Jews who escaped the German annexation of Austria and fled to Australia in 1938. His grandparents were less fortunate: his paternal grandparents were taken by the Nazis to Łódź, and were never heard from again; his maternal grandfather died in Theresienstadt. Singer's father imported tea and coffee, while his mother practised medicine. He attended Scotch College. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, gaining his degree in 1967. He received an MA for a thesis entitled Why should I be moral? in 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, obtaining a B.Phil in 1971 with a thesis on civil disobedience, supervised by R. M. Hare, and subsequently published as a book in 1973.

After spending two years as a Radcliffe lecturer at University College, Oxford, he was visiting professor at New York University for 16 months. He returned to Melbourne in 1977, where he spent most of his career, apart from many visiting positions internationally until his move to Princeton in 1999.

Animal Liberation

Main article: Animal Liberation (book)

Published in 1975, Animal Liberation was a major formative influence on the animal liberation movement. Although Singer rejects rights as a moral ideal independent from his utilitarianism based on interests, he accepts rights as derived from utilitarian principles, particularly the principle of minimizing suffering. Singer allows that animal rights are not exactly the same as human rights, writing in Animal Liberation that "there are obviously important differences between human and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have." He began his book by defending against Mary Wollstonecraft's 18th-century critic Thomas Taylor, who argued that if Wollstonecraft's reasoning in defense of women's rights were correct, then "brutes" would have rights too. Taylor thought he had produced a reductio ad absurdum of Wollstonecraft's view; Singer regards it as a sound logical implication.

In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against what he calls speciesism: discrimination on the grounds that a being belongs to a certain species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their having wings or fur is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color. In particular, he argues that while animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely retarded humans show equally diminished, if not lower, mental capacity, and intelligence therefore does not provide a basis for providing nonhuman animals any less consideration than such retarded humans. Singer does not specifically contend that we ought not use animals for food insofar as they are raised and killed in a way that actively avoids the inflicting of pain, but as such farms are uncommon, he concludes that the most practical solution is to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. Singer also condemns vivisection except where the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc.) outweighs the harm done to the animals used.

Applied ethics

His most comprehensive work, Practical Ethics, analyzes in detail why and how beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor, favoring, for instance, a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.

Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others". The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness". He holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a 'journey' model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures.

He requires the idea of an impartial standpoint from which to compare interests. He has wavered about whether the precise aim is the total amount of satisfied interests or the most satisfied interests among those beings who already exist prior to the decision one is making. The second edition of Practical Ethics disavows the first edition's suggestion that the total and prior-existence views should be combined. The second edition asserts that preference-satisfaction utilitarianism, incorporating the 'journey' model, applies without invoking the first edition's suggestion about the total view. But the details are fuzzy and Singer admits that he is "not entirely satisfied" with his treatment.

Ethical conduct is justifiable by reasons that go beyond prudence to "something bigger than the individual," addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies moral reasons as "somehow universal", specifically in the injunction to 'love thy neighbor as thyself', interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one gives to one's own interests. This universalizing step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him apart from moral theorists from Hobbes to David Gauthier, who tie reasons to prudence. Universalization leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others. Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that is most likely to maximize the interests of those affected; utilitarianism has been arrived at. Singer's universalizing step applies to interests without reference to who has them, whereas a Kantian's applies to the judgments of rational agents (in Kant's kingdom of ends, or Rawls's Original Position, etc.). Singer regards Kantian universalization as unjust to animals. As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter of Practical Ethics, arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as 'the paradox of hedonism', which counsels that happiness is best found by not looking for it, and the need most people feel to relate to something larger than their own concerns.

Practical Ethics includes a chapter arguing for the redistribution of wealth to ameliorate absolute poverty (Chapter 8, "Rich and Poor"), and another making a case for resettlement of refugees on a large scale in industrialized countries (Chapter 9, "Insiders and Outsiders"). Although the natural, non-sentient environment has no intrinsic value for a utilitarian like Singer, environmental degradation is a profound threat to sentient life, and for this reason environmentalists are right to speak of wilderness as a `world heritage'.

Abortion, euthanasia and infanticide

Consistent with his general ethical theory, Singer holds that the right to life is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure. In his view, the central argument against abortion is equivalent to the following logical syllogism:

First premise: It is wrong to take innocent human life.
Second premise: From conception onwards, the embryo or fetus is innocent, human and alive.
Conclusion: It is wrong to take the life of the embryo or fetus.

In his book Rethinking Life and Death Singer asserts that, if we take the premises at face value, the argument is deductively valid. Singer comments that those who do not generally think abortion is wrong attack the second premise, suggesting that the fetus becomes a 'human' or 'alive' at some point after conception; however, Singer remarks that human development is a gradual process, that is it nearly impossible to mark a particular moment in time as the moment at which human life begins.

Singer lecturing on medical ethics.

Singer's argument for abortion differs from many other proponents of abortion; rather than attacking the second premise of the anti-abortion argument, Singer attacks the first premise, denying that it is wrong to take innocent human life:

[The argument that a fetus is not alive] is a resort to a convenient fiction that turns an evidently living being into one that legally is not alive. Instead of accepting such fictions, we should recognise that the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being's life. (Rethinking Life and Death 105)

Although some critics may find this comment anti-human, it is a consequence of Singer's ethic which denies that a being's species membership has any moral relevance. According to Singer, whether a being is or is not a member of our own species is, in itself, no more relevant than whether a being is or is not a member of our own race; the claim that a fetus is a member of the human species tells us only that a fetus is a member of our species and breeding group, but it does not communicate any information that one can use to make a moral decision.

Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. A preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a a capacity to experience suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus (up to around 18 weeks) has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for fetuses to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother's preferences to have an abortion, therefore abortion is morally permissible.

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that infants similarly lack essential characteristics of personhood - "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" - and therefore "[s]imply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person.".

Singer classifies euthanasia as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is that with the consent of the subject.

Singer's book 'Rethinking Life and Death: The collapse of our Traditional Ethics' offers further examination of the ethical dilemmas concerning the advances of medicine. He covers the value of human life and quality of life ethics in addition to abortion and other controversial ethical dilemmas.

World poverty

In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", one of Singer's best-known philosophical essays, he argues that the injustice of some people living in abundance while others starve is morally indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income to aid poverty relief and similar efforts. Singer reasons that, when one is already living comfortably, a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life. (One point of contention is at what point a person may be said to be 'living comfortably' and "Famine, Affluence And Morality" does not set out how to specify this.) Singer himself reports that he donates 25 percent of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF. In "Rich and Poor", the version of the aforementioned article that appears in the second edition of Practical Ethics, his main argument is presented as follows: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it; absolute poverty is bad; there is some poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance; therefore we ought to prevent some absolute poverty.

Other views

Zoophilia

In a 2001 review of Midas Dekkers's Dearest Pet: On Bestiality, Singer stated that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans and animals and that writer Otto Soyka would condone such activities. Singer explains Dekker's belief that zoophilia should remain illegal if it involves what he sees as "cruelty", but otherwise is no cause for shock or horror. However, Singer does not claim to endorse the views of either Dekker or Soyka, merely to be explaining them. Singer believes that although sex between species is not normal or natural, it does not constitute a transgression of our status as human beings, because human beings are animals or, more specifically, "we are great apes". Some religious individuals and animal rights groups have condemned this view, while the animal rights organization PETA has expressed cautious support.

Singer lecturing at Oxford University.

Social psychology

Singer also works in the field of social psychology. Singer's writing appeared in Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. Singer's contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships. Singer's article, "Can You Do Good by Eating Well?" examines the ethics of eating locally grown food.

Evolutionary biology and liberal politics

In A Darwinian Left, Singer outlines a plan for the political left to adapt to the lessons of evolutionary biology. He says that evolutionary psychology suggests that humans naturally tend to be self-interested. He further argues that the evidence that selfish tendencies are natural must not be taken as evidence that selfishness is right. He concludes that game theory (the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments in psychology offer hope that self-interested people will make short-term sacrifices for the good of others, if society provides the right conditions. Essentially Singer claims that although humans possess selfish, competitive tendencies naturally, they have a substantial capacity for cooperation that has also been selected for during human evolution.

Criticism

Singer's positions have been challenged by many different groups concerned with what they see as an attack upon human dignity, from advocates for disabled people to right-to-life supporters and people who challenge what they believe are his efforts to supplant the central role of religion from ethical debate.

In Germany, his positions have been compared to Nazism and his lectures have been repeatedly disrupted. Some claim that Singer's utilitarian ideas lead to eugenics. American economist Steve Forbes ceased his donations to Princeton University in 1999 because of Singer's appointment to an honorable position. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal wrote to organizers of a Swedish book fair to which Singer was invited that "A professor of morals ... who justifies the right to kill handicapped newborns ... is in my opinion unacceptable for representation at your level." Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, the leading organization for blind people in the United States, strongly criticized Singer's appointment to the Princeton Faculty in a banquet speech at the organization's national convention in July 2001, claiming that Singer's support for euthanizing disabled babies could lead to disabled older children and adults being valued less as well.

Some commentators expressed their disapproval at the publication of Singer's review essay in which he discusses zoophilia.

Proponents of other ethical systems like deontology or virtue ethics have found in Singer's work ammunition against utilitarianism and its consequentialism (that is, its assumption that the morality of an act is to be evaluated according to its consequences). They claim that his conclusions show that utilitarianism may lead to eugenics or infanticide in certain circumstances.

Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not his books or articles.

Singer experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. Singer's mother had Alzheimer's disease. He said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult". In an interview with Ronald Bailey published in December 2000 he explained that he is not the only person who is involved in making decisions about his mother (he has a sister). He did say that if he were solely responsible, his mother might not be alive today. (Singer's mother died shortly thereafter.) This incident has led to accusations of hypocrisy.

Meta-ethics and foundational issues

Singer lecturing at Washington University in St. Louis.

Though Singer focuses more than many philosophers on applied ethical questions, he has also written in depth on foundational issues in meta-ethics, including why one ethical system should be chosen over others. In The Expanding Circle, he argues that the evolution of human society provides support for the utilitarian point of view. On his account, ethical reasoning has existed from the time primitive foraging bands had to cooperate, compromise, and make group decisions to survive. He elaborates: "In a dispute between members of a cohesive group of reasoning beings, the demand for a reason is a demand for a justification that can be accepted by the group as a whole." Thus, consideration of others' interests has long been a necessary part of the human experience. Singer believes that contemplative analysis may now guide one to accept a broader utilitarianism:

"If I have seen that from an ethical point of view I am just one person among the many in my society, and my interests are no more important, from the point of view of the whole, than the similar interests of others within my society, I am ready to see that, from a still larger point of view, my society is just one among other societies, and the interests of members of my society are no more important, from that larger perspective, than the similar interests of members of other societies… Taking the impartial element in ethical reasoning to its logical conclusion means, first, accepting that we ought to have equal concern for all human beings.

Singer elaborates that viewing oneself as equal to others in one's society and at the same time viewing one's society as fundamentally superior to other societies may cause an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. This is the sense in which he means that reason may push people to accept a broader utilitarian stance. Critics like Ken Binmore say that this cognitive dissonance is apparently not very strong, since people often knowingly ignore the interests of faraway societies quite similar to their own, and that the "ought" above only applies if one already accepts Singer's basic premises about the equality of various interests.

An alternative line taken by Singer about the need for ethics is that living the ethical life may be, on the whole, more satisfying than seeking only material gain. He invokes the hedonistic paradox, noting that those who pursue material gain seldom find the happiness they seek. Having a broader purpose in life may lead to more long-term happiness. On this account, impartial (self-sacrificing) behavior in particular matters may be motivated by self-interested considerations from a broader perspective.

Singer has also implicitly argued that a watertight defense of utilitarianism is not crucial to his work. In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", he begins by saying that he would like to see how far a seemingly innocuous and widely endorsed principle can take us; the principle is that one is morally required to forgo a small pleasure to relieve someone else's immense pain. He then argues that this principle entails radical conclusions — for example, that affluent people are very immoral if they do not give up some luxury goods in order to donate the money for famine relief. If his reasoning is valid, either it is not very immoral to value small luxuries over saving many lives, there is no feasible exchange between small luxturies and lives, or such affluent people are very immoral. As Singer argues in the same essay, regardless of the soundness of his fundamental defense of utilitarianism, his argument has value in that it exposes conflicts between many people's stated beliefs and their actions.

Publications

Some of his other publications include:

• Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, New York Review/Random House, New York, 1975; Cape, London, 1976; Avon, New York, 1977; Paladin, London, 1977; Thorsons, London, 1983
• What Should a Billionaire Give-and What Should You, The New York Times, 2006
• Democracy and Disobedience, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973; Oxford University Press, New York, 1974; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1994
• Animal Rights and Human Obligations: An Anthology (co-editor with Thomas Regan), Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1976. 2nd revised edition, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1989
• Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979; second edition, 1993. ISBN 0521229200 0521297206
• Marx, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980; Hill & Wang, New York, 1980; reissued as Marx: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000; also included in full in K. Thomas (ed.), Great Political Thinkers: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Mill and Marx, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992
• Animal Factories (co-author with James Mason), Crown, New York, 1980
• The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1981; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981; New American Library, New York, 1982. ISBN 0374234965
• Hegel, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1982; reissued as Hegel: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2001; also included in full in German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
• Test-Tube Babies: a guide to moral questions, present techniques, and future possibilities (co-edited with William Walters), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982
• The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies (co-author with Deane Wells), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984. revised American edition, Making Babies, Scribner's New York, 1985
• Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985; Oxford University Press, New York, 1986; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1994. ISBN 0192177451
• In Defence of Animals (ed.), Blackwells, Oxford, 1985; Harper & Row, New York, 1986. ISBN 0631138978
• Ethical and Legal Issues in Guardianship Options for Intellectually Disadvantaged People (co-author with Terry Carney), Human Rights Commission Monograph Series, no. 2, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1986
• Applied Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986
• Animal Liberation: A Graphic Guide (co-author with Lori Gruen), Camden Press, London, 1987
• Embryo Experimentation (co-editor with Helga Kuhse, Stephen Buckle, Karen Dawson and Pascal Kasimba), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; paperback edition, updated, 1993
• A Companion to Ethics (ed.), Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; paperback edition, 1993
• Save the Animals! (Australian edition, co-author with Barbara Dover and Ingrid Newkirk), Collins Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, NSW, 1991
• The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (co-editor with Paola Cavalieri), Fourth Estate, London, 1993; hardback, St Martin's Press, New York, 1994; paperback, St Martin's Press, New York, 1995
• How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-interest, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1993; Mandarin, London, 1995; Prometheus, Buffalo, NY, 1995; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
• Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994
• Individuals, Humans and Persons: Questions of Life and Death (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, Germany, 1994
• Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1994; St Martin's Press, New York, 1995. ISBN 0312118805 Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995
• The Greens (co-author with Bob Brown), Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1996
• The Allocation of Health Care Resources: An Ethical Evaluation of the "QALY" Approach (co-author with John McKie, Jeff Richardson and Helga Kuhse), Ashgate/Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1998
• A Companion to Bioethics (co-editor with Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford, 1998
• Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 1998; Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1999
• Bioethics. An Anthology (co-editor with Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, 1999/ Oxford, 2006
• A Darwinian Left, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1999; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000. ISBN 0-300-08323-8
• Writings on an Ethical Life, Ecco, New York, 2000; Fourth Estate, London, 2001. ISBN 0060198389
• Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics (edited by Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford, 2001
• One World: The Ethics of Globalization, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002; Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2002; 2nd edition, pb, Yale University Press, 2004; Oxford Longman, Hyderabad, 2004. ISBN 0300096860
• Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna, Ecco Press, New York, 2003; HarperCollins Australia, Melbourne, 2003; Granta, London, 2004
• The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, Dutton, New York, 2004; Granta, London, 2004; Text, Melbourne, 2004. ISBN 0525948139
• How Ethical is Australia? An Examination of Australia's Record as a Global Citizen (with Tom Gregg), Black Inc, Melbourne, 2004
• The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature (co-edited with Renata Singer), Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
• In Defense of Animals. The Second Wave (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
• The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, Rodale, New York, 2006 (co-author with Jim Mason); Text, Melbourne; Random House, London ISBN 157954889X
• Eating (co-authored with Jim Mason), Arrow, London, 2006
• Peter Singer Under Fire, Open Court, forthcoming

See also

• Argument from Marginal Cases
• Utilitarian Bioethics
• Utilitarianism
• Project Syndicate

External links

• Peter Singer's homepage at Princeton University