Conversation with Professor Peter Singer Animal Ethics: Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University (4)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/09/15
*Interview conducted December 16, 2022.*
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*
Abstract
Prof. Singer’s biographic statement on his website says the following: “Journalists have bestowed on me the tag of “world’s most influential living philosopher.” They are probably thinking of my work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement, and of the influence that my writing has had on development of effective altruism. I am also known for my controversial critique of the sanctity of life ethics in bioethics. In 2021 I was delighted to receive the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. The citation referred to my “widely influential and intellectually rigorous work in reinvigorating utilitarianism as part of academic philosophy and as a force for change in the world.” The prize comes with $1 million which, in accordance with views I have been defending for many years, I am donating to the most effective organizations working to assist people in extreme poverty and to reduce the suffering of animals in factory farms. Several key figures in the animal movement have said that my book Animal Liberation, first published in 1975, led them to get involved in the struggle to reduce the vast amount of suffering we inflict on animals. To that end, I co-founded the Australian Federation of Animal Societies, now Animals Australia, the country’s largest and most effective animal organization. My wife, Renata, and I stopped eating meat in 1971. I am the founder of The Life You Can Save, an organization based on my book of the same name. It aims to spread my ideas about why we should be doing much more to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty, and how we can best do this. You can view my TED talk on this topic here. My writings in this area include: the 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” in which I argue for donating to help the global poor; and two books that make the case for effective giving, The Life You Can Save (2009) and The Most Good You Can Do (2015). I have written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, Rethinking Life and Death, One World, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason) and The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek). My writings have appeared in more than 25 languages. I was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States, and Australia, in 1999 I became Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. I am now only teaching at Princeton for the Fall semester. I spend part of each year doing research and writing in Melbourne, so that Renata and I can spend time with our three daughters and four grandchildren. We also enjoy hiking, and I surf.” Singer discusses: stronger arguments against animal ethics; eating less meat; supernaturalism; and human problems.
Keywords: Animal Liberation, Animal Liberation Now, climate change, factory farms, God, greenhouse gases, Peter Singer, Sean Carroll, sentient animals.
Conversation with Professor Peter Singer Animal Ethics: Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University (4)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What would you consider the stronger arguments coming against the ones that you tend to make in Animal Liberation, Animal Liberation Now, and in animal ethics in general?
Prof. Peter Singer: I think the best argument specifically against the claim that you ought not to consume animals at all, or at least put aside consuming clearly sentient animals. I think the best argument against that is one that focuses on animal products from animals who are not factory farmed living good lives outdoors. So, the argument says that these animals would not exist at all. They get killed. They get killed to get eaten. Their lives are short. Is that worse than no life at all? Arguably, a short good life is better than no life at all. So, I find that quite a difficult argument. It gets you into deep philosophical questions quickly about whether bringing a new animal into existence to live a good life can replace, somehow justify, killing the animal living a good life, but could have lived many more years if they hadn’t been killed. So, I think that’s a tough argument for somebody who is trying to argue for being a vegetarian, to me. From my point of view, as it is still only a factory farming argument, it goes most of the way to where I would want to go; it doesn’t quite go all the way. If somebody told me, “We could wipe out factory farming altogether, but double the number of animals living in more traditional farms in social groups that meet their needs”. I’ll say, “I’ll take it”. Yes, the suffering in factory farming is so much greater than the suffering or the slaughter through the fact of the shortening of the animal’s life; I think that would definitely be worth eliminating factory farming to let that continue.
Jacobsen: What would you consider the strongest argument for eating less meat?
Singer: I think the simplest argument for eating less meat is the climate change argument. Every reduction you make is a good thing, clearly. It reduces greenhouse gases in the air and supports the growth of plants and vegetables, which are much more efficient in the fallout of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly beef and dairy. Also, it is much better for animals reducing the amount of factory farming or contributing to reducing the amount of factory farming and reduces pandemic risk as well. I think the idea that if you are not prepared to eliminate animal products, then the argument to reduce them is a pretty sensible and sound idea.
Jacobsen: How do you deal with the arguments around climate change? One argument countered against it is the supernaturalistic one. “You are interfering with God’s Will. God will sort it out for us”. It is similar to the ones found in anti-abortion arguments where God is bringing life into the world at conception, sort of thing. How do you tend to grapple with those arguments where the frame of reference isn’t even used in the same sphere of reference, empiricism? Jerry Seinfeld has this one metaphor in a different context where you’re playing chess and the board is made of water and the pieces are made of smoke.
Singer: [Laughing] Of course, God is elusive like that. You can’t quite grab it.
Jacobsen: Sean Carroll says God is a bad argument because God is a poorly defined concept.
Singer: Right, one thing you can do is ask the person, “Why do you believe there is a God at all?” You can get the concept of God that they have. The idea that God will fix climate change seems [Laughing] to me – let’s say – a high-risk strategy.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Singer: Which seems to me probable that there isn’t a God, there is going to be no fix. I remember once, one of the best front pages of the newspapers I saw was the New York Daily News after a shooting. One of those school shootings I think it was. What they had around the whole of the side, the side of the front page, they had these little portraits of various politicians who had said, ‘Our prayers are with you’, to these parents of the kids. ‘We are praying for you.’ The headline in the middle of the page was, “God isn’t fixing this”.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Singer: Yes. It’s true. Lots of people praying that no more people will get killed in these mass shootings that America has been having. God doesn’t seem interested in fixing it, unfortunately. Right?
Jacobsen: Some of these high school kids come forward saying, to the effect, “We don’t want your prayers. We want policy change”.
Singer: We have to fix it ourselves in other words. That’s the same for climate change.
Jacobsen: Peter, thank you for your time today.
Singer: Thank you for holding out until the book is published. Thank you for that too.
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