Peter Singer | |
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.jpg) Singer in 2017 | |
| Born | Peter Albert David Singer (1946-07-06)6 July 1946 (age 79)[1] Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Political party | Greens |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
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| Education | |
| Thesis | Disobedience and democracy: a study in political obligation (1971) |
| Academic advisor | R. M. Hare (BPhil advisor) |
| Philosophical work | |
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| Website | petersinger.info |
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australianmoral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor ofBioethics atPrinceton University. Singer's work specialises inapplied ethics, approaching the subject from asecular,utilitarian perspective. He wrote the bookAnimal Liberation (1975), in which he argues forvegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which argues themoral imperative ofdonating to help the poor around the world. For most of his career he was apreference utilitarian. He revealed inThe Point of View of the Universe (2014), co-authored withKatarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become ahedonistic utilitarian.
On two occasions, Singer served as chair of thephilosophy department atMonash University, where he founded itsCentre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he stood unsuccessfully as aGreens candidate for theAustralian Senate. In 2004, Singer was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by theCouncil of Australian Humanist Societies. In 2005The Sydney Morning Herald placed him among Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals.[3] Singer is a co-founder ofAnimals Australia and the founder of the non-profit organisation The Life You Can Save.[4]
Peter Albert David Singer was born inMelbourne, Victoria, Australia,[5] on 6 July 1946.[1] His parents wereAustrian Jews who immigrated to Australia fromVienna after Austria's annexation (Anschluss) byNazi Germany in 1938,[6] and settled in Melbourne.[5] His paternal grandparents were taken by the Nazis toŁódź, and were most likely murdered, since they were never heard from again; his maternal grandfatherDavid Ernst Oppenheim (1881–1943), an educator and psychologist who collaborated withSigmund Freud andAlfred Adler, was murdered in theTheresienstadt concentration camp.[7] Oppenheim was a member of theVienna Psychoanalytic Society and wrote a joint article withSigmund Freud, before joining theAdlerian Society for Individual Psychology.[8] Singer later wrote a biography of Oppenheim.[9]
Singer is anatheist and was raised in a prosperous, non-religious family.[10] His father had a successful business importing tea and coffee.[6] His family rarely observed Jewish holidays, and Singer declined to have aBar Mitzvah.[11] Singer attendedPreshil,[12] and laterScotch College. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history, and philosophy as a resident ofOrmond College at theUniversity of Melbourne, earning a bachelor's degree in 1967.[13] Singer explained that he elected to major in philosophy after his interest was piqued by discussions with his sister's then-boyfriend.[14] He earned a master's degree for a thesis entitledWhy Should I Be Moral? at the same university in 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at theUniversity of Oxford and obtained from there aBachelor of Philosophy in 1971 with a thesis oncivil disobedience supervised byR. M. Hare and published as a book in 1973.[15] Singer names Hare, Australian philosopherH. J. McCloskey and British philosopher J. L. H. Thomas, who taught him "how to read and understand Hegel",[16] as his most important mentors.[17]
In the preface toHegel: A Very Short Introduction,[18] Singer recalls his time in Thomas' "remarkable" classes at Oxford where students were forced to "probe passages of thePhenomenology sentence by sentence, until they yielded their meaning". One day atBalliol College in Oxford, he had what he refers to as probably the decisive formative experience of his life. He was having a discussion after class with fellow graduate studentRichard Keshen, who would later become a professor atCape Breton University. During their lunch Keshen opted to have a salad after being told that the spaghetti sauce contained meat. Singer had the spaghetti. Singer eventually questioned Keshen about his reason for avoiding meat. Keshen explained his ethical objections. Singer would later state, "I'd never met a vegetarian who gave such a straightforward answer that I could understand and relate to." Keshen later introduced Singer to his vegetarian friends. Singer was able to find one book in which he could read up on the issue (Animal Machines byRuth Harrison) and within a week or two he approached his wife saying that he thought they needed to make a change to their diet and that he did not think they could justify eating meat.[19][20][21]
After spending three years as aRadcliffe lecturer atUniversity College, Oxford, he was a visiting professor atNew York University for 16 months, where he influenced the views ofJames Rachels andPeter Unger about animals and famine. In 1977, he returned to Melbourne where he spent most of his career, aside from appointments as visiting faculty abroad, until his move to Princeton in 1999.[22]
In June 2011 Singer joined the professoriate ofNew College of the Humanities, a private college in London, in addition to his work at Princeton.[23] He gave his last lecture at Princeton in 2023, and has retired.[24] He has been a regular contributor toProject Syndicate since 2001.[25]
According to the philosopherHelga Kuhse, Singer is almost certainly the best-known and most widely read of all contemporary philosophers.[26]Michael Specter wrote that Singer is among the most influential of contemporary philosophers.[27] He co-founded the open-accessJournal of Controversial Ideas along with the bioethicist Francesca Minerva and the moral philosopherJeff McMahan in 2018.[28][29]
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Singer'sPractical Ethics (1979) is a book inapplied ethics, where he systematically applies apreference utilitarian framework to a wide range of contemporary moral issues, such as equality, global poverty, euthanasia, ethical vegetarianism, environmental ethics, civil disobedience and violence. He challenges readers to reconsider their moral intuitions and to adopt a more rational and consistent ethical stance, often leading to controversial conclusions.[30]
The book analyzes why and how living beings' interests should be weighed. According to Singer, ethics requires an impartial, "universal" perspective and proposes the principle ofequal consideration of interests. This does not mean equal treatment, as different interests (e.g., avoiding pain versus cultivating abilities) warrant different treatment, and factors like diminishingmarginal utility can affect how similar interests are treated (e.g., a starving person's interest in food over a slightly hungry person's). The fundamental criterion for a being to have interests warranting equal consideration issentience, defined as the capacity for suffering or happiness.[30] Sentient beings also have interests in developing their 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".[31]: 23 The conclusion is that one must adopt the course of action that likely maximises the interests of those affected.[31]: 13
Singer's universalising step applies to interests regardless of who has them, whereas the Kantian's applies to the judgments of rational agents (for example in Kant'skingdom of Ends orJohn Rawls'soriginal position). This universalising step, which Singer traces fromImmanuel Kant to Hare,[31]: 11 is crucial and sets him apart from those moral theorists, fromThomas Hobbes toDavid Gauthier, who tie morality to prudence. According to Singer, universalisation leads directly to utilitarianism, on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others.[32] Singer regards Kantian universalisation as unjust to animals.[32] As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter ofPractical Ethics, arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as "theparadox 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. Singer identifies as asentientist; sentientism is an ethical position that grants moral consideration to all sentient beings.[33]
Singer's ideas have contributed to the rise of effective altruism.[34] He argues that people should try not only to reduce suffering but to reduce it in the most effective manner possible. While Singer has previously written at length about the moral imperative to reduce poverty and eliminate the suffering of nonhuman animals, particularly in themeat industry, he writes about how the effective altruism movement is doing these things more effectively in his 2015 bookThe Most Good You Can Do. He is a board member ofAnimal Charity Evaluators, a charity evaluator used by many members of the effective altruism community which recommends the most cost-effective animal advocacy charities and interventions.[35]
His own organisation, The Life You Can Save (TLYCS), recommends a selection of charities deemed by charity evaluators such asGiveWell to be the most effective when it comes to helping those in extreme poverty. TLYCS was founded after Singer released his 2009eponymous book, in which he argues more generally in favour of giving to charities that help to end global poverty. In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he posits that citizens of rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the "drowning child analogy", which states that most people would rescue a drowning child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined. He argues that similarly, lives could be saved, notably by donating to effective charities, and that as a result a significant portion of the money spent on unnecessary possessions should instead be donate to charity.[36][37] Since November 2009, Singer is a member ofGiving What We Can, an international organisation whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities.[38]
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Published in 1975,Animal Liberation has been cited as a formative influence on leaders of the modernanimal liberation movement.[39] The central argument of the book is an expansion of theutilitarian concept that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour, and Singer believes that there is no reason not to apply this principle to other animals, arguing that the boundary between human and "animal" is completely arbitrary. For example, there are far more differences between agreat ape and anoyster than between a human and a great ape, and yet the former two are lumped together as "animals", whereas we are considered "human" in a way that supposedly differentiates us from all other "animals". He popularised the term "speciesism", which had been coined by English writerRichard D. Ryder to describe the practice of privileging humans over other animals, and therefore argues in favour of the equal consideration of interests of all sentient beings.[40]
InAnimal Liberation, Singer argues in favour ofvegetarianism and against mostanimal experimentation. He stated in a 2006 interview that he does not eat meat and that he has been a vegetarian since 1971. He also said that he has "gradually become increasinglyvegan" and that "I am largely vegan but I'm a flexible vegan. I don't go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I'm traveling or going to other people's places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan."[41] In 2022, Singer stated that he is not fully vegan because he occasionally consumesoysters,mussels, andclams due to their lack of a central nervous system.[42] According to Singer,meat-eating can be ethically permissible if "farms really give the animals good lives, and then humanely kill them, preferably without transporting them to slaughterhouses or disturbing them. InAnimal Liberation, I don't really say that it's the killing that makes [meat-eating] wrong, it's the suffering."[43]
In an article for the online publicationChinadialogue, Singer called Western-style meat production cruel, unhealthy, and damaging to the ecosystem.[44] He rejected the idea that the method was necessary to meet the population's increasing demand, explaining that animals infactory farms have to eat food grown explicitly for them, and they burn up most of the food's energy just to breathe and keep their bodies warm. In a 2010Guardian article he titled, "Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate", Singer drew attention to the welfare of fish. He quoted author Alison Mood's startling statistics from a report she wrote, which was released on fishcount.org.uk just a month before theGuardian article. Singer states that she "has put together what may well be the first-ever systematic estimate of the size of the annual global capture of wild fish. It is, she calculates, in the order of one trillion, although it could be as high as 2.7tn."[45][46]
Some chapters ofAnimal Liberation are dedicated to criticising testing on animals. Unlike groups such asPETA, Singer is willing to accept testing when there is a clear benefit for medicine. In November 2006, Singer appeared on the BBC programmeMonkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing and said that he felt thatTipu Aziz's experiments on monkeys for research into treating Parkinson's disease could be justified.[47] Whereas Singer has continued since the publication ofAnimal Liberation to promote vegetarianism and veganism, he has been much less vocal in recent years on the subject of animal experimentation. Singer has defended some of the actions of theAnimal Liberation Front such as the stealing of footage from Thomas Gennarelli's laboratory in May 1984 (as shown in the documentaryUnnecessary Fuss) but condemned other actions such as the use of explosives by some animal-rights activists, and sees the freeing of captive animals as largely futile when they are easily replaced.[48][49] Singer features in the 2017 documentaryEmpathy, directed by Ed Antoja, which aims to promote a more respectful way of life towards all animals. The documentary won the "Public Choice Award" of the Greenpeace Film Festival.[50] Singer has frequently collaborated on op-eds and otherwise with animal rights advocateKaren Dawn.[51][52][53]
Roger Scruton was critical of theconsequentialist, utilitarian approach of Singer.[54] Scruton alleged that Singer's works, includingAnimal Liberation (1975), "contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals."[54]
In the past, Singer did not hold that objective moral values exist, on the basis that reason could favour both egoism andequal consideration of interests. Singer himself adopted utilitarianism on the basis that people's preferences can be universalised, leading to a situation where one takes the "point of view of the universe" and "an impartial standpoint". In the second edition ofPractical Ethics, he concedes that the question of why we should act morally "cannot be given an answer that will provide everyone with overwhelming reasons for acting morally".[31]: 335
When co-authoringThe Point of View of the Universe (2014), Singer shifted to the position that objective moral values do exist, and defends the 19th-century utilitarian philosopherHenry Sidgwick's view that objective morality can be derived from fundamental moral axioms that are knowable by reason. Additionally, he endorsesDerek Parfit's view that there are object-given reasons for action.[55]: 126 Furthermore, Singer andKatarzyna de Lazari-Radek (the co-author of the book) argue thatevolutionary debunking arguments can be used to demonstrate that it is more rational to take the impartial standpoint of "the point of view of the universe", as opposed to egoism—pursuing one's own self-interest—because the existence of egoism is more likely to be the product of evolution by natural selection, rather than because it is correct, whereas taking an impartial standpoint and equally considering the interests of all sentient beings is in conflict with what we would expect from natural selection, meaning that it is more likely that impartiality in ethics is the correct stance to pursue.[55]: 182–183
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Whilst a student in Melbourne, Singer campaigned against theVietnam War as president of the Melbourne University Campaign Against Conscription.[56] He also spoke publicly for the legalisation ofabortion in Australia.[56] Singer joined theAustralian Labor Party in 1974 but resigned after disillusionment with the centrist leadership ofBob Hawke; in 1992, he became a founding member of theVictorian Greens.[57] He has run for political office twice for the Greens: he received 28% of the vote in the1994 Kooyong by-election, and received 3% of the vote in 1996 when running for theAustralian Senate (elected byproportional representation).[57] Before the 1996 election, he co-authored a bookThe Greens withBob Brown.[58] InA Darwinian Left, Singer outlines a plan for thepolitical left to adapt to the lessons ofevolutionary biology. He says thatevolutionary 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 thatgame theory (the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments in psychology offer hope that self-interested people would make short-term sacrifices for the good of others, if society provides the right conditions.[59]
Singer argues that although humans possess selfish, competitive tendencies naturally, they have a substantial capacity forcooperation that also has been selected for duringhuman evolution. Singer's writing inGreater Good magazine, published by theGreater Good Science Center of theUniversity of California, Berkeley, explores scientific studies on why people are compassionate, selfless, and capable of forming peaceful relationships. Singer has criticized the United States for receiving "oil from countries run by dictators ... who pocket most of the" financial gains, thus "keeping the people in poverty". Singer believes that the wealth of these countries "should belong to the people" within them rather than their "de facto government. In paying dictators for their oil, we are in effect buying stolen goods, and helping to keep people in poverty." Singer holds that America "should be doing more to assist people in extreme poverty". He is disappointed in U.S. foreign aid policy, deeming it "a very small proportion of our GDP, less than a quarter of some other affluent nations." Singer maintains that little "private philanthropy from the U.S." is "directed to helping people in extreme poverty, although there are some exceptions, most notably, of course, theGates Foundation."[60]
Singer describes himself as notanti-capitalist, stating in a 2010 interview with the New Left Project: "Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy."[61] Singer added that "[i]f we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist."[61] Similarly, in his bookMarx, Singer is sympathetic toKarl Marx's criticism of capitalism but is skeptical about whether a better system is likely to be created, writing: "Marx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realized."[62]
Singer is opposed to the death penalty, claiming that it does not effectively deter the crimes for which it is the punitive measure,[63] and that he cannot see any other justification for it.[64] In 2010, Singer signed a petition renouncing hisright of return to Israel because it is "a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians."[65] Singer called onJill Stein to withdraw from the2016 United States presidential election in states that were close betweenHillary Clinton andDonald Trump on the grounds that the stakes were "too high".[66] He argued against the view that there was no significant difference between Clinton and Trump, whilst also saying that he would not advocate such a tactic in Australia's electoral system, which allows for ranking of preferences.[66] When writing in 2017 on Trump'sclimate change denial and plans to withdraw from the Paris Accords, Singer advocated a boycott of all consumer goods from the United States to pressure the Trump administration to change its environmental policies.[67][68] In 2021, Singer described thewar on drugs as an expensive, ineffective and extremely harmful policy.[69]
Singer has argued that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences.[70] InPractical Ethics, Singer argues in favour ofabortion rights on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have anabortion automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lackspersonhood. Similar to his argument for abortion rights, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[71]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living".[72] Singer has clarified that his "view of when life begins isn't very different from that of opponents of abortion." He deems it not "unreasonable to hold that an individual human life begins at conception. If it doesn't, then it begins about 14 days later, when it is no longer possible for the embryo to divide into twins or other multiples." Singer disagrees with abortion rights opponents in that he does not "think that the fact that an embryo is a living human being is sufficient to show that it is wrong to kill it." Singer wishes "to see American jurisprudence, and the national abortion debate, take up the question of which capacities a human being needs to have in order for it to be wrong to kill it" as well as "when, in the development of the early human being, these capacities are present."[73]
Singer classifieseuthanasia asvoluntary,involuntary, ornon-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the subject consents. He argues in favour of voluntary euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, including infanticide in certain instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia. Bioethicists associated with thedisability rights anddisability studies communities have argued that his epistemology is based onableist conceptions of disability.[74] Singer's positions have also been criticised by some advocates for disability rights andright-to-life supporters, concerned with what they see as his attacks uponhuman dignity. Religious critics have argued that Singer's ethics ignores and undermines the traditional notion of thesanctity of life. Singer agrees and believes the notion of the sanctity of life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific, and irrelevant to understanding problems in contemporary bioethics.[75] Disability rights activists have held many protests against Singer at Princeton University and at his lectures over the years. Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not on his books or articles, and that his aim is to elevate the status of animals, not to lower that of humans.[76]
American publisherSteve Forbes ceased his donations toPrinceton University in 1999 because of Singer's appointment to a prestigious professorship.[77] Nazi-hunterSimon Wiesenthal wrote to organisers 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."[78] Conservative psychiatristTheodore Dalrymple wrote in 2010 that Singerian moral universalism is "preposterous—psychologically, theoretically, and practically".[79] In 2002, disability rights activistHarriet McBryde Johnson debated Singer, challenging his belief that it is morally permissible to euthanise newborn children with severe disabilities. "Unspeakable Conversations", Johnson's account of her encounters with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement, was published in theNew York Times Magazine in 2003.[80] In 2015, Singer debated ArchbishopAnthony Fisher on the legalisation of euthanasia atSydney Town Hall.[81] Singer rejected arguments that legalising euthanasia would result in a slippery slope where the practice might become widespread as a means to remove undesirable people for financial or other motives.[82] Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. His mother hadAlzheimer'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."[27] In an interview withRonald Bailey, published in December 2000, he explained that his sister shares the responsibility of making decisions about his mother. He said that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.[83]
In 2017, Singer wrote withJeff McMahan anop-ed in which he defendsAnna Stubblefield, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault against D.J., a man with severe physical disability. Singer and McMahan argued that the judge refused to consider independent evidence that D.J. was indirectly able to communicate, and could have been interrogated. They argued that Anna Stubblefield believed her love to be reciprocal, and that D.J. had still not given sign of hostility towards Stubblefield.[84]Nathan J. Robinson, founder ofCurrent Affairs, criticised when Singer and McMahan wrote that even supposing that D.J. is not just physically but also cognitively impaired (which they contest), then D.J. may not even understand the concept of consent, and it "seems reasonable to assume that the experience was pleasurable to him", as "he was capable of struggling to resist." Robinson called this a "rape", and considers that Singer and McMahan's argument implies that it would be permissible to rape or sexually assault sufficiently disabled people as long as they do not try to resist.[85]
In 1985, Singer wrote a book with the physician Deanne Wells arguing thatsurrogate motherhood should be allowed and regulated by the state by establishing nonprofit 'State Surrogacy Boards', which would ensure fairness between surrogate mothers and surrogacy-seeking parents. Singer and Wells endorsed both the payment of medical expenses endured by surrogate mothers and an extra "fair fee" to compensate the surrogate mother.[86][87]
Singer was a speaker at the 2012Global Atheist Convention.[88] He has debated with Christians includingJohn Lennox andDinesh D'Souza.[89][90] Singer has pointed to theproblem of evil as an objection against the Christian conception of God. He stated: "The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler."[91] In keeping with his considerations of nonhuman animals, Singer also takes issue with theoriginal sin reply to the problem of evil, saying that, "animals also suffer from floods, fires, and droughts, and, since they are not descended from Adam and Eve, they cannot have inherited original sin."[91]
Singer supports the view that medical intervention into the ageing process would do more to improve human life than research on therapies for specific chronic diseases in the developed world. He stated:
In developed countries, aging is the ultimate cause of 90 per cent of all human deaths. Thus, treating aging is a form of preventive medicine for all of the diseases of old age. Moreover, even before aging leads to our death, it reduces our capacity to enjoy our lives and to contribute positively to the lives of others. So, instead of targeting specific diseases that are much more likely to occur when people have reached a certain age, wouldn't a better strategy be to try to forestall or repair the damage done to our bodies by the aging process?[92]
Singer worries that "If we discover how to slow aging, we might have a world in which the poor majority must face death at a time when members of the rich minority are only a 10th of the way through their expected lifespans", thus risking that "overcoming aging will increase the stock of injustice in the world".[92] Singer cautiously highlights that as with other medical developments, they would reach the more economically disadvantaged over time once developed, whereas they can never do so if they are not.[92] As to the concern that longer lives might contribute tooverpopulation, Singer notes that "success in overcoming aging could itself ... delay or eliminatemenopause, enabling women to have their first children much later than they can now" and thus slowing the birth rate, and also that technology may reduce the consequences of rising human populations by (for instance) enabling more zero-greenhouse gas energy sources.[92]
In 2012, Singer's department sponsored the "Science and Ethics of Eliminating Aging" seminar at Princeton.[93]
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In 1989 and 1990, Singer's work was the subject of a number of protests in Germany. A course in ethics led by Hartmut Kliemt at theUniversity of Duisburg where the main text used was Singer'sPractical Ethics was, according to Singer, "subjected to organised and repeated disruption by protesters objecting to the use of the book on the grounds that in one of its ten chapters it advocates active euthanasia for severely disabled newborn infants". The protests led to the course being shut down.[94]
When Singer tried to speak during a lecture atSaarbrücken, he was interrupted by a group of protesters including advocates fordisability rights. One of the protesters expressed that entering serious discussions would be a tactical error.[95] The same year, Singer was invited to speak inMarburg at a European symposium on "Bioengineering, Ethics and Mental Disability". The invitation was fiercely attacked by leading intellectuals and organisations in the German media, with an article inDer Spiegel comparing Singer's positions toNazism. Eventually, the symposium was cancelled and Singer's invitation withdrawn.[96]
A lecture at the Zoological Institute of theUniversity of Zurich was interrupted by two groups of protesters. The first group was a group of disabled people who staged a brief protest at the beginning of the lecture. They objected to inviting an advocate of euthanasia to speak. At the end of this protest, when Singer tried to address their concerns, a second group of protesters rose and began chantingSinger raus! Singer raus! ("Singer out!" in German) When Singer attempted to respond, a protester jumped on stage and grabbed his glasses, and the host ended the lecture. Singer explains "my views are not threatening to anyone, even minimally", and says that some groups play on the anxieties of those who hear only keywords that are understandably worrying (given the constant fears of ever repeating the Holocaust) if taken with any less than the full context of his belief system.[31]: 346–359 [97]
In 1991, Singer was due to speak along withR. M. Hare andGeorg Meggle [de] at the 15thInternational Wittgenstein Symposium inKirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. Singer has stated that threats were made to Adolf Hübner, then the president of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, that the conference would be disrupted if Singer and Meggle were given a platform. Hübner proposed to the board of the society that Singer's invitation, as well as the invitations of a number of other speakers, be withdrawn. The Society decided to cancel the symposium.[94]
In an article originally published inThe New York Review of Books, Singer argued that the protests dramatically increased the amount of coverage he received, saying that "instead of a few hundred people hearing views at lectures in Marburg and Dortmund, several millions read about them or listened to them on television". Despite this, Singer argues that it has led to a difficult intellectual climate, with professors in Germany unable to teach courses on applied ethics and campaigns demanding the resignation of professors who invited Singer to speak.[94]
Singer was elected a corresponding fellow of theAustralian Academy of the Humanities in 1981.[98] He was inducted into the United StatesAnimal Rights Hall of Fame in 2000.[99] In June 2012, Singer was appointed aCompanion of the Order of Australia (AC) for "eminent service to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areas of global poverty, animal welfare and the human condition".[100] Singer receivedPhilosophy Now's 2016 Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity for his efforts "to disturb the comfortable complacency with which many of us habitually ignore the desperate needs of others ... particularly for this work as it relates to the Effective Altruism movement".[101]
In 2018, Singer was cited in the bookRescuing Ladybugs by author and animal advocateJennifer Skiff as a "hero among heroes in the world" who, in arguing against speciesism "gave the modern world permission to believe what we innately know – that animals are sentient and that we have a moral obligation not to exploit or mistreat them."[102]: 132 The book states that Singer's "moral philosophy on animal equality was sparked when he asked a fellow student at Oxford University a simple question about his eating habits."[102]
In 2021, Singer was awarded the US$1-millionBerggruen Prize,[103] and decided to give it away. He decided in particular to give half of the prize money to his foundation The Life You Can Save, because "over the last three years, each dollar spent by it generated an average of $17 in donations for its recommended nonprofits". He added he has never taken money for personal use from the organisation. Moreover, he plans to donate more than a third of the money to organisations combatingintensive animal farming, and recommended as effective byAnimal Charity Evaluators.[104]
For 2022, Singer received theBBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of "Humanities and Social Sciences".[105]
Singer serves on the Executive Advisory Board of theWorld.Minds Foundation, contributing to global ethical discussions on science, society, and responsibility.[106]
Since 1968, Singer has been married to Renata Singer (née Diamond; born in 1947 inWałbrzych, Poland). They have three children: Ruth, a textile artist; Marion, a lawyer and youth arts specialist; and Esther, a linguist and teacher. Singer's wife is a novelist and author, and has collaborated on publications with her husband.[107] Until 2021, she was president of the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library in Melbourne.[108]
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