72 Facts About Peter Singer

Peter Singer wrote the book Animal Liberation, in which he argues for veganism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which favours donating to help the global poor.

On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics.

In 2004 Peter Singer was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.

Peter Singer is a cofounder of Animals Australia and the founder of The Life You Can Save.

Peter Singer's parents were Austrian Jews who immigrated to Australia from Vienna after Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938.

Peter Singer is an atheist and was raised in a prosperous, nonreligious family.

Peter Singer's father had a successful business importing tea and coffee.

Peter Singer has explained that he elected to major in philosophy after his interest was piqued by discussions with his sister's then-boyfriend.

Peter Singer was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford and obtained from there a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1971 with a thesis on civil disobedience supervised by R M Hare and published as a book in 1973.

Peter Singer was having a discussion after class with fellow graduate student Richard Keshen, a Canadian, who would later become a professor at Cape Breton University.

Peter Singer eventually questioned Keshen about his reason for avoiding meat.

Peter Singer was able to find one book in which he could read up on the issue 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.

Peter Singer has been a regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2001.

Michael Specter wrote that Peter Singer is among the most influential of contemporary philosophers.

Peter Singer holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties.

Universalisation leads directly to utilitarianism, Peter Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others.

Peter Singer's ideas have contributed to the rise of effective altruism.

Peter Singer argues that people should try not only to reduce suffering but to reduce it in the most effective manner possible.

Peter Singer is a board member of Animal 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.

TLYCS was founded after Peter Singer released his 2009 eponymous book, in which he argues more generally in favour of giving to charities that help to end global poverty.

The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian concept that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour, and Peter 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.

Peter Singer popularised the term "speciesism", which had been coined by English writer Richard 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.

Peter Singer stated in a 2006 interview that he doesn't eat meat and that he's been a vegetarian since 1971.

Peter Singer rejected the idea that the method was necessary to meet the population's increasing demand, explaining that animals in factory 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.

Peter Singer quoted author Alison Mood's startling statistics from a report she wrote, which was released on fishcount.

Some chapters of Animal Liberation are dedicated to criticising testing on animals but, unlike groups such as PETA, Peter Singer is willing to accept such testing when there is a clear benefit for medicine.

In November 2006, Peter Singer appeared on the BBC programme Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing and said that he felt that Tipu Aziz's experiments on monkeys for research into treating Parkinson's disease could be justified.

Whereas Peter Singer has continued since the publication of Animal Liberation to promote vegetarianism and veganism, he has been much less vocal in recent years on the subject of animal experimentation.

Peter Singer has defended some of the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, such as the stealing of footage from Dr Thomas Gennarelli's laboratory in May 1984, but he has 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.

Peter 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".

However, when co-authoring The Point of View of the Universe, Peter Singer shifted to the position that objective moral values do exist, and defends the 19th century utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick's view that objective morality can be derived from fundamental moral axioms that are knowable by reason.

Whilst a student in Melbourne, Peter Singer campaigned against the Vietnam War as president of the Melbourne University Campaign Against Conscription.

Peter Singer spoke publicly for the legalisation of abortion in Australia.

Peter Singer joined the Australian Labor Party in 1974, but resigned after disillusionment with the centrist leadership of Bob Hawke.

Peter Singer says that evolutionary psychology suggests that humans naturally tend to be self-interested.

Peter Singer's writing in Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley, includes the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.

Peter Singer describes himself as not anti-capitalist, stating in a 2010 interview with the New Left Project:.

Peter Singer added that "[i]f we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist".

Peter Singer is opposed to the death penalty, claiming that it does not effectively deter the crimes for which it is the punitive measure, and that he cannot see any other justification for it.

In 2016, Peter Singer called on Jill Stein to withdraw from the US presidential election in states that were close between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, on the grounds that "The stakes are too high".

Peter Singer argued against the view that there was no significant difference between Clinton and Trump, whilst saying that he would not advocate such a tactic in Australia's electoral system, which allows for ranking of preferences.

When writing in 2017 on Trump's denial of climate change and plans to withdraw from the Paris accords, Peter Singer advocated a boycott of all consumer goods from the United States to pressure the Trump administration to change its environmental policies.

In 2021, Peter Singer described the War on Drugs as an expensive, ineffective and extremely harmful policy.

Peter Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.

In Practical Ethics, Peter Singer argues in favour of abortion rights on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences.

Peter Singer argues in favour of voluntary euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, including infanticide in certain instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia.

Peter Singer's positions have been criticised by some advocates for disability rights and right-to-life supporters, concerned with what they see as his attacks upon human dignity.

Religious critics have argued that Peter Singer's ethics ignores and undermines the traditional notion of the sanctity of life.

Peter 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.

Peter 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.

In 2002, disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson debated Peter Singer, challenging his belief that it is morally permissible to euthanise newborn children with severe disabilities.

In 2015, Peter Singer debated Archbishop Anthony Fisher on the legalisation of euthanasia at Sydney Town Hall.

Peter 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.

Peter Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life.

Peter Singer said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult".

Peter Singer did say that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.

Peter Singer was a speaker at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention.

Peter Singer has debated with Christians including John Lennox and Dinesh D'Souza.

Peter Singer has pointed to the problem of evil as an objection against the Christian conception of God.

In 2012, Peter Singer's department sponsored the "Science and Ethics of Eliminating Aging" seminar at Princeton.

In 1989 and 1990, Peter Singer's work was the subject of a number of protests in Germany.

When Peter Singer tried to speak during a lecture at Saarbrucken, he was interrupted by a group of protesters including advocates for disability rights.

Peter 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 if taken with any less than the full context of his belief system.

In 1991, Singer was due to speak along with R M Hare and Georg Meggle at the 15th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria.

Peter Singer has stated that threats were made to Adolf Hubner, then the president of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, that the conference would be disrupted if Peter Singer and Meggle were given a platform.

Hubner proposed to the board of the society that Peter Singer's invitation be withdrawn.

Peter Singer was inducted into the United States Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2000.

In 2021, Peter Singer was awarded the US$1-million Berggruen Prize, and decided to give it away.

Peter Singer 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".

For 2022 Peter Singer received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of "Humanities and Social Sciences".

Since 1968, he has been married to Renata Singer ; they have three children: Ruth, a textile artist; Marion, law student and youth arts specialist; and Esther, linguist and teacher.

Renata Peter Singer is a novelist and author and has collaborated on publications with her husband.