Talking Animal Ethics with Peter Singer | Within Reason #31 

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Singer made me study philosophy, he made me change my life habits, he made the world a better place on the basis of argument, he's kind of my hero.

I'm glad you're continuing to talk about the concept of animal rights and how we treat them today.

My grandson recommended this chat. I’ve been vegan for many years mainly due to ethics and reducing the suffering of animals. The conversation with Mr. Singer was very interesting and thought provoking.

More conversations on Ethics and Morality please. Professor Peter Singer is amazing! He has a consistent and rational meta-ethical framework which he then applies to practical ethics.

What a refreshing channel to discover. Love the environment of challenging respectfully- true discussion is so fruitful and inspiring.

"To harm you we must have made you worse off then you otherwise would have been." Given this rejoinder from Singer towards the end, unless I'm mistaken this would permit dictatorship. If a dictator earnestly believed they could improve your life (hence leave you better off than if they didn't subjugate you) they'd be justified in doing so. They'd be doing you a great service. I mean, wasn't this a key justification of imperialism? I'm getting "greater good" theodicy vibes here. If so, this bullet might break a few more teeth when bitten then is immediately obvious. Great convo, cheers!

Thank you for bringing us this discussion. Love Peter Singers thoughtfulness. He always makes me think.

The question: "would you rather live a good life and die an early death or never have existed at all", seems to be a deceptive question. Who is the "you" in this question? If "you" refers to the person who does not exist yet then the answer is neither as a non existent person does not have the ability to prefer anything. If the "you" is the person who already exists then they do not have the ability to have never existed given that they currently exist. Meaning they only really have 1 option, live a good life and die an early death, but that's no choice at all. What are people thoughts?

i read a lot of peter singer for college, i'm glad now video recordings like this also exist, to make his ideas more accessible to all :)

this is the first episode of the podcast that im interested in

Thank you for continuing to have important conversations about animal suffering 💚

Can’t believe you got one of your favorite philosophers on! Great conversation so far.

I really respect Singer as a philosopher because he didn’t appear to have a dismissive, visceral emotional reaction to your hypothetical human-farms, but instead really tried to find arguments against a practice which results in no distress, suffering nor pain. It’s not the easiest task for a debater, without resorting to the obvious “are you crazy?” stuff, but one thing he could have touched on more, is how it’s clearly obvious from an evolutionary perspective why we are more sensitive to violence towards our own species than others. In the same way we react worse to adult pigs being tortured than 12-hour old chicks being killed without really understanding anything of what’s going on. Of course, people who believe in Divine Command Theory and whatnot will think I’m insanely reductionist, but Singer seemed to agree morality is an evolved mechanism, I would just like to hear more.

Brilliant interview and I loved how Alex really interrogated and probed Singer’s views. The fact such Alex can really put one of the leading moral philosophers to the test like that is so impressive. You need to get Shelly Kagan on regarding similar topics on animal ethics. Outside of Singer, I’d say Kagan is up there as one of the major forces in moral philosophy.

Fantastic discussion! Especially near the end of the video, the discussion around the topic of, "always being able to do better," is a very challenging one! Peter Singer is fantastic. Thank you both!

His point is clear throughout the whole thing, and can be summarized into one simple phrase: "Strive for better" Very reasonable. Hard to dispute.

Alex, out of all the episodes of your podcast i enjoyed your previous conversation with Peter Singer the most. Before having watched your second exchange with him i want to express how much i value "Within Reason"! Thanks so much for giving us access to such insightful philosophical discussions!!! Grateful for your work, keep it up 🌞

I was shocked with how tasty airplane vegan food is. Just explicitly state vegan when booking the tickets and again on arrival to the staff in the plane to make sure they got your previous note. There's NO need to contribute to the exploitation, enslavement and murder of individuals for their flesh or secretions.

I'd love an essay or short video explaining the argument and what you were unconvinced by.

read some of animal liberation in college. really opened my eyes on the issue and i really enjoyed yalls conversation.

I think it’s better to not bring a being into existence if you’re gonna kill them prematurely. There just seems something wrong about taking someone’s life against their will. Bizarrely Singer doesn’t seem to think animals want to go on living (like he admits humans do).

44:05 I learned speciesism from Terry Pratchett. In Feet of Clay he uses golems that are created via magic and used as slave labor to analyze. Pretty good read!

Alex you misunderstood the driving analogy. It’s irrelevant if there’s a consistency between how we treat animals and how we treat humans. That’s not the point of the analogy. The point of the analogy is that we make exceptions for how we treat human life based on convenience. But that doesn’t mean we get to now breed humans and kill them intentionally for food, or that human exploitation or suffering is now permissible. In the same way, incidental crop deaths, or defence of crops deaths, does not open a can of worms where the exploitation and suffering that occurs on animal farms is now justified. There are ways that by us merely existing we cause harm to humans, and even death to humans, by participating in certain systems set in place. So by the anti vegan crop death argument, we should be allowed to exploit and harm humans for pleasure or convenience as well. But that just doesn’t follow does it.

34:50 - I think David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been / The Human Predicament has good reasoning as to why it's wrong to bring them into existence in the first place.

Alex asks questions that I myself was itching to ask. I'm so thankful that he pushed the issue of "humane" killing.

Wonderful discussion. Peter Singer is one of my intellectual heroes, and it's really exhilarating to see him being challenged by such a capable interviewer and philosopher yourself :). Thanks, keep it up!

Great to see you engage in another intelligent discussion with such an impressive thinker! Singer is an inspiration! Someone in the thread recommended Shelly Kagan. If you could get him on to talk about his new book 'Answering Moral Skepticism', that'd be another coup!

Would love to hear you have a conversation with Bernardo Kastrup, first half about the incoherence of physicalist ontology, second half about why analytical idealism is more parsimonious and has more explanatory power.

The situation described at the 40 minute mark is roughly the same as the scenario described in the movie "The Island" where human clones are raised having a good life and then harvested when their original copies required something like an organ or a child surrogate. Edit: some other movies with related plots. - "Never Let Me Go" - "Level 16" - "The Promised Neverland"

mr singers mic is so wholesome

The cocktails gives you happiness and creativity which makes you produce great ideas/solutions that save more people than that money.

Really good talk you had! I laughed at the incredulous look on your face when Singer was talking about his tolerance of flexitarians eating meat in Paris. You did a good job at getting a clarification of his position like with the term 'exploitation,' pressing him on potential weaknesses of his view like biting the bullet of 'harm requires making one worse off,' and I think it was a very productive conversation overall. To me, it seems like utilitarianism doesn't have a particularly clear ethical standard beyond absolute perfection, but I like how Singer seems to say that the standard we should have is basically any ethical improvement to the social norms at the time. Even this has problems I think, but it makes for a fairly tolerant brand of utilitarianism which is just nice to see. It beats the alternative of an utterly unattainable perfection that anyone would go crazy trying to achieve. I'm looking forward to all your future conversations on the show! And it's great how frequently they come out!

My personal takeaway is: when we clearly can do better, please make the effort. This applies to everything, IMHO. 👍

I’m surprised that no one seems to bring up the novel Never Let Me Go, when discussing the hypothetical situation of humans being raised for meat and killed at a young age. If you haven’t read it, it’s a fantastic novel (not so much about ethical philosophy but more about human life, meaning, and love).

I read his book "the most good you can do". Life changing

I had a discussion about Singer’s paper from the 1970s this morning with my friend, only for this to appear. Thanks for reading my mind, Alex.

Singer is a madman. It can't be the same guy who wrote Animal Liberation....He doesn't even advocate for animal rights. What a buffoon.

Glad to see you talking about animal ethics again

That end was a knife in the heart for him in the end I’m unconvinced by your arguments

Good job Alex!

It would be great to hear you in dialogue with Coleman Hughes as your both graduates of philosophy with high viewing figures on RU-vid

I think one should do both: demand better conditions for animals on farms and the abolition of animal exploitation. If it does not seem plausible that we will overcome the exploitation of animals in a short time, then at least we can make them have a better life, even if just a little bit. I do not see any problem in this at all.

Great conversation!

God speed to you Peter Singer and thank you Alex.

Learned about Mr. Singer in my POV 101 class in university and I instantly found his philosophy very interesting and considered it when developing my own ethical philosophy

Have a podcast with Dr Avi Bitterman

Excellent discussion/interview!! Good job Alex!! Killing kills potential, wish that was brought up.

Alex, consider the following possibility: The cocktails with friends give you an outlet that enables you to earn more money, which ultimately increases your capacity to give charity. And aside from the outlet, perhaps you'll cultivate a connection that ultimately earns you more money and gives you such a capacity. (Pehaps all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and dull boys do less good.) Similarly, even if you grew out your beard you'd need to trim it (at an expense) to prevent looking dissheveled, a condition that would result in lower earnings and, again, a lower capacity for giving charity. Some things have utility in the long term if not in the short one.

Singer has such a well considered position. He gets mocked so much of the time by people who either misunderstand him or misrepresent him. But he's always willing to give the hard answers to the hard questions.

I like that you pushed him on the utilitarian reductios. I think it's pretty clear at this point that utilitarianism isn't a viable ethical theory.

Great video !

Here's more from Peter in case of interest. I ask him (and all my guests): "What's real?", "Who matters?" and "How Can We Make A Better Future?" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1Q6NCSFYtb0.html

38:00 I am legitimately shocked at what Singer has just said. The fathers of animals right..... And Alex of all people, with his struggles of veganism having to challenge his beliefs... I need a moment to lie down.

It is insane to me that someone who once reproached themself for buying a razor is now paying for the abuse and murder of innocent beings. Alex does seem conflicted though, so hopefully he reconsiders his lifestyle choices. That being said, I'm glad that Alex pressed Singer throughout. The bullets he bit here are truly shocking and shows just how insidious welfarism is

All I keep thinking about is the movie The Island... Trying to apply their thought process to that movie is shockingly terrifying!

I Just wanna make a little correction about the Kantian quote: Kant says always treat the other, as a end in himself and never as MERE mean to end. So yes, you can use people as a means, but what Kant said it wasn't about using as mean, but to use as .MERE means.

Great to see the two of you having another discussion. I am rereading Singer's The Most Good You Can Do, which inspired my latest book about effectively reducing animal suffering. I have The Life You Can Save and Animal Liberation on my desk as well. Though I struggle to get on board with all of the utilitarian principles, many of which Singer subscribes to, Singer has nonetheless been quite the inspiration for to me to embrace morally consistent behaviors. Listening to your conversation now....

It seems that Alex have forgot that more animals are killed by produsing meat than eating plants directly. It will never be perfect, but thats a pretty clear line that is avoiding most animal suffering, comapred to not having that line, in an easy to understand ethical and practical way.

I’m still pretty new to hearing the actual arguments of animal ethics. Definitely raised pretty far on the other side. Will listen with an open mind! Thanks to both of you for this conversation.

Also what people don't realize is that there are 2 types of luxuries. There are luxuries can can be served as "investments" and luxuries that aren't. A computer or a phone is a luxury, but if you use it to grow a brand, business or combat on real world issues then the luxury is justified and it's impractical to remove them. Luxuries that don't serve as investments like expensive cars or sneakers that you are using (decrease in value) are not justified. But it could also be the case that you are for example a "luxury car tester" or "sponsored to use expensive clothes" in which you gain more than lose from them and you could use that increase in fame or money to reach more people in need, but then it becomes an "investment" to help people. Only you really know what you spend money on that you could be better off without or use less of. We should thereby reduce all luxuries in a PRACTICAL sense because not doing so disrespects the people born with close to zero opportunity to thrive in this world.

Is it true that you eat animals? I'm 55 and stopped when I was 11 years old.

keep up the great work Alex. Would love to see more conversations about ethics.

Baruch Spinoza - Ethics, Part 4, Proposition 34, Note 1 - (Updated translation) ''It is plain that the law/view against the slaughtering of animals is founded rather on vain superstition and radical emotional anthropomorphic pity than on sound reason. The rational quest of what is useful to us further teaches us the necessity of associating ourselves with our fellow humans but not with other animals, or things, whose nature is different from our own; we have the same right over them as they have over us. Yes, as everything's right is defined by its virtue, or power, humans have far greater rights/power over other animals than other animals have over humans (By virtue of the power they exert). Still I do not deny that other animals feel: what I deny is, that because they feel, that we may not consult our own advantage and use them as we please (As they use us as they could please and exert their power, such as a lion tearing apart a human if given a chance, or any other organism consuming another organism, Life eats Life), treating them in the way which best suits us; for their nature is not like ours, and their emotions are naturally different from human emotions (By the fact of our differing nervous systems and organs)." Spinoza refuses to invoke any metaphysical difference that grants humanity a ''Special'' intrinsic value. Humans are a piece of Nature like anything else. They do not ''Attack'' or ''Harm'' Nature as they are literally a way Nature is manifested and acts. Humans do not exist outside of Nature attacking it as evil things (The belief of many animal and climate activists, Vegans, Vegetarians etc.) as if Nature outside of humans is all innocent and passive. This is just Inverse Anthropocentrism at play. Man is a Kingdom within a Kingdom but is now also a Kingdom outside of a Kingdom. Everything acts by the sovereign right of Nature. I suggest you pull back that curtain of reality and dis-engage from transcendental, spiritual, platonic thinking. Go read Spinoza, Nietzsche etc. These are just the principles of Spinoza's egoistic ''ethics'' (Of seeking ones own advantage, not just a Human but all organisms do this) and politics (The identification of Right with Power). In this passage however, Spinoza applies these principles to a group (Human Beings, but any organism can be put in this place) rather than to a specific individual. To the extent that this group has any power over another group, it has the right to use members of the other group ''at their pleasure''. Of course, the other group may have something to say about that, but they too will defend and exert their right as they can. Remember for Spinoza, there are no transcendental objective morals or ethics. Good and Bad represent nothing positive in things.

interesting. The problem with hypotheticals concerning obscure and unlikely edgecases is that arguing them has the side effect of making it overall more unlikely that people consider veganism at all and so making those impossible edgecase arguments potentially responsible for increasing suffering.

You're a real power house in debate Alex. I think you and Peter differ most on the totality of an ethical frameworks application to your life. Peter is mostly applying this to the biggest principals he sees and then trying to find workable solutions he finds ethically benefitial. Alex really enjoys the depth of the moral framework to see if it holds ethically consistent under all tests. I have probably misrepresented your actual views but its what i took. Its a brilliant discussion, I'm really enjoying the new podcast

It’s about individual intention.. which PS seems to completely miss in his reasoning and odd ‘flexibility’.

I think utilitarianism should involve, as Singer mentioned, considering the consequences of upholding a rule. for example, if we require of everyone to eat only to a caloric maintenance, we might create a standard which favors a particular definition of caloric maintenance that ends up being unachievable for some people, enshrining non-intuitive eating, diet culture, & fatphobia, & perpetuating more suffering than we prevent I think there is also an inherent negative utility in coercion, which helps me to arrive at the intuitive conclusion of human farming being immoral. if a being is only able to exist under extreme coercion, I think it would be better to have not been brought into existence at all. to uphold coercion by giving a being such an existence is to assume that you are able to decide the best interest of another being w/out their consent

47:48 I don't believe that having people raised for the sole purpose of killing them humanely later, while giving them "good life" is hypothetical at all, it is called human cloning. The movie 'Island' describes it well, including the moral dilemma. Clones are given good, albeit, ignorent life and deceitfully sent to a "paradise island", when the time comes to harvest their organs for the "originals'. The clones even blissfully celibrate that as winning in a lottery. If that's not immoral, I don't know what is. Alex, Petr, your thoughts?

Hey Alex, did you say on twitter the streamer Destiny was going to be on the podcast? Best wishes.

I feel 100+ Cockatoos every day. I watched a car kill one of my friends last week. I rescued a Galah with a broken wing, she's precious... we treat animals with disdain. Almost with hate. Then we justify it. 😒

i just love this podcast, thanks Alex

I think that a big difference between humans and other animals is that animals are instictive. They care about how they are doing in the moment. Humans think about themselfs in the futere and in the past and have mental capability to disire more than well-being.

Great interview! You should have Cornel West on.

The conversation about 40mins in reminded me of the problems posed in Ishiguro’s novel “never let me go”

Alex please interview Graham Smith from Republic campaign 🙏. He's the leader of a republican pressure group in the UK. The biggest one in the UK and the one's who coined the "not my king" slogan said at the anti coronation protests

I prefer Singers realistic flexiblism over idealistic absolutism. His view takes into account happiness and well being of the individual with the goal of reducing suffering in the world as much as possible without drastically increasing your own suffering. Being overbearing and judgmental about every action you and others take and weighing it against the greatest possible outcome increases suffering and unhappiness in the world.

Suffering..... My ethics are suffering tremendously on behalf of the whole human race, because most don't understand that it's not only about the victims suffering, it's also about the suffering of our emphatic humanity, that we even think of reducing.... We simply just don't even have to go there, we just got to "behave rational/reasonable and nice" and leave the animals alone, period 🌿💚

1:03:40 "As always, it was challenging and stimulating to talk to you". Is that a suble burn I'm feeling? :D

Peter's views on flexibility were very convincing. Don't know what Alex was talking about. Peter maintained throughout that there is always going to be more that can be done to be more ethical, so moderate steps leading to incremental change is still a good thing. Only a fundamentalist could disagree with that.

Do you still have those crazy drawers Mr O’Conner?

Talk to Ask Yourself and Avi dude. They’re way better at answering these questions you have.

My thoughts before watching: Oh this is gonna be good!

It's interesting that Peter Singer, one of the godfathers of veganism, is actually a lot less vegan than most people think he is

This is amazing. I never thought I would see a worse non-vegan than Alex but he somehow managed to find one. Truly remarkable.

Does anyone know if Alex has reconsidered his veganism? Has he worked out his health issues to be able to do so? He us such a powerful influencer....it would be great to have him back.

Yes, yes, yes Alex!!! Use your intuition, which is not anything like instinctive needs/cravings that one just have a "gut" feeling for.. But I believe people that know and use intuition right, knows that.

This is a talk worth the watch, contrary to the one Alex did with Mikhaila Peterson. I'm not sure if Alex has changed his views on animal rights or he's just displaying a narrative for the views, but he did very well pushing Singer's utilitarianism to the corner. The whole point of hypotheticals from an ethical perspective is to test one's moral consistency, which Singer failed miserably, reason why he resorted to blaming hypotheticals as a category. However, Alex was trait equalizing the animal scenario to the human scenario, so there was commensurability. There was no deception involved. The only deception is the person who pushed the idea of speciesm in his book being a speciest.

Economics, the privatization of Earthly resources, and or capitalism is the problem. It’s not, my razor has become Oscar Schindler’s ring, but that no one should be forced into labor for simple, fundamental resources. The needs of all can be met if we reject the dogma of theft of the public trust. See Chief Seattle…

Peter Singer talks about killing animals humanely if they had a good (short) life, but he says he can not answer the question about killing humans humanely at age 18 after they have had a good (short) life, because he says we can not trust our intuition, because the scenario is hypothetical and so unlikely to happen. Well, my intuition happens to be, in this real world, since I was a very small child, and I kept the same intuition my whole life, that killing animals and taking their milk and eggs is wrong. So how does Peter Singer explain this then? If intuition is his escape from "name the trait", well, my intuition, and that of many other humans, is that killing of animals is wrong.

1:2:57 the point of morality is.. couldn't agree more Mr Singer

Alex you need to talk to someone like perspective philosophy, someone you can debate these things on rather than interview. I think he can really answer some of your doubts.

All types of hedonism always end up about personal preferences and having good intentions. I find that morally bankrupt. It's not even remotely consistent. It's fine to kill humans if for some reason you feel like it, but not animals for a good reason like eating which everybody need to do. Can't even eat a chicken that you would kill anyway which makes zero sense of course. And then he's quite lenient on himself with exception over exception. Claims hypotheticals don't mean anything, after having written a book based on hypotheticals. It's not remotely serious but fairly typical. Not sure why oysters are special beings that don't feel anything, and not sure why it even matters. It's just based on empathy and superstitious beliefs. He does not know what oysters feel, or who anybody feels, and besides if you were to take pleasure to an extreme, you should kill anybody that suffers because they make the world worst off. Just replace hospitals by gas chambers and we would be good to go. Anything with a nervous system feels something, even ants can feel stuff. Not sure about plants, but they seem to kind of feel stuff as well, they certainly act like it. They feel light, and cold in some ways. So it only boils down to what you like and what you like to eat as well for that matter. There is no morality there at all, it's just opinions but that will lead to terrible decision making in many cases. See, there is an easy way to stop animal "exploitation" and suffering, it's to get rid of all of them, same with humans. That's the ideal world if that's the goal. Even psychologically, there is almost no amount of pleasure that can compensate for suffering, it's like 10 to 1 the way we remember suffering compared to pleasure, so the bar is high to even justify existence at all.

destiny interview when?

Nice Conversation, I almost thought we were going to reference "Logans Run" , thats also has an interesting moral proposition whether limiting human life spans to 20 years then humanely killing them as a form of population control which limits the overall damage to the environment and other species would be a good thing?

How do we know the blankets summary is well made?

Fascinating conversation, I'd be interested to hear where Alex differed from Peter and Alex's responses to Peter's points.

@25:00 So it would be unethical to talk to a service worker for a service then? Since you don't see the END the whole human but the role the human represents?

There is a big problem with Singer being hesitantly okay with killing humanely raised animals. He says that if they're bred for that purpose, and given a good life, killing them painlessly is permissible. The problem is that he's saying that if you do a good action, it then justifies a bad action. This only works when the bad action is inextricably linked to the good action. For example, having a child could be seen as a good action, even though the child's death is assured, which is bad. You can't extricate the death from life. In humanely raised meat, you can. There is actually no connection between saying that an animal that you breed was meant to be killed, and killing the animal. You can simply not kill the animal. Under Singer's current view, if he wanted to beat up an old lady, couldn't he quick give a little money to charity, and then commence the beating?

Great discussion!