In the first controlled, non-self-report studies to show an influence of university-level ethical instruction on everyday behavior, Schwitzgebel et al. (2020) and Jalil et al. (2020) found that students purchase less meat after exposure to material on the ethics of eating meat. We sought to extend and conceptually replicate this research. Seven hundred thirty students in three large philosophy classes read James Rachels’ (2004) “Basic Argument for Vegetarianism”, followed by 50-min small-group discussions. Half also viewed a vegetarianism advocacy video containing (...) factory farm footage. A few days after instruction, 54% of students agreed that “eating the meat of factory farmed animals is unethical”, compared to 37% before instruction, with no difference between the film and non-film conditions. Also, 39% of students anonymously pledged to avoid eating factory farmed meat for 24 h, again with no statistically detectable difference between conditions. Finally, we obtained 2828 campus food purchase receipts for 113 of the enrolled students who used their Student ID cards for purchases on campus, which we compared with 5033 purchases from a group of 226 students who did not receive the instruction. Meat purchases remained constant in the comparison group and declined among the students exposed to the material, falling from 30% to 23% of purchases overall and from 51% to 42% of purchases of $4.99 or more, with the effect possibly larger in the film condition. (shrink)

In this contribution, we set out a framework for ethical research and innovation. Our framework draws upon recent scholarly work recommending the introduction of new models at the intersection of ethics, strategy, and science and technology studies to inform and explicate how the decisions of researchers can be considered ethical. Ethical research and innovation is construed in our framework as a dynamic process emerging from decisions of multiple stakeholders in innovation ecosystems prior to, during and after the execution of a (...) research and innovation project. The framework can be used by different types of research organizations to implement governance models of ethical research and innovation. (shrink)

This collection takes stock of J.M. Coetzee's impact from a number of interesting angles, Including animals, sexuality, race, and reason. The time is truly ripe for such a volume.

We should all agree that each of us is bound to show kindness to his parents and spouse and children, and to other kinsmen in a less degree; and to those who have rendered services to him, and any others whom he may have admitted to his intimacy and called friends; and to neighbours and to fellow-countrymen more than others; and perhaps we may say to those of our own race more than to black or yellow men, and generally to (...) human beings in proportion to their affinity to ourselves. (shrink)

In this paper I present the basic outlines of a nonstandard interpretation of Sein und Zeit. The merit of this interpretation is that it brings out and develops some of the radical possibilities contained in this rich text, possibilities which, I believe, have yet to be given their due. On the basis of this interpretation it is clear not only how Heidegger’s ontology departs from its Cartesian and Kantian predecessors, but also how his ontology puts the traditional mind/body problem, and (...) the problem of the external world, onto radically new grounds. However, unlike standard interpretations of Sein und Zeit, I argue that these new grounds neither resolve, nor dissolve, these problems, and that Heidegger’s discussion of the so-called “scandal of philosophy” is misleading at best. (shrink)

Since coming to Princeton, I have been impressed by two things: how rich the University is, and how seriously ethics is taken here. The wealth is evident to anyone who walks around the campus or uses the library. In comments marking President Shapiro's planned retirement from the presidency, it has been said that one of his achievements was to build the University's endowment from $2 billion to $8 billion. At a dinner a few months ago, a senior Princeton administrator told (...) me proudly that, on a per-student basis, Princeton is now the richest university in the world. (shrink)

It may be thought odd that these two philosophers should have been selected for discussion together. They had no special connection with each other. They were not personally close. They did not teach or write in the same place. Nor were their personalities at all similar. None the less there are similarities of thought and perspective that make the conjunction illuminating.It may be thought even odder that these two philosophers should have been selected for discussion at all. After all, who (...) today reads them, or has even heard of them? Very few. If they ever were in fashion, they are not in fashion now. But this situation results from ignorance, which this series aims to dispel. Remember, it was meant to be a revelation to the ignorant as well as an inspiration. (shrink)

This response to the articles in this issue of ‘Analyse & Kritik’ begins with some general remarks on the ‘Singer-Affair’ in which I suggest that while the rational discussion of the ethical issue of euthanasia poses no threat of a return to Nazism, there is a real danger in the creation of a climate in which people are ready to use force to suppress ideas with which they disagree. I then state and criticise two popular theses about t he (...) wrongness of killing: that there is a crucial moral distinction between an act and an omission, and that all human beings possess an intrinsic right to life that no nonhuman beings have. This serves as a background to the section that follows, in which I take up the detailed criticisms of my views made by Professors Lenzen, Birnbacher, J.C. Wolf and Hoerster. (shrink)

This collection of articles pays homage to the creativity and scientific rigor Jerome Singer has brought to the study of consciousness and play. It will interest personality, social, clinical and developmental psychologists alike.

In the Brazilian film "Central Station," Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes ends meet by sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to pocket $1,000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless 9-year-old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set and settles (...) down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils the fun, however, by telling her that the boy was too old to be adopted —he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora knew this all along, but after her neighbor's plain speaking, she spends a troubled night. In the morning Dora resolves to take the boy back. (shrink)

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of concerned men and women to the shocking abuse of animals everywhere--inspiring a worldwide movement to eliminate much of the cruel and unnecessary laboratory animal experimentation of years past. In this newly revised and expanded edition, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures--offering sound, humane solutions to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. An (...) important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency and justice, Animal Liberation is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike.--From publisher description. (shrink)

You don't say much about who you are teaching, or what subject you teach, but you do seem to see a need to justify what you are doing. Perhaps you're teaching underprivileged children, opening their minds to possibilities that might otherwise never have occurred to them. Or maybe you're teaching the children of affluent families and opening their eyes to the big moral issues they will face in life — like global poverty, and climate change. If you're doing something like (...) this, then stick with it. Giving money isn't the only way to make a difference. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an account of right belief, which they distinguish from other notions like rational and justified belief. Epistemic consequentialists should also make their (...) view ‘sophisticated,’ in the sense of Railton. Epistemic consequentialism, I conclude, is best construed as sharing much of its structure with prominent act-consequentialist views in ethics. Epistemic consequentialism has an advantage over its ethical counterpart though: the key claim of the view is practically universally accepted, which gives us an additional reason to think it’s true. (shrink)

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared animals? (...) Am I doing something wrong if my carbon footprint is above the global average? Other questions confront us as concerned citizens: equality and discrimination on the grounds of race or sex; abortion, the use of embryos for research and euthanasia; political violence and terrorism; and the preservation of our planet's environment. This book's lucid style and provocative arguments make it an ideal text for university courses and for anyone willing to think about how she or he ought to live. (shrink)

In 1972, the young philosopher Peter Singer published "Famine, Affluence and Morality," which rapidly became one of the most widely discussed essays in applied ethics. Through this article, Singer presents his view that we have the same moral obligations to those far away as we do to those close to us. He argued that choosing not to send life-saving money to starving people on the other side of the earth is the moral equivalent of neglecting to save drowning (...) children because we prefer not to muddy our shoes. If we can help, we must--and any excuse is hypocrisy. Singer's extreme stand on our moral obligations to others became a powerful call to arms and continues to challenge people's attitudes towards extreme poverty. Today, it remains a central touchstone for those who argue we should all help others more than we do. As Bill and Melinda Gates observe in their foreword, in the age of today's global philanthropy, Singer's essay is as relevant now as it ever was. This attractively packaged, concise edition collects the original article, two of Singer's more recent popular writings on our obligations to others around the world, and a new introduction by Singer that discusses his current thinking. (shrink)

Peter Singer is probably the best-known and most controversial ethicist in the world today. He rigorously applies utilitarian moral theory to issues such as world poverty, the environment, abortion, euthanasia and, most famously, animal welfare. He has also written a book about his grandfather, David Oppenheim, who died in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

In his Axel Hägerström Lectures, given in Sweden in 1991, Dick Hare referred to Hägerström as a pioneer in ethics who had made the most important breakthrough that there had been in ethics during the twentieth century. Although Hägerström's development of a nondescriptivist approach to ethics certainly was pioneering philosophical work, when the history of twentieth century ethics comes to be written, I believe that it is Hare's own work that will be seen as having made the most important contribution.

In the Brazilian film "Central Station," Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes ends meet by sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to pocket $1,000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless 9-year-old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set and settles (...) down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils the fun, however, by telling her that the boy was too old to be adopted —he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora knew this all along, but after her neighbor's plain speaking, she spends a troubled night. In the morning Dora resolves to take the boy back. (shrink)

This interview with Peter Singer AI serves a dual purpose. It is an exploration of certain—utilitarian and related—views on sentience and its ethical implications. It is also an exercise in the emerging interaction between natural and artificial intelligence, presented not as just ethics of AI but perhaps more importantly, as ethics with AI. The one asking the questions—Matti Häyry—is a person, in the contemporary sense of the word, sentient and self-aware, whereas Peter Singer AI is an artificial intelligence (...) persona, created by Sankalpa Ghose, a person, through dialogue with Peter Singer, a person, to programmatically model and incorporate the latter’s writings, presentations, recipes, and character qualities as a renowned philosopher. The interview indicates some subtle differences between natural perspectives and artificial representation, suggesting directions for further development. PSai, as the project is also known, is available to anyone to chat with, anywhere in the world, on almost any topic, in almost any language, at www.petersinger.ai. (shrink)

For this special issue dedicated to Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer was asked to reflect on the influence that the book Causing Death and Saving Lives had on him, as well as the Glover seminar in Oxford that Peter Singer attended in the late 1960s. One of Peter Singer's recurring arguments is the criticism of the traditional distinction between acts and omissions. But Glover is no stranger to this questioning, even if the two thinkers do not seem to (...) want to draw exactly the same conclusions. What is at stake is this: what are we really responsible for and how demanding should our morality be? (shrink)

Extending her earlier work on a theory of human rights in her 1993 Operative Rights, Singer (emerita, American philosophy presumably, City U. of New York) critiques philosophies from Rousseau to Kymlicka in clarifying her views--influenced by Dewey and Mead (George Herbert, not Margaret)--and applying them to such issues as multiculturalism, minority rights, and conflict resolution. The analysis pivots on her concept of "a normative community" rather than natural rights. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Today data art is a full-fledged and maturing artistic practice. Like painting, artists are creating new visuals and representations with data. Like sculpture, artists are recombining bits to build something new out of the commonplace. Like photography, artists are using data to mirror or reflect contemporary society. In my own practice for the last 15 years I have been using data to make works at the intersection of art, design and activism with a recent focus on environmental topics. It is (...) my belief that through improved representation of, access to and public involvement with data we can increase understanding of important issues and provoke behavioural and systemic change. In this paper, I will examine the evolution of my work using data as my medium as well as outline tactics for data art to promote change. (shrink)

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

If we agree with the notion of a global community, then we must extend our concepts of justice, fairness, and equity beyond national borders by supporting measures to decrease global warming and to increase foreign aid, argues Peter Singer.

In this volume, some of today's most distinguished philosophers survey the whole field of ethics, from its origins, through the great ethical traditions, to theories of how we ought to live, arguments about specific ethical issues, and the nature of ethics itself. The book can be read straight through from beginning to end; yet the inclusion of a multi-layered index, coupled with a descriptive outline of contents and bibliographies of relevant literature, means that the volume also serves as a work (...) of reference, both for those coming afresh to the study of ethics and for readers already familiar with the subject. (shrink)