Singer wrote the book to raise awareness about the suffering of over 200 million turkeys raised in conditions close to torture, including mutilation and extreme confinement that causes pain. He believes Americans should know about these practices to potentially change them.
Singer acknowledges that while progress is slow and challenging, there have been advancements, such as better animal welfare legislation in the European Union and some U.S. states like California. He remains hopeful that continued public awareness can lead to improvements.
Effective altruism is the idea that one should strive to make the world a better place by focusing on the most effective ways to reduce suffering and increase happiness, considering global and even non-human impacts. It aligns with utilitarianism by prioritizing actions that maximize overall well-being with limited resources.
Singer argues that his views are formed after extensive discussions with medical professionals and parents of severely disabled children, who often face significant suffering. He believes that personal experiences, including his own family's history, inform his perspective on reducing unnecessary suffering.
Singer acknowledges the potential trade-off but emphasizes the importance of maintaining intellectual integrity as a philosopher. He believes that rigorously following arguments to their logical conclusions is crucial, even if it means addressing controversial topics that might alienate some audiences.
Singer admits that while he strives to follow utilitarian principles, there are limits to what he is willing to sacrifice, such as causing family disruption. He believes in doing much more good than most people without making extreme personal sacrifices that could lead to significant personal costs.
Singer defends the journal's mission to rigorously examine ideas that might be considered beyond the pale, arguing that even issues like blackface and zoophilia have nuances that deserve academic exploration. He believes that challenging societal norms through thoughtful debate is valuable.
Singer admits to feeling the emotional pull of retributive justice, such as supporting the death penalty for heinous crimes, despite his general opposition to it based on utilitarian principles. He acknowledges the conflict between his head and heart in such cases.
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From the new york times, this is the interview. I am David mark zy. Maybe IT sounds, cory, but in my own little way, I really do try to make the world a Better place.
I think about the ethics of what I eat. I donate to charity. I give time and energy to helping those less fortunate in my community.
And according to Peter singer, those efforts pretty much add up to bubka. Singer is arguably the world's most influential living philosophy. His work grows out of utilitarian ism. The view that a good action is won, that within reason, maximizes the well being of the greatest number of lives possible.
He spent decades trying to get people to take a more critical look at their own, and what well made in control people can actually do to make the world a Better place. His landmark one thousand nine hundred seventy five book animal liberation helped popular ze vegan, vegetarian eating habits. His new book consider the turkey builds on those ideas as a political against the thanksgiving meal.
And his writing on what the wealthy, oh, the poor, which is a lot more than they are giving, was an important building block for the data driven, filling and thrown move, known as effective altruism, which has gone a lot of attention recently because of some of its high profiled hearings in silicon valley, including the disGraced cyp to currency to prenez r sbg on. But singer, who is seventy eight, is as controversial as he is influential. Some of his ideas, like that parent should be allowed to pursue youth in asia for severely disabled infants, have LED people to call him dangerous. And worse, some of his ideas make me personally uneasy too, but my discomfort and the way his work forces me to reconsider my own ethical intuitions and assumptions is precisely why I wanted to talk with him. Here's my conversation with Peter singer.
Hi Peter. I'm David.
Nice to meet you. Nice David.
You you might be wondering why the journalist interviewing you today is sitting in a clothing closet and uh just just for your own context, I Normally record in a Normal room but my neither or has decided today was the day to do some construction just outside my window. lovely. Is there an ethical way I can get revenge?
No, you should just let her go.
That's what I want. Do you do to say.
just look at the middle, you can see where revenge .
gets you three go? Yeah I I promise I don't mean this question at all in a vacuous way is, uh, the question that why you wrote this will consider the turkey. So it's a it's a small book.
There aren't really new arguments in IT. How do you decide whether writing that book was the best use of your time? Could that time, if you Better spend doing something else? Is that something that you think about?
This is an important issue. We're talking about over two hundred million turkeys who are read in a way that comes close to being described as torture. That is, they're a mutilated, in various ways, their bread to live in such a way that IT hurts them when they are getting near full weight.
IT hurts them to stand up because the immature al lag bones don't bear the immense weight that we've been made to put on in a very short time. They suffer slaughter. And then, as I described in the book, if I get bird flu, the entire shed is killed by heat stroke.
Uh, quite commonly, not the only message using the other states, but it's used on millions of birds. The ventilation is stopped in, the shed heat is abroad in, and they are deliberately heated to death over a period of hours. I think that's something that americans don't know, and it's really important they should know because IT should stop.
So my concern is to reduce unnecessary, avoidable suffering where I can. That's one of my major goals throughout my career in philosophy and as an activist. And I think that that's definitely worth the time he took to write this book.
But in reading the book, IT feels pretty hard to deny the unacceptable level of suffering that goes into our thanks giving turkey dinners but millions of people are still gonna have them. So did you feel at all like you're paying your head against the wall with this stuff?
Now I don't really feel like i'm banging my head against the wall. Um I feel like i'm banging my head against something which h is pretty hard, but not completely unyielding in at some parts of the world, we might progress in the laws and regulations concerning animals.
The entire european union has legislation that provides Better animal welfare conditions for animals in industrial agriculture than united states laws do, with the exception of a small number of states, california being the most notable that i've had citizens initiated referendum to produce Better conditions. So on the whole, you know, yes, things are still very bad, but I think it's possible to make progress. And I think um we have to keep bringing these facts in front of the public and getting them to think about what they are reading. And the thanksgiving meal, as it's a family festival, seems like a really good place to that.
You know there's a cleared journalistic trope of how to talk to your I ideologically opposed relative at thanksgiving. Have you learned anything about 好, we can talk to people who disagree with our ideas, uh, in a way that doesn't just make them sort of roll their eyes and ignore you like if someone reads your book and then thinks, well, now I have something to say about whether not we should be eating this turkey thanksgiving. What guidance can you give them about how to have that conversation?
Well, that of course we will depend on on who your relatives are, what sort of relationship you have with them um so there's all different sorts of possibilities um but I I do think that you can make progress with many people uh be civil and reasonable I have a look at some of these facts and I do you really want to support this you know do you really want to be complicated in these practices if somebody doesn't accept the argument and just insist that you know this is irrelevant to um they're not going to listen uh at some point you might say, well if you want meet you your thanksgiving um I don't want to be there with uh a big bird sitting on the table who I know has suffered in the ways that the standard american thanksgiving turkey has suffered.
At some point you would suggest drawing that heart line for someone yes.
at some point you wanted say and I mean, is not true of important moral issues. And I think this is that you just say, look, i'm sorry, I can't go along with that.
This is just a question I have about what it's like to be you. There aren't a lot of well known philosophers around. Do you find that sort of in your life, people come to you looking for ethical advice?
Or they certainly do. They come to me online a lot nowadays. And in fact, in order to provide that and save my time for more effective things, I have set up Peter singer, ai and so on my website you can you can connect to A A chat board who has been trained on all of my works and actually does remarkably well in terms of channeling my views to people with ethical queries.
I didn't, you know, set IT up. I had some support of friends doing this to new borrow about the technical item. But I have to say they've done a remarkably good job.
How do you feel about the fact that an A, I has been able to adequately replicate your ethical responses to questions?
Now I am really happy about that. I mean, partly just for the the time saving reason that I mentioned, but also in a sense that means that I can be a motor. And I mean, this me is not gonna around for, well, I hope another decade may be, but not too much more than that.
Probably the Peterson R. A. I could be run for indefinitely, describe as a kind of immortality.
I'm sure this is arguable, but I think of you as being best known for your work on animals and ethics, which you, I, I, I think flow out of utilitarian principles of which basically the belief that the right action is the one that produces the least suffering or the most good um but you're also seen as one of the godfathers of effective altruism. Can you explain what effective altruism m is and how it's different or builds on utilitarian ism?
sure. So effective altering ism is the view that, firstly, we ought to try to make the world a Better place. That all to be one of the goals of our life doesn't mean that that, you know, we all have to become science and think about that in everything we do but IT should be an an important goal for people to think what can I do to to make the world Better which might mean to reduce suffering, might mean to reduce premature death um and to think about that in a global way not just for me in my family and those close to me, but to think about IT for people anywhere in the world and indeed for being capable of suffering um who are not of of our species.
So effective alternative then developed into a kind of a social movement a to encourage people to do that, to think in that way. And effective ultimus done a lot of research to try to find which are the most effective charities in different areas. So it's it's become an important social movement.
Um what is the connection with utilitarian ism? I think if you are utility arian, you ought to be an effective ultras. Because if you're util ter and you what I want to reduce suffering and crease happiness.
And given that we all have limited resources to do that, even bill guides has limits and masters have much title limits on on what we can do to make the world a bit place. Surely we should be using those resources as effectively as possible to do as much good as we can with the money we can donate all the time, we can volunteer, or whatever IT is. We want to make sure that, that isn't spent on something that does less good than some other alternative voting to us.
And you I think the rationality aspect of effective altruism is one of the reasons uh, why so broadly attractive, but also why it's been particularly attractive among entrepreneurs in in the tech world. I think these are people who sort of interested in the idea of of rationality and quantification and return on investment. Of course, we know that some pretty prominent advocates have been highly irrational.
You know that most greatest example would be A C M, big and free. Or you know, you could even look at something like, was that that the effective ventures foundation paid fifty million pounds for an english abb. Like surely that money could have been used in ways that caused more well being. And my question, free is what what advice do you have for effective altruists to guard against self interested self rationalization?
Yeah I think that is a serious problem and I think that may have been the problem with sam ming and freed um it's not totally clear perhaps IT wasn't exactly so rationalization but IT was certainly maybe a sense that I don't have to follow the ordinary rules other people do because, you know, i'm such a wish, kid i've been possible that there some of that sort of thinking and uh, I certainly think anybody who is very successful needs to god against that belief that somehow they are above the rules.
But I you know I don't see that generally uh as the case in the effective ultras movement in the people who I talk to, I think um most of them are genuine and they're not self deceived um and you know yes, there may be a couple of conspicious h exceptions or mistakes that have been made. So I think you need to take a hard look at at that. But I really think that the exception and I don't think that, that's a reason for rejecting effective altering ism as a positive social force and .
you know an off suit of effective altruism. M is a long term ism, basically the idea that we have as much uh, ethical responsibility to address threats to humanity far off in the future as we do to a threats to human lives in the present. And um i'm missed what do you make of of long termism?
I accept the idea that when suffering occurs is not affected by time. So if I could be certain that something I did now would do more to reduce suffering in one hundred or even theoretically a thousand years then anything I could do to relieve suffering in the present um then sure, I would think that would be the right thing to do. But of course, we don't have that certainty about the future. So um I think that's a big barrier to making A A real priority to think about the future as more important than thinking about the present.
The other question that needs to be raised quite a deep philosophical question about the risk of extinction of our species because that's what a lot of long term is to focus on yeah but they're saying if a species so of survives gets through the century or two, then it's likely that humans will be around not just for thousands but for many miles of years because by then will be out to colonize other planets. And you say, yes, but if we become extinct, none of that will happen. So we must give a very high priority to reducing the risk of extinction of our species. And that raises the question of is, IT is bad that beings do do not come into existence and therefore do not have happy lives as IT, is that an already existing being who could have a happy life is prevented from having a happy life or even has a .
miserable life? And what's the answer?
Well, as I said, that's a really difficult philosophical question. I think it's still an open question really. Personally, I do think that that would be a tragic loss if our species become extinct.
But how do we compare that tragedy with tragedies? That module now to a billion people, several billion people? Uh, and and I I can't really give a good answer to that. So in other words, what i'm saying is that might be reasonable to discount the future of this being suit might not exist at all. I think that's possible. I think it's it's could be reasonable to say no, we should focus on the present where we're going to break confidence and what we're doing, then focus on the long term, really distant future.
I mean, I am just a dingdong, but forbid IT IT sort of seems like there are common sense uh, objections to long termism.
Uh you know it's like, uh, what would be an example be like IT if I see there's like an an immediate fire uh in my yard that I could put out and save some people like shall I obviously do that rather than say, well, I am working on on a uh fire retarded system that can save millions of lives uh, at some undefined point in the future? Um that's always what the long term m stuff sounds like that sounds like like I five philosophers and I don't do. Do you think there's like a common sense problem that runs into IT.
runs into what appears to be a common sense problem? Because our intuitions obviously add to help the people, right? They are now, right? We've evolved to deal with problems that are right there are now.
And our ancestors survived because they dealt with out problems. They didn't survive because they had strong intuition that we also act for the distant future because there was nothing that they could do about the distant future. We now are in a position where we have more influence on whether they will be a human future or not. So i'm inclined not really to trust those common sense intuitions. My answer would still be sure you should put at the fire not because that's just your common sense intuition, but because you can be highly confident that you can do a lot of good there and uh and anyway you know you can put out the fire going back to work on the fire on time .
tomorrow I think uh not trusting your common sense intuition, this sort of Peter singers whole bag.
I think that's right. I think a lot of my work um you know don't trust your common situations to think that you want to help your neighbors in your affluent community rather than distant people elsewhere in the world that you can't relate to that bad of what I talk about. Don't trust your intuition and thinking that uh really is only humans that matter or humans suffering that always is higher priority than any number of non human animal suffering uh yeah I think I think you're right. I'm somewhat skeptical about trusting those moral intuitions .
yeah so you take these these subjects are these moral tuitions about things that that people really hold closely, like what we eat or how we spend our money or even the notion that we are good and you say, like we'll hold on a second, like are you are you really where do you think you're imposed to do that comes from?
Well, at something that came gradually I believe that um I started thinking about particular issues where IT was obvious that you could reduce suffering but people had intuitive reasons for not doing so um and one of those was actually in the area of biomedical ethics because I got involved in in that those questions because I was interested in issues bad, deaf and dying and I for a very long time been a supporter of uh, medical assistance in dying uh and you know when I started talking to people about that, especially doctors, they would say, look, you know it's it's all right for us to allow people who are suffering to die by not treating them but we can't cross that line that actually assist them in dying because um some of them would quote this little thing that said um they shout not kill but need not try officiously to keep alive um and you know they would just stop that out as a kind of thing that yes that's that's obviously true you know I would say. Well, why you know so I mean, I think that example was one or right with critical of intuitions um they were perhaps religiously based intuitions that was one part of its so the fact that I wasn't religious may have let me to chAllenge those intuitions um but then I started think about a home range of other intuitions that are probably not religious but may like the example like I have be based in why is IT that helped their ancestors to survive in the circumstances in which they were trying to survive and reproduce when those circumstances might no longer applied to us?
I was reading the academic journal that you edit, which is called the journal of controversial ideas. The idea, as I understand behind the journal, gives uh uh rigorous uh academic treatment and and platform to ideas that might be seen as beyond the pale for other outlets. And there are you know plenty of what seems to be relevant arguments to do with like public health and learning and academia.
And then there are also you know there are like multiple pieces about a when black face should be allowed. I the specific term is cross racial makeup. But there's another uh, piece in there in one of the issues about arguing for zoo filia probably people more people know as best reality and I thought, well, who who who's clAmbering for a deeper uh uh arguments in supportive of either of these things what is the point other than provocation?
I think both those issues, although they are certainly far less significant than many of the auth issues that articles in the general discuss, and they both have some significance. I mean, the question about a bad black face, which was the world that was used in the in the gentle um is relevant to drawing lines. But what are people going to get criticized for um and the article takes a nuances approach to that IT. IT acknowledges that there would be cases in which you know using blackface would be offensive and uh say inappropriate but IT also refers to other cases in which um it's not objectionable.
And so if people are going to be sort of outed in some way for doing this, and I know what happened to Justin to do, I think that a long time ago, then you do need to say, well, what are the cases in which this is not such a bad thing to do and which of the cases where should be and in the case of a phillip, I mean, yeah tell me that what well this is this is a crime. People go to jail for this um and they may not be causing any harm. Uh, I think that it's reasonable to say, if somebody is going to be sent to prison to ask, have you harmed any sentient being IT? Should this be a crime? Why should this be a crime? Now this might be very small number of cases, but get prosecuted. But I think it's I think that's enough justification for airing issue.
And I I know people have have criticized you for not taking enough into account the aspects of personal experience about what you might be fundamentally ignorant. You know that the example I am thinking of here is the idea that parent should have the right to uh uh terminate babies born with severe disabilities that might cause them to suffer terribly um and the critics say that you know you you just can't wrap your head around the fact that lives very different from your own might be just as valuable or involved just as much happiness and and also that you know all of these ideas might be stigmatizing or or objectifying of non Normal tive bodies and um I don't have a particularly insights of put in the question, but do you think there's something to that criticism that just sort of rationally theorizing from a distance is is missing something sensual?
I think that rationally theorizing for a distance easily can miss something essential suddenly ly, but um I don't think that applies to my views about these cases because I form those years after having discussions, not only with doctors in charge of treating infants born with severe disabilities but also some of the parents of those um of those infants or parents of those children who were no longer infants. Um I do not discuss this with the number of people and both in person and uh and in letters that I had from people who I remember one who said something and I was really bitter, I said, uh, the doctors got to play with their toys, you know mean their surgical equipment and their skills at helping my son to survive and then they handed the baby over IT to us and uh, the result has been that my child suffered for nine years so I do think I I find strange that people in the disability, or some people, I should say, in the disability movement, who are mentally as gift as anyone. What happened to be in wheelchairs think that the fact that they are in a wheelchair gives them greater insight into what it's like to be a child with a severe disabilities that are not just physical but also mental, or what is like to be the parents of children like them.
But I don't know that they're saying necessarily that he gives them particular insights into that specific example. I think they're saying they might have specific insights, uh, into what it's like to live a different kind of life that you, for example, don't have can have access to yeah.
that's true, but that's generally not the kind of case that i'm talking about um in in suggesting the parents to have the option of ethier cases of very severe disabilities.
But do you think there's any way in which airing some of the more controversial philosophical views you have? Um has maybe been detrimental to your larger project. You know this is the idea that people might be turned off by what Peter singer has to say about uh, people with disabilities and therefore i'm they're not going to pay attention to what he has to say about animal rights. Do do you think there's any trade off there between saying what do you think is true and saying what do you think will have the most impact?
I think there is a possible trade off. yes. But it's particularly difficult as philosophy because I will always get asked these kinds of questions. And if I said to private or to no try to be fuzzy about the answer, I think my reputation standing as a philosopher false because of that, I think it's important to try to follow the argument wherever he goes. And yes, there might be some costs to IT, but it's how to baLance these costs against the, you know, you regarded as a rigorous, ous, clear thinking philosophy. And so people pay more attention to what you say .
for that reason I read your memo and I thought I was interesting at three of your four um grandparents I think they were living in vienna died at the hands of of the notes in the and uh you're write about your grandfather is named David open hym that's David .
open heim who was .
a collaborator of raids and you have a line in there where you say where you write that he spent his life trying to understand his fellow human beings yet seems to have failed to take the naughty threat to the jews seriously enough maybe he had too much confidence in human reason and humanistic values and I just wonder what the connection is between your grandfather's work and your work. Um do you see them as a sort of interacting with each other or or paralleling each other .
in any way possibly parallelling but not really interacting because I didn't read my grandfather's work until the light ninety ninety and I already written animal liberation, already written practical ethics um i'd already written rethinking life and death are so those books expressed my ideas relating to animals, relating to level poverty, relating to abortion and assisted dying.
But what you could point to, I suppose, would be that some of my grandfather's general attitudes were passed down to me by my mother. SHE may have got them from her father. And that would include the fact that are not religious. So some of that, I think they get past the enemy, but not in terms of my specific views about suffering. Now when I influence by the knowledge of the suffering that the ana is inflicted on my grandparents and other you members of my extended family and did on my parents by driving them out of their home in the order, of course, um yes perhaps um and perhaps a sort of the brutality of what announced did um the hour that has had an effect on me and um might that might have LED to why trying to reduce suffering, trying to prevent unnecessary suffering, has been a very leading impulsive in in the work that .
i've written. You you say you might have letter. Are you just being nice, my line of question? Or do you think I did little to .
that now I honestly don't know. I mean, I think I don't have this sort of self awareness to say to what extent was was this knowledge of the holocaust background of my family decisive in leading me in that direction what I have not have had that if I had not had that background um I think you know that it's really impossible to answer that question.
And this is a self awareness question. When your mom was dying from a alzheimer's .
with some form, I don't know. So SHE.
you know, he spent a fair amount of money on providing her care towards the end of of her life, which is obviously completely understandable um but was that the the most utilitarian use of your money at that time? And if not, did that teach you something about the limits of rational thinking when IT comes to helping people?
I think IT was probably not the most you filler arian thing to do with those resources. But there would have been personal costs to me, I think thinking that I hadn't looked after my mother and also um I I I had a sister if I had said, uh, you can pay for my mother's care but i'm not going to obvious see that would have partly disrupted the really close and warm relationship that I had with my sister all the way through her life and that would have been a really heavy cost to me.
Now you could argue that, okay, but the money could have helped many people important, wise and and therefore I was being, in a sense, self interested and not wanting to cause that family rapture. But now I think I was yeah so I guess I guess to your second question is, is so these limits? Yes, I think there are limits and certainly i'm a way that there are limits to things that I am prepared to do in order to produce the greatest good ride. So to give a philosophical sort of mock example, if um i'm at the beach and the current has swept the number of people out to sea and i'm a strong swimmer and I can jump in and save my daughter who has been swept out to my left or I can jump in and save two people, strangers who are being swept out to the right um am I going to save more people and that my daughter ran no um so yes and that since there were limits, but but these limits still allow us obviously to do much, much more good than most people are because generally we don't have to make those tragic choices between saving our children and saving a large and number of strangers so um yes, I am working mostly in that area between those extremely demanding things that ethics may require and where most people are, where they don't even make very small sacrifices, arguably not even sacrifices at all, given the fulfilment and meaning that people get out of helping others.
Are those the limits you just described? Are they a version of common sense?
Well, I think they're a version of what we can reasonable expect people to do. And maybe it's not good to ask people to do more than we can reason, expect them to do.
So to put IT in ethical terms, I think there's a distinction between what would be the right thing to do to the extent that we act in a perfectly ethical way, and what is the right thing to ask other, other student and pumps even to do yourself, to think about, you know what, to feel guilty if you don't do yourself. And that might take more account of the fact that we are not perfectly rational beings, not perfectly ethical beings, that we add, to some extent, self interested. And it's not going to be very productive or effective to ask people to do more than those limits.
After the break, I asked Peter singer about the places where his heart is in conflict with his head.
let's say, punishing people who are really evil and done horrible, cruel things using the death penalty. I can feel the pull of that. I feel the retributive sense of that.
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Okay, i'm opening the new york times up.
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When I open the youtube, I get a short list of articles that are more related to me. Ten stories pick for you everyday, 都 add sections that interest you。 That's really handy.
There are some individuals in here. I can add paul crook or you. I like the .
lifestyle tab. The .
photos are phenomenal.
kind of like over to .
the games page.
play word or connections, and then swipe over to read today's headlines.
There's an article next to recipe, next to games. And this is easy to get everything in one place before.
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late to work. The new york times at all of the times.
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download now what times dot com slash APP.
Hi, professor, say and Harry.
you.
I pulled up A I Peter singer and was messing around with IT, you know, IT puns on questions that I bet you're willing to have more definitive answers to. You know, just just for example, I asked IT OK to kill one in some person in order to save to and IT doesn't give an answer IT just suggests I consider different perspectives you the perspectives of virtue ethics or uh the perspective of utility arising what's the point of A I Peter singer if it's unable or unwilling to answer specific ethical questions related to your work with definitive answers like real life Peter singer can well.
thank you for trying at that. Uh, you know we are still at at the trial stage. We've been getting some feed back and i'm actually aware what do you just described and I have in contact with the person who does the actual tinkering with the algorithms.
And I think that's a good point. Obviously, we don't want be a singer. I I like very definitive statements on areas on questions where I would not be prepared to give a definitive also. But um certainly, I think I should give stride around us than IT does .
IT may .
be wonder of legal considerations are baked into .
A I Peter singer not as far as i'm aware. You think somebody .
might suit if not suit, maybe there could be uh liability issues or are uncomfortable issues might arise if someone were to ask A I Peter singer for ethical advice, you know, matters are a life or death and then .
went ahead and I see so we can accomplish, uh, to the crime. H, I don't know. I mean, interesting. And after that would depend on on the free speech, uh, the constitutional situation, freedom ech in the country in which the person with the issue, which I thought .
about .
IT but you need to .
get your legal team on IT lego team.
And one of the things that I find myself struggling with a about your physical ical ideas is, you know, relates to what direct profit called the repugnant conclusion that if you follow some of your idea through the theological conclusions, you can wind up in some sort of morally disturbing places you know example would be that you and tell me if I am wrong but according to are thinking a large number of people with lives barely worth living could be considered Better than a smaller number of people living great lives um and .
your responsive that is what one my my my my response on that particular uh case is that i'm actually that's not now i'm being like you said be the singer A I is that's not my clear of you um i'm still somewhat i've reminded on that issue um but maybe you're ask me brought a question about where the use of this type and i'm when I might help you that leave me i'm comfortable when someone or other and yes. I think there are a such views that I hold you leave me .
why uncomfortable 再 快 a .
views by distribution of warming。 Um suppose suppose that you have the choice of helping people who are very badly off um by a smaller man or helping people reasoned well off already by much larger much you got about I mean I can imagine this is where you spend a vast amount of with those making people small other people who are really badly up slightly just barely perceptibly Better off or you might like say ninety five percent of the population very significantly Better. All I think the right thing to do is to make ninety five percent of the population to be, I be Better off, but I mine comfortable a bad assault that while he released, people are worse stuff and you could help them, but you don't.
But I tried to understand if there is ever a scenario in which an action is warranted simply because we believe it's the right thing, regardless of what the imperial baLances in in lives lost or not might be. Aman, do you ever can you is an example of of an ethical place where your heart wins .
out over your head.
but not not in like thought experiment way, like a practical .
real .
life way.
Um let's let's say um punishing really people who are really evil and done horrible pro things um using the death penalty. I can feel a pull of that. I feel the retributive sense of that um but i'm .
not a retributive ous.
I think most people are I suspect most people see themselves as um trying to make the world a Better place or or um on baLance a net good for the for the world um but how do someone know if they're doing enough to make the world a Better place?
A very few people are doing enough to make the world Better place. That probably not I don't think that i'm doing enough to make the world about us um but if you wanted know how would how would you know you would look around for otherwise of doing more to make the world a Better place and you would say there at me I that's the extreme position uh as I say, I can't find to live up to that myself but that would be the ultimate limit where you could be confident with you know you done everything you could like world about five.
So where where's the line short of that?
The line short of that I think is to say i'm doing uh i'm doing a lot um i'm thinking bad how to make the world a Better place? I do a lot more than the current social standard is i'm trying to raise that standard and sitting an example of doing more than the current standards. Uh, I think if you can say all of those things, you can be content with what you're doing.
Professor singer, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate you.
Thanks very much. The conversations um hey.
way one last bonus ethical question. I mean the .
closet again, a boris neighbors.
your construction. Do you give me permission to have sweet revenge on that? I no no revenge .
but um maybe maybe more double blazing, but will help to keep the same that .
right that I can do, that I can do.
Thank you very much. right? thanks.
That's Peter singer. His latest book, consider the turkey is available now. This conversation was produced by White ARM.
He was edited by annabel bacon, mixing by a theme supo original al music by dan power, dian wong and maria lizza o photography by adam ferguson. Our senior booker is pro Matthew and sah Kelly is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Allen. Special thanks to lawry wash, pron beri, Jeffery maranda, mati macello, j. Silverstone, polis human and sam onic.
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