PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS

The Ethics of Life

Peter Singer

Is human life really always sacred? Is Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection right – or left? Is charity a virtue or an obligation?

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Europe’s Ethical Eggs

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2012-01-12

On the first day of 2012, keeping hens in tiny battery cages became illegal throughout the EU – a major advance in animal welfare, and therefore, for Europe, a step towards becoming a more civilized and humane society. But why is Europe so far ahead of other countries in its concern for animals?... read

Comments: 2 Recommended: 2 Read: 11855

A Death of One’s Own

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-12-16

Last month, an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada released a report on decision-making at the end of life. The report provides a strong argument for allowing doctors to help their patients to die, provided that the patients are competent and freely request such assistance.... read

Comments: 6 Recommended: 0 Read: 18059

Should We Ban Cigarettes?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-11-11

Cigarettes are among the deadliest artifacts in human history, and kill more people every year than AIDS, Malaria, and traffic accidents combined. If we want to save lives and improve health, nothing else that is readily achievable would be as effective as banning their sale.... read

Comments: 33 Recommended: 2 Read: 30030

The Death Penalty – Again

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-10-12

The US state of Georgia recently executed a man who might well have been innocent. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the death penalty in the US is a product of a particular culture – perhaps not even American culture as a whole, but rather the culture of the American South, where 80% of all US executions take place.... read

Comments: 3 Recommended: 1 Read: 26708

Can We Increase Gross National Happiness?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-09-13

The small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is known internationally for its policy of promoting “gross national happiness” instead of economic growth. But can happiness really be measured, and can people really agree on what increases it?... read

Comments: 5 Recommended: 2 Read: 24344

A Planet for All Apes

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-08-09

Two new movies released this month – one a science-fiction blockbuster, the other a revealing documentary – raise the issue of our relations with our closest non-human relatives, the great apes. Both dramatize insights and lessons that should not be ignored.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 2 Read: 18125

Moral Progress and Animal Welfare

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-07-13

Mahatma Gandhi acutely observed that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Indeed, charting the progress of animal-welfare legislation around the world is an indication of moral progress more generally.... read

Comments: 2 Recommended: 1 Read: 21272

Does Anything Matter?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-06-13

Can moral judgments be true or false, or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives? We might have just found out the answer.... read

Comments: 7 Recommended: 1 Read: 46105

When Prevention is Better than Relief

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-05-12

People donate hundreds of millions of dollars to help people after a disaster – even after a disaster in a wealthy country like Japan – but are unwilling to invest the same amount to save lives before a predictable disaster strikes. But we should be guided by the best estimates of the chance that prevention will save lives, and by the cost of saving those lives.... read

Comments: 2 Recommended: 0 Read: 17606

A Universal Library	Peter Singer
Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. Today, we can make not just books, but paintings, films, and music, available to anyone, anywhere, anytime – but we don't, owing to a copyright system skewed toward corporate interests.... read

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If Fish Could Scream

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2010-09-13

Evidence is now accumulating that commercial fishing inflicts an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering. We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely – or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.... read

Comments: 4 Recommended: 2 Read: 38694

Haiti and the Limits of Generosity

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2010-02-15

All over the world, people have responded generously to the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, killing up to 200,000 people. But, terrible as that death toll is, it is fewer than the number of children who, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, die every 10 days from avoidable, poverty-related causes.... read

Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 27862

The Value of a Pale Blue Dot

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2009-05-14

This year, the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of a telescope, has been declared the International Year of Astronomy. The goal of the commemoration – to help the world’s citizens “rediscover their place in the universe” – now has the incidental benefit of distracting us from nasty things nearer to home, like swine flu and the global financial crisis.... read

Comments: 5 Recommended: 0 Read: 27948

The Revolutionary Ethics of Embryo Research

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2005-12-20

What appeared to be the most momentous scientific advance of 2005 is currently under siege. In June, the prestigious journal Science published an article by the South Korean scientist Woo-Suk Hwang and an international team of co-authors describing how they had developed what were, in effect, “made to order” lines of human stem cells cloned from an adult. Although the scientific validity of their research is now the subject of several separate investigations, it is no less important to examine its ethical implications.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 47560

Who Pays for Bird Flu?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2005-11-10

Fifty years ago, American chicken farmers found that by keeping their birds in sheds they could produce chickens for the table more cheaply and with less work than by traditional farmyard methods. The new method spread: chickens disappeared from fields into long, windowless sheds. Factory farming was born. ... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 47192

Does Anything Matter?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2011-06-13

Comments: 7 Recommended: 1 Read: 46105

Fear and Freedom on the Internet

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2006-01-18

Earlier this month it was reported that, at the request of China’s rulers, Microsoft shut down the Web site of a Chinese blogger that was maintained on a Microsoft service called MSN Spaces. The blogger, Zhao Jing, had been reporting on a strike by journalists at The Beijing News that followed the dismissal of the newspaper’s independent-minded editor.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 45955

Free Speech, Muhammad, and the Holocaust

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2006-03-01

The timing of Austria’s conviction and imprisonment of David Irving for denying the Holocaust could not have been worse. Coming after the deaths of at least 30 people in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, and other Islamic countries during protests against cartoons ridiculing Muhammad, the Irving verdict makes a mockery of the claim that in democratic countries, freedom of expression is a basic right.... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 45576

Devaluing Life

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2006-02-13

In August 2001, President George W. Bush told Americans that he worried about “a culture that devalues life,” and that he believed that, as President of the United States, he has “an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.”... read

Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 43960

The Great Ape Debate	Peter Singer
In his History of European Morals, published in 1869, the Irish historian and philosopher W.E.H. Lecky wrote:... read
Happiness, Money, and Giving It Away	Peter Singer
Would you be happier if you were richer? Many people believe that they would be. But research conducted over many years suggests that greater wealth implies greater happiness only at quite low levels of income. People in the United States, for example, are, on average, richer than New Zealanders, but they are not happier. More dramatically, people in Austria, France, Japan, and Germany appear to be no happier than people in much poorer countries, like Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines. ... read

AUTHOR INFO

Peter Singer

Peter Singer is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, and The Life You Can Save.

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