Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, Laureate Professor in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, and founder of the non-profit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include
Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.
PRINCETON – At Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson, who was president of the university before he became president of the United States, is never far away. His larger-than-life image looks out across the dining hall at Wilson College, where I am a fellow, and Prospect House, the dining facility for academic staff, was his family home when he led the university.
So when the furor erupted over WikiLeaks’ recent release of a quarter-million diplomatic cables, I was reminded of Wilson’s 1918 speech in which he put forward “Fourteen Points” for a just peace to end World War I. The first of those fourteen points reads: “Open covenants of peace must be arrived at, after which there will surely be no private international action or rulings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.”
Is this an ideal that we should take seriously? Is Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a true follower of Woodrow Wilson?
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