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A question about Peter Singer

Brian Leiter

Within the last few years, there was an interview with Peter Singer in which he remarked that what made Animal Liberation so influential was the vivid and disturbing description of factory farming practices in Chapter 3, rather than the utilitarian argument per se.  But now I can not remember where this interview appeared.  Does this ring a bell for anyone?  Comments open and references gratefully received!

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10 responses to “A question about Peter Singer”

  1. Dominique Brunzlik

    Was the interview in English or German? This is the first, but will send another link…

    BL COMMENT: The version I read was in English, and it was in print, though it may possibly have been a transcription, and I can't recall whether it was a translation.

    Reply
  2. Dominique Brunzlik

    This is another interview with him in German language… http://www.faz.net/artikel/C30351/im-gespraech-peter-singer-sind-sie-der-gefaehrlichste-mann-der-welt-30470706.html

    BL COMMENT: Thanks, I hadn't seen this one.

    Reply
  3. Dominique Brunzlik

    Hi Brian – this is an interview from 2007 between Peter Singer and ABC (Talking Heads)-

    or http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200611–.htm Hope this is a help?

    Reply
  4. Daniel

    I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but there was an extended exchange between Peter Singer and Richard Posner in Slate. At one point, Posner suggested that it was factual information, rather than utilitarian arguments, that made Singer's book so influential: "To me the most important and worthwhile part of your influential book Animal Liberation is the information it conveys (partly by photographs) about the actual suffering of animals."

    Singer replied as follows:

    "Almost every time I go to a conference discussing issues about animals, someone tells me that Animal Liberation changed their life and led them to become a vegetarian, or an animal activist, or both. You may say that this is because the book gave them some new factual information about how we treat animals. I don't deny that this information contributes importantly to the book's impact, but my impression is that for many people the ethical argument was also crucial."

    The relevant parts are in entries 4 and 5 of the debate that starts here: http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110109/

    Reply
  5. Berossus

    There's also a very similar anecdote concerning Upton Sinclair ("I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle)

    Reply
  6. Michael Turp

    Perhaps it's that (i) the chapter on factory farming exercises people's empathy and (ii) the facts concerning factory farming cannot be rationalised away.

    Whenever I've taught Singer's arguments for the moral considerability of distant strangers, and the consequent moral obligation to give to charity, my students have been convinced. I hope I've been balanced, but there's a simple logic to Singer's arguments which is hard to escape and which doesn't really depend on utilitarian premises. As my students seemed persuaded, I got into the habit of asking whether anyone was actually going to start giving to charity or to start giving more. The answer, invariably, was no – or sheepish avoidance. Clearly, students would mentally file the arguments (for later exam purposes) and then go and look for rationalisations of their current behaviour. Perhaps, in some cases, they would later reflect and act. I'm not sure. But they largely seemed to be case studies in akrasia.

    Similarly, it is striking how many people acknowledge that they should really be vegetarian or vegan, but … and then offer the weakest of rationalisations. A terrific example of this is Richard Dawkins rather feeble defence of meat consumption in this interesting interview with Peter Singer:

    Basically, he says 'I know it's wrong to eat meat, but everyone else does it and vegetarian food doesn't taste as good. And, yes, I would doubtless of been a slave owner once upon a time'.

    But compare this to cases where empathy is forced into play, such as the rush of support for victims of disasters (witness the money recently donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee in response to the East African Crisis).

    So, the emotions play a role in moral cognition and moral arguments are easier to ignore than facts with obvious moral consequences. This seems pretty obvious.

    One last point: the factory farming chapter tends to focus attention more clearly on the welfare aspect of animal ethics, which is much simpler. Nobody (I hope) seriously suggests that it is anything other than a bad thing to cause animals unnecessary suffering. This avoids trickier questions concerning whether it might be morally permissible to kill animals for food, or harm them for human advantage.

    Reply
  7. Ramón Ponce-Testino

    I'm not acquainted with the interview in question, but I do recall that in his 1995 book (Problematics with legal & moral theory?) Richard Posner argues that Singer's success with Animal Liberation has more to do with moral enterpreneurship rather than to a sound moral argument. If I'm not wrong, Posner is not against utilitarian justifications; instead, he tries to make the case for the importance of politics in undertaking moral goals.

    Reply
  8. Trevor Pearce

    The final passage of Cora Diamond's essay "Eating Meat and Eating People" is related to this point. Here's a bit of it: "It is their [Singer et al.'s] arguments I have been attacking, though, and not their perceptions, not the sense that comes through their writings of the awful and unshakeable callousness and unrelentingness with which we most often confront the non-human world" (Philosophy, vol. 53, 1978, p. 479).

    Reply
  9. Ray

    Could this be it?

    http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/20061006.htm

    Reply
  10. Brian Leiter

    Many thanks to everyone for these interesting links. I think Daniel found the interview I was (mis)remembering, though it contains a relative of the point I was interested in.

    Reply

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