Within Reason - #31 Peter Singer - The Limits of Utilitarianism

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher often credited as the father of the modern animal rights movement. Purchase Animal Liberation Now: https://amzn.to/450BB3e Peter Singer's upcoming speaking tour: New York: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-ny Washington DC: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-washington-dc LA: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/09005E68DC24308C San Fransisco: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-san-francisco London: https://hackneyempire.co.uk/whats-on/peter-singer-animal-liberation-now/ Virtual Event: https://events.humanitix.com/peter-singer-live-stream Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Within Reason. My name is Alex O'Connor, and my guest today is Peter Singer. Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and is famed for being perhaps the most important contributor to the field of practical ethics in living memory, with works such as famine, affluence, and morality in 1972, animal liberation in 1975, practical ethics in 1979, and the life you can save in 2009. Peter Singer is often credited with putting animal ethics on the map with animal liberation. And that's a book that he's reissuing as animal liberation now. And that's a book you can pre-order by using the links available in the description. With that said, I hope you enjoy the following conversation with Peter Singer.

Peter Singer. Peter Singer, thank you so much for being. here. I'm very happy to be with you, Alex. I'm looking forward to talking today. You're reissuing Animal Liberation, which many people see as one of the most, if not the most important work in the history, or at least the recent history of animal ethics. First published in 1979, and then I think reissued in 95. I've had a chance to read through the revised edition, Animal Liberation Now. And I noticed that a few things have changed in the introductory chapter, putting forward the ethical case for our moral consideration of animals, I noticed that some arguments have been adapted, some redacted entirely, it seemed. I wondered, what is it that

made you feel now was the time to update this volume? Well, in fact, it hadn't been updated since 1990. I think the 95 reissue was something that came out with a different, a new preface maybe. But the text itself was written before 1990. So if you looked at, for example, the experiments I describe in the chapter on experiments on animals, they would all be from 1990 or earlier. And clearly, you know, 33 years after that, that's becoming a bit irrelevant if somebody wants to say, well, are we still doing bad things to animals in labs? And the same is true perhaps in some more subtle changes with factory farming that things have moved on in some cases slightly for the better in some cases definitely for the worse and so it's no good you know

talking to people about how animals were treated in factory farms in 1989 or earlier that's not really relevant so i wanted to bring that up to date plus there has been quite a lot of philosophical discussion about a range of issues. I wanted to say something about those discussions, new topics, new fields that have been raised, like the suffering of wild animals. I wanted to comment on. And finally, a lot of people ask me, well, has there been progress since the original edition of animal liberation came out? What do you feel? Do you think you've achieved something? And that's a bit of a complex story, but I did want to say something about what has happened and what has not happened during that period.

So what has changed since 1975 in terms of our treatment of animals in experimentation and animal farming that's sort of morally significant for you? Well, let's take the use of animals raised for food, so farmed animals, because that's by far the biggest area in terms of the numbers of animals we raise for food. It's absolutely vast, including fish factory farms, so-called aquaculture. We're probably around 200 billion animals being produced each year, raised and killed each year. And that dwarfs the number of animals using experiments, which is probably around 200 million. So it's a thousand times more we're talking about in animals raised for food.

And that's one of the biggest things that has happened, that that has expanded. And it's expanded to a considerable degree because a number of other countries where there was no factory farming and where there was relatively little consumption of animal products, largely because of poverty, have now greatly expanded their animal production. And so China is the obvious example. There are tens of billions of animals in factory farms in China who were not there when I first wrote the book. and the conditions, you know, are pretty terrible. So that's the bad news. The good news, I think, is that some progress has been made in some countries, and I would say especially in the countries that make up the European Union.

And I would include the United Kingdom, although it's no longer part of the European Union, but generally they have maintained the laws about raising animals that existed when they were in the European Union. So they're positives, some of the things that I described in the first edition, like the standard very small battery cages, the wire cages for hens or the individual stalls for veal calves or for sows that prevented them really, you know, walking more than a single step and stopped them turning around. The stalls are too narrow for them to turn around. They're no longer legal in the European Union. But in the United States, for example, most of those things still are legal.

or generally with the exception of a few states like California that have also followed the practices of the European Union to some extent and prohibited those practices. But most of the United States, and especially the states where most of the farmed animals are raised, don't have those laws protecting animals. So, of course, it's good news to hear of the improvement of conditions for animals on factory farms.

But there are, I think there are sort of two, directions in which your views on animals could potentially be criticized. One is from the side that says that animals don't have moral worth, we should be able to eat them and treat them as we please. But there's also a side that is a more rights-based absolutist liberation approach that will say that celebrating things like larger cages, and really what we're after is no cages at all, is potentially mistaken. I'm sure you've come across this criticism, but I wonder what you think of that, what you think the effect might be of saying, look, here are some great improvements in animal farming. Now, you know, pigs can't be kept in cages so small, they can't be

turned around, but they can still be kept in cages. And by saying that, you know, we've made such great tremendous strides, at least in the EU, in terms of animal welfare, do you think this might have an effect on convincing people to empty the cages altogether because they're sort of lulled into a sense that actually animal, our treatment of animals, isn't that. bad anymore? Well, firstly, let me say that, you know, you said tremendous improvements. I didn't say tremendous improvements. I said there have been some improvements. So I'm not celebrating these as, you know, huge successes. I do think they're improvements. I think they give many millions of animals, including the laying hands. We're talking about hundreds of millions of animals,

somewhat better lives but it's quite true that they can still be kept in cages they're not always kept in cages one of the advantages of these improvements is that it raises the cost of producing the animals or their eggs whatever it might be

not very greatly but to a small amount and therefore some farmers may say well given that we can only keep them in larger cages we might not keep them in cages at all And the other thing about the cost being raised is that some people may therefore decide to buy fewer of those products or they may decide not to buy them at all and to move to a plant-based diet. And when we get plant-based foods competing with animal products, then price is going to be relevant. At the moment, those plant-based foods are not really competing economically with the cheaper end of animal products. But if we can improve welfare conditions, then they'll have a better chance of competing

because the price of those animal products will go up. So that's the first part of my answer, that I do think that this helps economically to replace these animal products. The second part of my answer is that I think it actually disregards the interests of animals to say we should not work for improvements in their welfare because what we want is the abolition of animal exploitation full stop. Now, of course, I want the abolition of animal exploitation full stop, too. I would love to see that happen.

But I don't see a way of making that happen within the foreseeable future. I'm certainly prepared to argue, and I do argue in the book for eating a plant-based diet. I think that's definitely the most ethical diet. And I'm pleased I talk about the fact that there's been a rise in vegan or plant-based eating over the last couple of decades. It's very good. But, you know, how many vegans do we have, say, in the United Kingdom? The figure that I've seen is 1.2 million. So that's terrific, you know.

It's a huge improvement over when the book was first appeared when probably it was in the hundreds or definitely in the thousands, not tens of thousands. So that's great. but it's still a small percentage of the population and it still means that most Britons are eating animal products and they are eating factory-farmed animal products. And I don't see that just calling for the abolition of animal exploitation is going to lead to that glorious day when there are no animal products produced or consumed

within the next 20 or 30 years. So you're going to have generation after generation of these animals living in horrible conditions and those people who say we shouldn't work for improvements are essentially condemning them through those horrible conditions for many years to come without any real basis I think or any real evidence for saying

that we will improve the prospects of abolishing animal exploitation if we set ourselves against working for any kinds of improvements I don't see that that's going to work at all. And in fact, if you look at the countries that have the largest numbers of vegans, they're also countries that have better animal welfare policies. Again, like the United Kingdom, like some of the countries of the European Union, they have significantly higher proportions of people who are not buy animal products at all

than many of the other countries that have terrible conditions and no animal welfare laws. I think for many people it might be something of a point of principle that advocating for improvements in the conditions of animal welfare seems to be an implicit condoning of the fact that they're being exploited at all. Now, I would imagine you wouldn't see it that way, but for example, you can imagine a time in which human beings were being sold as property and exploited and kept in horrible conditions. being an advocate for better conditions on the slave ships, it's an example that we commonly hear, do you think that the Peter Singer of the sort of 18th century might have been as open to that kind of approach to solving the problem of slavery? If you say, well, we're not going to get rid of this problem for another sort of 100 years or so. And in the meantime, we may as well advocate for better conditions. Don't you think there's sort of something?

a bit undignified about advocating for better conditions of exploited people when the only conditions we should be in favor of them experiencing is no exploitation at all? I think it really depends on the prospects of getting to no exploitation at all within a foreseeable time frame. And I think that slavery was human slavery was very different from animal exploitation or animal slavery, which is also what it is, because it was something of a new thing. If we're talking about the slave trade, that is the trade in African slaves

across to the United States and the Caribbean and some British possessions before this British abolished the slave trade. Now we're talking about something which hadn't been going for very long, which was a sort of innovation, which was not allowed in the United Kingdom, for example. I mean, slavery itself was said to be illegal. And so it was, and it was not true in the Northern United States either. So it was, it was not a universal practice by any means, although certainly, you know, slavery has existed in various cultures, unfortunately, for

various times. But it was by no means a universally accepted practice or even a practice accepted by a large majority of people in, you know, generally the same culture, people who spoke the same language and exchanged ideas with each other. Unfortunately, the exploitation of animals is still largely accepted by the great majority of people pretty much everywhere in the world, I guess, you know, there are some cultures, maybe Hindus who don't accept it or Jains. but it is very largely accepted and that's why I think it's much harder to get rid of actually

than the human slave trade was. So that's one difference that I would see. If people say nevertheless on principle, we must not say that it's justified to exploit animals if they have better conditions. Then we do have a deeper philosophical disagreement because I am a consequentialist, that is, I judge what's right or wrong by its consequences, and particularly, more specifically, I'm a utilitarian, which means I'm concerned about the well-being of

sentient beings, about reducing their suffering and increasing their happiness. And so I'm not going to take a stand on principle unless I believe that taking a stand on principle or something that looks like principle is actually going to have better consequences for all of those affected by it. And as I've already explained, I don't believe that saying we're not going to work for improved animal welfare in factory farms is going to have better consequences. On the contrary, I think it's going to have clearly worse consequences. And that's why I wouldn't want to take a stand just on principle, irrespective of the consequences. I often hear you describe as the father of the modern animal rights movement.

Do you think that's something of a misnomer if being a utilitarian, you're sort of looking at consequences and welfare of animals rather than something like a deontological right? I think it's something of a misnomer if I'm speaking to philosophers or people who are well educated in philosophy. And I know that your podcast does deal with philosophical questions quite a lot, and I expect that your listeners therefore, particularly the regular ones,

whether they've taken courses in philosophy or not, they've got through listening to your podcast some familiarity with these issues. So for them, I think, to describe me as the father of the animal rights movement, they would say, how can a utilitarian be an animal rights advocate? But for the general public,

who simply describe the modern movement to improve, the status of animals in a quite radical way and going as far as saying we shouldn't be eating them, we shouldn't be doing many of the things that we do to them. You know, many people just use the term the animal rights movement for that. And they don't specifically mean that this is a movement that is founded on the view that there are such things as intrinsic rights, either for humans or animals. They just mean, oh, well, these are the people who are asking for a radical change in the moral status of animals and I go along with that of course that is what I'm asking

for so in that popular sense I don't mind being described as the father well we've used the word exploitation a number of times now and I think a moment ago you you said that you were looking forward to the end or you desired the end of animal exploitation is that also correct terminology I'm just trying to understand your position here is it animal exploitation that you're about or is it just animal suffering because of course at least in theory we can exploit animals without causing them any suffering well that depends on how you use the term exploitation I suppose right I think the term exploitation generally means you're using animals or humans or in some cases non-sendient resources like you know we're going to

exploit the minerals that exist here I think it it it tends to mean we're using without any consideration or any serious consideration of the interests of those who we are exploiting. And clearly, if they're not sentient beings, then they don't need any consideration. They're not affected by it. But there are other uses, I admit, in which you could say, well, you know, you're exploiting someone even though they benefit by it. That could be kind of a position, I suppose.

and you might be saying, well, you're exploiting workers even though they benefit because you're giving them employment, but you're taking nearly all of the profit and giving them just enough to get them to work for you. Yes, that could be exploitation. And I might think that that is wrong because that is not maximizing the welfare of all concern because the welfare of the workers is not probably being taken into account. So, you know, I think whether whether you regard a utilitarian position as one that can use the term exploitation or not is going to depend entirely in which of these ways you're going to use that term. And I think people, again, they understand it in a popular sense saying you're making use of beings without taking their interest into account. And if that's the usage, then I certainly wouldn't say we should stop the exploitation of animals. If you have some more sophisticated meaning of the term, then tell me what that is, and I'll tell you whether I think that that is or is not acceptable.

Well, I've sometimes heard exploitation defined as using something as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. So, for example, in animal farming, we might talk of egg production or milk production, which, of course, in practice is a pretty disgusting industry. But in theory, you know, the question is often asked of vegans, well, would you have a backyard chicken farm egg? Or would you have milk if it came from a cow that was treated nicely? And sometimes the response comes that even if it is actually the case that these animals aren't suffering in the production of these products, which oftentimes they are. I mean, chickens laying eggs, if they've been selectively bred to lay more than natural, for example, it can still be painful. but presuming that it wasn't, a lot of people say, but this is still exploitation, you know,

something like, look, it's not your product, it's not your egg, it's not your milk, and even though there's no discernible suffering that you could measure in the animal's brain, a lot of vegans say that, again, on principle, they think it would still be wrong to take those products because it's a form of exploitation, that is, seeing these animals as means to ends rather than ends in themselves, seeing them as the producers of food, seeing them as food themselves, which, of course, those perceptions are not, at least directly going to harm the animal, but it's still seen as a problem. Yes, I don't see it as a problem if it's not harming the animal or others.

And in fact, the sort of Kantian idea that it's always wrong to use somebody as a means rather than as an end, I don't think is defensible even when you apply it to humans. Derek Parford has an example where you're in a building, which is, slowly crumbling or collapsing for some reason and your child is with you and there's a large concrete block that is slowly coming on top of your child and will crush your child to death and the only way you can stop this is by moving the leg of an unconscious person who's been injured rendered unconscious in this accident that's causing the building to crumble and if you move their leg to sort of hold up the concrete block, they will have a broken toe, but your child will be

saved. Now, you're using them as a means. They haven't given consent. They're going to be injured slightly, but your child's life is going to be saved. I think that's the right thing to do. I think it would actually be wrong to say, no, I can't touch the stranger. I can't do something that will harm the stranger in any way without the stranger's consent. Therefore, I must allow my child to be crushed to death. That seems grotesque to me. So it's not an absolute rule. I don't think. I think anybody who thinks carefully about it will say it's not an absolute rule that you can never use another human being as a means to an end without their consent. And I don't think it's an absolute rule for non-human animals as well. And perhaps that could still be considered exploitation

under some definitions, but I guess there you would just be saying that exploitation isn't always wrong. I know that sometimes ago in an Instagram post I remember reading that you had I think this was a quote from from your book why vegan or the introduction to it that you described yourself as a flexible vegan could you tell us a bit about what that means yes sure it means that when I have the opportunity to eat vegan that is what I will do but you know there may be occasions I don't think I don't think it's vital to be hardline in every circumstances.

And sometimes, for example, if you don't eat something that is prepared, maybe, it will be wasted and there will be no other consequences. So, for example, you get on a plane and they've mixed up your order for a vegan meal, it happens, and they put something else in front of you. Now, if it was meat, I wouldn't want to eat it anyway, but it might be something that's not vegan but is, you know, got some dairy or something like that in it. And it's clear, you know, they've served it to you. They're just going to throw it away if you don't eat it. I don't really see a problem about eating that. So that's one way in which I'm flexible. I'm also, I guess,

strictly speaking, not vegan because what I'm concerned about as far as animals are an issue is, again, as we've been talking about, their capacity to suffer. And I'm not convinced that everything that is described by zoologists as an animal is capable of suffering. I would say an example might be an oyster. I discussed this in animal liberation now. I sort of revisit the discussion I had in the original edition of animal liberation. And I continue to think, and there's support for this, that it's very unlikely that oysters are capable of suffering.

also oysters actually oyster farming serves a positive environmental purpose because oysters clean the water so oyster farming in waters that are otherwise might become polluted in some ways will be performing a service so I don't see a problem about eating oysters if you want to eat oysters you know it's not something that I eat very often but I wouldn't really object to that and I wouldn't say no I'm a vegan I can't eat an oyster because it's an animal even if I believe that it doesn't suffer and that environmentally it's just as good or better to eat oysters than to eat some grains or other plant products yeah I know a lot of vegans who have have no problem eating animal products that are about to go to waste again there's some

consideration that we're maybe seeing animals and animal products as food here in a way that that is if not harmful than wrong, but of course, as a consequentialist, that probably wouldn't apply to you. And in the case of oysters, we're essentially offering a justification that there is no suffering involved. But I've heard you also say that you will eat free range eggs. And I've had a look to see if I could find some other quotes. And I found something from 2006. So I don't know if your views are still the same. But in an interview with the Vee, vegan, you said you could imagine a world in which people mostly eat plant-based foods, but occasionally treat themselves to the luxury of free-range eggs, or possibly even meat

from animals who live good lives under conditions natural for their species, and are then humanely killed on the farm. That's the quote that jumped out of me, and I think the words they're humanely killed, are seen by many, if that killing is unnecessary, as a contradiction in terms, could you explain what you mean by that as well? Yeah, I know I would still hold those views that you just quoted. So in terms of the free-range eggs, I think that of all the animal products that are available commercially, they're probably the least harmful ones because, and I'm talking about a genuine free range farm where the animals are outside where they have a grass run. They're not

dense, they're not stocked so densely that the grass gets killed, which is one sign that you've got too many chickens on your... Yes, just for the sake of the audience, I presume you're not talking here about just eggs that are labeled free range by the supermarket, but actually free range eggs. Because that will be one of the criticisms I think you'll receive there is that free range eggs aren't in fact free range. You're talking about actually free range eggs. What would be What would be the conditions there for the kind of free-range conditions that you think would make it acceptable to eat the eggs? So we have eggs in, and I'm speaking to you from Melbourne, Australia. We have eggs in Australia, particularly that you like to get from stores that stock more organic produce.

But you get them in some supermarkets where you're told how many hens there are per hectare. And, you know, obviously you might want to. check that information. Sometimes you can call the farm and say, can I visit? I'd like to see how your hens are kept. But some of them say, let's say, have 500 hens per hectare. That's a low stocking density. That's low enough for the grass to remain healthy, for there still to be, you know, things to eat that the hens find. It's not just like packed dirt or anything like that. that is not really interesting. So I think that's a reasonable sort of stocking density.

In fact, you know, you could debate how far you would go. I don't know. You could maybe go to a thousand hens per hectare. But so I think that's the kind of information that you need to judge if these are what I would consider genuinely free range. And you would want to know, of course, that the birds are able to go outside during daylight hours in all normal weather. Maybe there's some, you know, depending where. where in the world you are, maybe you might keep them in in blizzard conditions or something of that sort. But generally, you know, hens can decide for themselves when they want to go out

as long as they have shelter and access to the outdoors. They'll decide for themselves. So that's the kind of free-range eggs that I'm talking about. And the other thing to say about free-range chickens and eggs as distinct from, say, free-range or grass-fed beef is that Grass-fed beef is disastrous from climate change point of view. The methane emissions are high. In fact, they're actually higher in grass-fed beef than they are in grain-fed beef because it takes longer for the animal to put on weight, which is why they're commercially usually fed on grain.

But with laying hens, that's not an issue. They don't produce methane. So I think that's why I say, you know, if you do want to eat animal products and you want to get them commercially, you can't produce them by yourself, you're not living on the land, then finding a supplier of bona fide free range eggs, I think is something that can be defended. And the other thing that I would say about this, which also goes back to your point about the humanely killed animals that are raised, is there's a deeper philosophical question here. And when people say, well, you shouldn't be killing this animal.

And incidentally, the hens on free-range farms will generally be killed when they stop laying eggs or when their rate of laying eggs declines. And also, of course, the male chicks of these varieties of hens who lay eggs well are not going to be raised for meat. They're going to be killed as chicks. although there is work going on in Europe now to sex the eggs so that you don't get male chicks of the laying breeds I think in France and Germany they've actually passed laws

requiring that to be phased in now I'm not sure what the deadline is but I think it's pretty soon so you know that would avoid that problem but the deeper philosophical problem here is say these hens let's say they do have good lives let's just take that as accepted You look at them, on the whole, they have good lives, they have shorter lives than they would have if they lived out their life in full.

Is it a harm to them to bring them into existence, to have those good lives for a certain period of time, and then to be killed in a way that they suffer no pain from? They have no anticipation of being killed. They're killed very quickly and there's no pain. And that's what I mean by you mainly killed, by the way. and I think that can happen. Again, it doesn't happen standardly at commercial slaughterhouses, but it can happen.

And, you know, these, again, I referred to Parford a moment earlier, but this is a different and perhaps more famous problem that Parfit raises about population ethics. Is it good that there be more people in existence if the total amount of happiness is greater, although the average is a little less, as long as they still have positive lives.

That's a problem which I don't think anybody has given a satisfactory answer to, and Parfit sadly died without being able to give a satisfactory answer to it himself. So given how difficult that problem is, I can't say with any confidence that it's wrong to bring animals into existence, give them good lives, and then kill them in a way that causes them no suffering.

I don't know any philosopher who could really argue without solving Parfitt's problems that that is unequivocally wrong. But indeed, the reason why it's a problem, and I think you're raising something of a non-identity problem here. We've got this situation in which bringing a being into existence in some sense requires this negative aspect. In this case, it would be a premature death. say something like, well, maybe it would be better to not have that premature death, but if it weren't for the fact that we were going to kill them, they wouldn't exist at all, and they have an overall good life that's worth living, then if those are the options, no life at all, or a life that involves the premature death, you know, what's the problem with favoring the latter?

And you say, and as I say, the reason I think this is a problem is because if we look in a human context, it seems that our intuitions are screaming at us, that to do this to a human being would be an ethical abomination to raise human beings and perhaps you could keep them isolated so they don't know what's going on. Maybe they're in some kind of cult that thinks that once you turn 18 years old, you sort of go into a different realm or something, but you take them through the door and you slice their throats. Maybe you put a bolt through their head first if you're feeling particularly humane. I think people would ridicule this view, especially if it was promoted as a form of humanely killing them, because sure, it's humane in comparison to what we might do on a factory farm,

but perhaps compared to what the moral worth of these beings require, to call it humane would be something of a travesty. At least in a human context, I would imagine you would think that that would be at least wrong and possibly grossly wrong. So I think in a human context, it's not possible to avoid spillover effects in terms of, you know, the acceptability of killing other humans. And I think that's really the problem there because we do, you know, as humans, we want to go on living clearly. and if we discover that humans are being killed in this way that's going to mean that we're going to fear that there'll be less respect for human life

and that we will be killed. I think there are consequences because of our consciousness, our awareness and our understanding of what's going on. For animals, that doesn't generally apply, I think. So I think, as you say, the intuitions that we have that scream to us that this is wrong

if done for humans, we don't have those about animals. And I think there may be, as I say, reasons why we don't have those about animals that, you know, you could say, well, that's just because we're speciesists and we use animals without thinking about their interests. But in these conditions that we've been talking about, as I say, I think it's very hard to argue that it is contrary to their interests. So I wouldn't simply say, well, we wouldn't do this to humans, so therefore it must be wrong to do it to animals. So to be clear, in the situation I described of raising isolated human beings until they're 18 and then killing them secretly,

the thing that's wrong about that, in your view, is just the fact that there's a risk that this might cause other human beings to be scared that somehow they're going to get caught up in it. I mean, I can imagine very strict laws in place that unless you were born a member of this particular set of human beings who are bred in particular to be kept isolated and to be bred for food, perhaps for just the sake of our taste pleasure, unless you're a member of that group, you're not allowed to be touched by anybody. You can imagine the laws are incredibly strict on this. And you could say, sure, well, there's a sense in which people might think there's a disrespect for human lives that may one day eventually evolve into a problem. for us, but you could say the same thing about animal consumption. You could say, you know, if we're, if we're going to begin to recognize a speciesism in the way that we think, and we're kind of okay with killing animals, and shouldn't we be terrified that one day we'll be okay with killing humans too? And we think, no, because we've put very strict

boundaries around this, not just morally, but also legally, that, sure, you can kill a pig, but you can't kill a human being. In this situation where I'm killing human beings earlyish in their lives you know say 18 years old none of the humans who are going to be killed find out all of the humans who do know about this practice know that they're never going to be a member of that group of people is the only thing that could be wrong with that in your view

just the small risk that sort of something might go wrong there and people might be scared is there not something wrong with the killing I mean you also have to say of course that these humans would not have existed at all There's no way in which they would have come into existence except that they were going to be killed at 18 for some reason. Yes, to the same extent that an animal on a humane farm, as you describe it, might not have existed unless it was going to be killed for food. Yeah. I see, I mean, you know, if I think you're describing a situation that is hypothetical to test our intuitions, which is perfectly fine. I don't think that there could be a real world analog of this. but if you say, you know, let's ask that question

hypothetically under these circumstances, then I agree. It's very hard for a utilitarian to say why this is wrong, given that these 18-year-olds have good lives that they would not have had otherwise. We have to assume, of course, that nobody else is harmed by this. So that's another hypothetical thing that we haven't really touched on. Presumly they have mothers anyway.

you know, that who might care for them and don't want to be separated from them and want to know what happens, you could say, okay, well, let's assume we've developed, we've developed gestation, you know, in a serum or something like that. So, they actually have no mothers. You know, we've produced the eggs and the sperm and put them together. And then we grow them in that way. So, you know, yeah, if you do all that, then it's, it's, it's, it's difficult for me to say this is intrinsically wrong. Or I might draw a further analogue with the animals and say that these animals also have mothers or children, depending on sort of when they're being killed,

who might sort of emotionally depend on each other as well. And you'd sort of run into potentially the same problems. I mean, a humane beef farm or something is still going to involve killing animals who have relations to other animals that are at least seemingly going to be emotionally distressed by that. but also I mean whichever way we sort of make the analogs actually analogous can you understand why some people would see this as something of a reductio ad absurdum

of the utilitarian position the idea that yes sure I have an intuition that suffering is bad and I think that a lot of the strength of utilitarianism comes from that intuition that when we experience suffering we know that it's bad for us but we also have a pretty strong intuition that killing humans, even in the conditions that I've described, would be wrong. And some people sort of weigh these up and they say as sensible as utilitarianism seems in the abstract in principle, if it does lead to such a conclusion, it simply can't be right. So I don't accept that the judgments that you make under hypothetical circumstances, which are not part of the real world, are a test of the underlying ethical theory. Because the judge

judgments we make are those that we have intuitively, you've used the word, you know, our intuitions yourself, that have evolved and developed in circumstances that are part of the real world. And it's very good in the real world that we have this strongly negative intuition that to kill an innocent human being, I would say, unless they strongly request it for some good reason, like they're terminally ill, to kill an innocent human being is wrong. So, you know, it's not that I want to change the intuitions. I'm just saying when you give purely hypothetical examples, they don't refute the underlying theory because the intuitions are ones that have arisen

in circumstances other than the hypothetical ones you've described. I'm sort of imagining an argument from marginal cases that might be put forward here. It's just, it's interesting. I mean, you're the person who popularized the term speciesism in many people's account. And speciesism is something like the unwarranted differential treatment or discrimination on the basis of species alone. It seems to me that if you can imagine a world as you write in this interview in which people sometimes enjoy the luxury of humanely killed.

animals from a from a humane farm but you you can't imagine the same thing for human beings you say that there's sort of a a practical reason why you think that human scenario could never occur but suppose it was on a very strict metric suppose it was something to do with mental capacity that's imagine that if a human being is is born with such a limited cognitive capacity that they essentially don't have any self-awareness or they sort of just don't know what's going on or there's some kind of cognitive tests that we install that says that if you're below a certain cognitive ability, you know, if the mother consents, if the parents consent, then we're able to kill these. Suppose we find that they taste really, really nice and there's sort of a luxury

meat market for these disabled children. Perhaps some parents are intentionally having these children and we say, look, you don't need to fear that this is going to affect our general view of killing other human beings because this only applies to a very strict set of human beings that were intentionally created for this purpose, have very limited cognitive capacities. Even if we could imagine such a world, I think we would imagine it with some disgust, but I don't think there's a way to picture that world with disgust, but picture a world in which we're killing humanely raised animals with no problem without committing ourselves to some charge of speciesism.

But I don't agree with that because, as you said, when speciesism is the unwarranted discrimination against beings on the base of their species, so the question of what's warranted and what isn't is obviously there, but

it's not, in any case, in the case that I'm talking about, I think it's not the species that's doing the work, it's the lack of awareness of the circumstances on the part of the being. And if you're saying, well, this could apply to human beings, again, hypothetically under some circumstances, yeah, it could.

So, but that, you know, then we've again stepped into this hypothetical realm where I don't think our intuitions are decisive in saying whether this is right or wrong. Yeah, I mean, I think people listening will perhaps see what you're saying. and understand why it's difficult to condemn as a utilitarian this treatment of humans in the hypothetical scenario. And as you say, this is a hypothetical just to test our intuitions. But I suppose what I'm trying to do is figure out what it is that's wrong. And I just want to make sure that I'm understanding you correctly in a situation of killing human beings early on in their lives. is the thing that's wrong with it

the sort of knock on effect this is going to have psychologically on other human beings is it in other words not wrong for the person being killed it's okay so not bad I just say basically the reason it's wrong

is the knock on psychological effects is it wrong for the person being killed as part of an overall practice where the person being killed would not have existed if that person were not going to be killed at some relatively early age and if the life that the person has is a good one up to that point then I would have to say that the overall practice is not wrong for the person being killed

the person couldn't complain because the response would be you wouldn't have even existed and you've enjoyed the years that you've had so we haven't wronged you yeah I mean I'm presuming if you asked the person in question, sort of, have you had a good life? Would you rather have not been born at all? They would probably say that they'd rather be born and undergo that experience. But as I say, in the context of the non-identity problem, the reason this is referred to as a problem is because for most people, there does still seem to be something wrong with this. And Parfit imagines that we have a few intuitions and we essentially have to abandon one of them. We either have to

abandon the idea that you can, you can somehow, I mean, he says that you must, in order to harm someone you must leave them worse off. That's one intuition that we have. Another intuition is situations like this where we kill human beings who otherwise wouldn't have existed at all is wrong. And I think there's one other. And he essentially says, look, these all seem intuitively true, but we have to abandon one of them. And I guess for most people, they probably abandon one of the other ones. But it's interesting to hear you just, I guess not abandoned because you might not share that intuition, but to bite that bullet. Yeah, I would bite that bullet. And you're quite right. I mean, I think it's there is some there is some intuition that has to go and i'm going to stick with the one

that says to have harmed you we have to have made you worse off than you would otherwise have been um and uh i i guess that's that that in a sentence is the rejoinder to this position of exploitation or anti-utilitarian sentiment that says there's still something wrong or there's still something harmful or or bad about these practices even if they don't uh even if they don't inflict any suffering and what you just said there that in order to harm you must leave someone worse off you can't harm somebody by making them better off overall you can't well you can maybe overall in the long run but you can't inflict a harm that leaves someone better off than they were otherwise or maybe you can well then they would otherwise have been i think is what you have to say

because you know maybe maybe you could have made them much better off and or they could have been much better off but you stop them being much better off yeah and of course of you can sort of harm people in one instance that makes them better off overrule, but in that specific instance of harming, to say that you've committed an act which makes them better off in every metric and somehow still harm to them seems, again, intuitively wrong. One thing I did want to ask you about is how far, or in which contexts you apply this rule about considering our effects on suffering. I mean, one of the things that you're famed for is taking what many people see as quite a radical approach to charity, for example, in saying that, you know, we should be

giving a lot more to charity. And it might be wrong for me to, you know, you can, you can sort of sit and have some cocktails in a bar, as I've done before. Recently, I remember being in a cocktail bar. And when we looked at the bill and we thought, oh, gosh, you know, I pulled up the life you can save. And you have a calculator on there where you can put in an amount of money and choose a charity and it will give you exact metrics on exactly what you could have bought this many mosquito nets to fight against malaria. You could have dewormed this many children. And I thought, my gosh, you know,

and there's some real power there. I don't know. I mean, do you think it's wrong of me to have bought those cocktails? I think it would have been better if you donated the money to effective charities as those recommended by the life you can say, for example. but I'm not going to blame you because I'm not a saint myself. It's not that I don't ever spend money on things that I could have done more good with by donating to effective charities.

I think the problem is that the standard in the world as a whole is very, very low in terms of what we give or what we regard as an acceptable amount to give to charity. And so you can greatly exceed that standard as I myself do. I give much more than the average in the community by many, many factors, but I could still be doing more. So the question is, how should I think of myself? Should I think of myself that I'm a bad person? Because I could be doing more than I am doing, and therefore I shouldn't spend money. I'm not a cocktail drink of myself, but there are other things, let's say, that I might spend money on that I would be put to better uses.

How hard should I be on myself when I'm giving a substantial portion of my income to effective charities, but not quite as much as I really ought to be? Yeah, that's kind of... I remember discussing in a video once how, after reading the life you can save and famine, affluence and morality, I remember sort of like, I'd be like shaving my face. and I thought to myself, well, look, you know, I need to buy a razor in order to shave my face. And in theory, like, my facial hair could never be as important as the life of a suffering child somewhere across the globe. But it seemed to me that to say that I was therefore somehow, I sort of had to pause as to whether it's ethical for me to buy a razor to shave my face. Because in theory, I could just grow out my beard, look a bit disheveled, and it probably wouldn't affect my career or social prospects that much. And even if it did, why should that be more important than the life?

of another human being and I thought maybe this the fact that I'm stopping to think whether it's ethical to shave my face again maybe tells me that there's something wrong with this whole utilitarianism business well I don't think it tells you there's something wrong with the whole utilitarian business but it does tell you that um we need to take some sort of I I guess not try too hard to be perfect in every detail because you know that way lies madness um it's it's just very difficult to live that way. But, I mean, you'll notice that in the context of eating food and veganism, people often draw a strict line, and it sounds like you sort of, you have some lenience for free-range

eggs and humanely raised animal products or this kind of thing, but somebody who just sort of occasionally buys factory farmed meat, just for the hell of it, vegans will look at that person and say that they've sort of committed this moral abomination. I mean, I don't know if you'll share that for you, but people, people say sort of, there's like this, there's like this line in the sand, whereas when it comes to like buying cocktails when you could have donated the money to charity, we say, well, you know, normal's perfect, we're not saints, we can't live up to our ethical standards, but it is still true that I could have not bought those cocktails and I could have donated the money to charity. It seems like there's almost less, I don't know. I mean, one is, one is grayer,

because there's just an infinite number of amounts of money that you could spend on a whole range of different things and there's no clear line to be drawn, whereas vegans will say there is a clear line to be drawn. Although, in fact, when you look at it more closely, I don't think there is such a clear line to be drawn because, of course, you know, as has been argued by opponents of veganism, you know, when you eat crops, there are animals that are killed in order to protect those crops or to harvest those crops. And anybody who grows veggies, and I do grow some vegetables myself whenever I get the opportunity, we'll know that that's true.

It's extremely hard to protect your crops from some animals. Now, you know, maybe you can protect them from vertebrates by netting. But certainly slugs and snails are going to get through and what are you going to do with them? And maybe they're sentient. We certainly can't say with confidence that we know they're not sentient. So there's no absolute purity in terms of what you eat saying I'm not harming any animals at all by what I'm eating.

So I think there really there are grey lines and those vegans who point the finger at somebody who occasionally eat something that is an animal or even under some circumstances eat something that's factory farmed. I think that's the kind of puritanical insistence on a clear line when we should really be thinking about what are the consequences of what this person is doing. what are they doing in the rest of their life? Are they generally avoiding contributing to factory farming? Are they generally contributing significant resources to help people in extreme poverty? And we should be a bit more tolerant, I think, rather than saying, no, you've ordered

cocktails that you didn't need, you're a bad person, or, you know, you ate some food that was an animal product, therefore you're a bad person. Yeah, I mean, that is what I was going to ask you about, that some people will say, look, when it comes to eating animal products, there's a very clear line here. You either sort of eat them or you don't, and you can eat a plant-based alternative. The charity stuff, it seems to go on potentially forever. But as you point out, animals killed in crop production means that any food that you eat is going to produce some form of animal suffering in death. And you might say that it's impossible to measure exactly how much food we should be eating. I mean, you could say that because animals are being killed in crop production,

it's immoral to eat a single calorie over your absolute maintenance level but that would be very difficult to maintain but then in some circumstances people do intentionally eat more calories that is I mean I was thinking about bodybuilders for example and you have a lot of vegan bodybuilders

who make a point of trying to put on as much muscle as possible to prove to the world that it's possible to be a vegan bodybuilder and have a lot of muscle mass and you think okay great but in order to put on muscle you need to intentionally enter a caloric surplus. That means you need to intentionally,

not just sort of by chance because you don't really, you know, you're tracking every calorie and you say, you know, every day I'm going to eat sort of three, four hundred calories, sometimes many more, over the amount that I know I need to survive and be healthy. And we do this in order to then, you know, go to the gym and put on muscle.

And I think to myself, well, okay, as a vegan, if you think that at least somebody who justifies their veganism in a similar way to you in saying that this is unnecessary death of animals that don't need to die for food that we don't need to eat to be healthy. I think that in the case of a vegan bodybuilder, if you intentionally go into a caloric surplus, then what you're doing is you're paying for food that results in the death and suffering of animals that's not necessary for you to eat in order to be healthy. And again, this isn't because you're sort of like, oh, I can't quite, I couldn't practically

work out exactly how many calories I need. You're intentionally eating more than you know, you need to be healthy. But it seems to me that if you present a vegan with such a vegan bodybuilder, they wouldn't say, look, you're committing this moral abomination on the level of, you know, eating animal products. Of course, it's not going to be factory farming, so the suffering's probably going to be worse. But whereas a vegan might say that eating a humanely raised cow or grass-fed beef, something like this, is still wrong. I don't see that same kind of energy being presented to a vegan bodybuilder. I wonder what you think about that and whether you think on a utilitarian basis if somebody is intentionally eating a caloric surplus, is that an unethical thing to do?

I think it depends why they're doing it. If they're doing it to show that vegans can be strong and I hope that therefore more people will switch to a vegan diet, I think that's fine. That's a good reason and assuming that this actually might work, of course, that has some reasonable chance of working. That's a justification. If they're doing it because they really enjoy having that kind of body, well, you know, I would be somewhat tolerant of that because, as I said, you know, and I think we all do things that are not just geared to producing the best possible world that we could because we enjoy them. And I'm certainly not saying that, you know, nobody should relax for a moment from working hard for the greatest possible benefit of everyone.

I think that's an absurdly demanding standard that is likely to be counterproductive if you actually try to hold people to it. But, you know, I'm not sure exactly what the motivation of the vegan body builder you're talking about is, but yeah, in general, I think we should try to consume, you know, we should try to cut back on our unnecessary consumption of items. And there's, you're open to criticism if you're consuming unnecessary calories, just as you're open for criticism, if you're producing, you know, driving your, let's say you're, you're, you're driving a car that produces greenhouse gases and you're driving unnecessary distances to do that,

you know, that's all. There's a lot of things that we're open to criticism for. And I think we have to look at the whole picture of how someone is living and not try to pick on, oh, you've stepped over some line here. Yeah, I mean, of course, in, I mean, cars emissions are often brought up, but I think that we're consistent in our treatment of animals and humans. We know that by driving cars, environmental pollution is going to affect both humans and non-humans. Also, the example that sometimes people give of cars producing roadkill. We also know that cars produce human kill. We know for a fact that if we were to lower the speed limit, less humans would die.

But we sort of make this balance, like you say, we sort of have to figure out how to live. But we're sort of consistent in our treatment of humans and animals here. Like, I don't think people would justify eating a caloric surplus in order just to enjoy their body if it involved the killing and eating of unnecessarily of human beings. I just found it interesting how you said that, look, if somebody is intentionally eating food that kills animals

that they don't need to eat to be healthy, but they're doing it because, you know, they really enjoy having a six-pack or having, you know, large biceps, that maybe that's okay. That doesn't seem too different to me than saying, you know, if somebody wants to eat animal products

because they just really enjoy the taste of it or they really enjoy the way it feels or something like that, then I guess that's okay. I don't really see the difference. Well, that's another kind of flexibility that I prepared to tolerate. It's not one that I myself practice, but I think the original,

one of the original uses of the term flexitarian was by someone I can't remember now who it was, who had this sort of exception for the Michelin Three Hat restaurant, something like that. So they were saying, yeah, I'm going to be a vegan most of my life. But if I'm ever in Paris and I get a chance to dine at a restaurant run by one of the best chefs in the world, and this, you know, this restaurant doesn't cater for vegans, it's okay to eat there. I don't, I don't really object to that either, right? If this person is really, you know, avoiding animal products the rest of their life and just making this

occasional exception, you know, again, I just don't think it's, you know, the point of morality is not to be able to point your finger at somebody and say, hey, you're doing something wrong. The the point is to think, am I living a life which on the whole makes the world a better place, reduces suffering, sets an example for other people to follow who will also make the world a better place? Or am I somebody who is just going along with whatever is convenient and not caring about the effect that it has on other sentient beings? Well, I must say that I remain unconvinced on a great many of the points that you've put forward here but I'm glad that we had the opportunity to discuss them Peter Singer. Thank you so much for

joining me again on the podcast. Thanks Alex. As always, it's been challenging and stimulating to talk to you and I've enjoyed our discussion and I hope that people who want to keep up with my current views will pick up Animal Liberation now and see what I have to say there. Absolutely. The book will be linked in the descriptions wherever you're listening. Right. And by the way, I'm not sure when you're going to air with this but there's also um i'm also doing a speaking tour um so it'd be great if you could link to the website of the speaking tour um absolutely that will be down is that a global tour uh well it's uh united states um united kingdom just london and a couple of cities in australia that's around sort of june june july time i think no it's not july it's it's more late may

late May, June actually the yeah you're right the Australian ones are in July because I'm not back to Australia earlier than that but yeah so for the United States

it starts on the 26th of May if you're going to be going to air before that would be great if you could link to that website no problem whatsoever I'll make sure that everything that we've discussed is linked down below and if people want to come and see you in person and presumably get a chance to ask questions of their own

ask further difficult questions yes that's right you've been giving them practice and how to do so yeah an opportunity to do so so if you're listening and you think that you have any uh and you have any thoughts of course leave a comment if you're listening on youtube but otherwise here's an opportunity to ask professor singer yourself uh yeah it's it's been a pleasure and uh i'm sure people will enjoy this conversation uh i have so thanks alex Thank you.