Peter Singer
Websites : Peter Singer at Princeton University, Peter Singer at the University of Melbourne, PeterSinger.info
Peter Singer is a noted contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Read Britannica's biography of Peter Singer
Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University. A specialist in applied ethics, he approaches ethical issues from a secular, preference-utilitarian perspective. He is a major proponent of biocentrism.
His many books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, and The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty.
photograph: Denise Applewhite/Princeton University
Primary Contributions (6)
Ethics, the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. (Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Peter Singer.) How should we live? Shall we aim at happiness or at knowledge,…
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Publications (4)
One World Now: The Ethics of Globalization (September 2016)
One World Now seamlessly integrates major developments of the past decade into Peter Singer's classic text on the ethics of globalization, One World. Singer, often described as the world's most influential philosopher, here addresses such essential concerns as climate change, economic globalization, foreign aid, human rights, immigration, and the responsibility to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity, whatever country they may be in. Every issue is considered from...
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The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically (April 2015)
From the ethicist the New Yorker calls “the most influential living philosopher,” a new way of thinking about living ethically Peter Singer’s books and ideas have been disturbing our complacency ever since the appearance of Animal Liberation. Now he directs our attention to a new movement in which his own ideas have played a crucial role: effective altruism. Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profound idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the...
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The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty (September 2010)
For the first time in history, eradicating world poverty is within our reach. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer uses ethical arguments, illuminating examples, and case studies of charitable giving to show that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but morally indefensible. The Life You Can Save teaches us to be a part of the solution, helping...
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Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement (February 2009)
Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them.\nIn Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them,...
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