I worry that people with controversial ideas would simply get fired by deans when people on Twitter start criticizing them. I think tenure has provided protection for some people. But I'm not sure, maybe giving students more of a role in appointments would be a reasonable factor. For how many years have you taught at Princeton now? 23, 24. How have your students changed over that time? It's actually got harder to get them to do the reading, I think.
Peter Singer is one of the world’s most influential living philosophers, whose ideas have motivated millions of people to change how they eat, how they give, and how they interact with each other and the natural world.
Peter joined Tyler to discuss whether utilitarianism is only tractable at the margin, how Peter thinks about the meat-eater problem, why he might side with aliens over humans, at what margins he would police nature, the utilitarian approach to secularism and abortion, what he’s learned producing the Journal of Controversial Ideas, what he’d change about the current Effective Altruism movement, where Derek Parfit went wrong, to what extent we should respect the wishes of the dead, why professional philosophy is so boring, his advice on how to enjoy our lives, what he’ll be doing after retiring from teaching, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded May 25th, 2023
Other ways to connect
Photo credit: Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek