You once wrote a book entitled Darwinian Left. Do you think you're becoming more or less Darwinian over time? My Darwinian intuition is people won't ever get much better because they evolved to eat animals, not to have factory farms and simply not worry about it. Is there really this general faculty of reason that overrides those evolved intuitions? I think there certainly can be and I think there is for some people some of the time.
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
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Photo credit: Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek