Peter Singer has been called "the world's most influential living philosopher," by The New Yorker and Time Magazine listed him in "The Time 100," their annual listing of the world's 100 most influential people. One of the most controversial philosophers alive today, he is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He has been recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, and is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.
He writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and Animal Liberation, which has sold more than a half million copies, Writings on an Ethical Life, One World: Ethics and Globalization, The President of Good and Evil, about George Bush, and In Defense of Animals. His most recent book, which is written with Jim Mason, is The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter.
In this wide-ranging conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer discusses The Way We Eat and the ethics of vegetarianism, topics in bioethics such as abortion and euthanasia, and what world poverty may demand from citizens in developed nations. He addresses common challenges to his robust system of secular ethics, and explores other implications of utilitarianism. He also considers reasons why people should be moral even if there is no God.