Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas | Conversations with Tyler
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2023
- 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.
Recorded May 25th, 2023
Transcript and links: conversationswithtyler.com/ep...
Peter's Latest Book: www.harpercollins.com/product...
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As usual, Singer handles both the tough questions and the naive questions brilliantly. Some people believe that his acknowledgement that some questions are tough is a weakness. They've got things backwards. It's one of Singer's strengths.
Mr Singer you are a beautiful soul.
Yikes. Singer is an interesting philosopher whose moral outlook is entirely consistent with utilitarianism. These strawmen takes - Singer hates humanity, Singer is a baby killer - are really tiresome. Singer reaches the natural conclusions of a utilitarian, and has the courage to embrace its more contentious implications, despite severe public criticism. Legitimate criticism might be levelled at utilitarianism itself as a moral philosophy, but Singer should be praised for his fight to reconcile it with our more humanistic impulses. If you bother to read his work, his general approach is broadly humane. The interview here is excellent, and I praise Tyler Cowen for his interesting questions and challenging, albeit respectful, style.
Wonderful interview
"The greatest happiness of the greatest number: your choice."
The abortion line of questioning definitely exposed some non-utilitarian tendencies at play.
Why? Where i used to live (Amerika), most kids were on the street and their mothers were drugged ASF, most of those children will be criminals or die before the age of 30. You(society), will judge them without consideration of their environment. They will become outcast(worthless and shadows), the system will make sure they never recover from their unsustainable environment. The conservative movement doesn't want to help them and they want to fund the police more to deal with the (kids) better.
The Democrats don't give a shit unless is about money.
Explain to me, how abortion is not to the benefit of the majority in our current world situation.
I ued his Ethics textbook in college. I remember dismissing his utilitarian philosophy because I learned that he donated ONLY 25% of his Harvard salary on charity
Unfortunately Singer has infected many educated radicals who will kill to protect environmentalism.
Which is, of course, not an ad hominem. Did you skip your Logic course as well? :O
@@franciscogalan8017I think he’s joking. Most people don’t donate even 25%
When did Peter Singer work at Harvard? I thought he was at Princeton.
Lies! He didn't donate even one cent of his Harvard salary! :P
I would want to ask Peter Singer (whose views I studied back in the 1990s), "When did you stop loving ordinary, or 'lesser', human beings: and why?" Of course I would want to ask the same question of David Attenborough, and many more elitist people with sociopathic tendencies.
Most people likely never started, and so don’t have an answer for when They stopped
@@pookz3067 Great point!
What makes you think there are some people that singer does not love?
I'm confident that Singer would deny that he stopped loving ordinary or 'lesser' human beings.
Singer’s recent comments on euthanizing babies (he says babies with a 'very severe disability' should be eligible for euthanasia) is abhorrent.
I have an idea, the parents who don't want to deal with that, should give them to the government and the government should fund their system. That way they stay alive.
Grow up
@@pookz3067 I can't, I'm dead because I was determined by Singer to be unworthy of life.
@@AhhsvsvHhehe totally agree
Have you looked up the types of disabilities he’s describing? If a baby is constantly suffering due to this disease do you think the most moral thing to do would be to keep them barely alive?
Singer would kill you to save a snail.
That is a gross misunderstanding, even if intended as hyperbola. You've either not read Singer or not understood him.
Peter Singer got exposed hard
And nothing will happen
What makes you think that!? This "exposition" makes Singer look good.