Peter Albert David Singer, AC (born 6 July
1946) is an Australian moral philosopher.
He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics
at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor
at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public
Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He
specialises in applied ethics and approaches
ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian
perspective. He is known in particular for
his book Animal Liberation (1975), in which
he argues in favour of vegetarianism, and
his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality",
in which he argues in favour of donating to
help the global poor. For most of his career,
he was a preference utilitarian, but he announced
in The Point of View of the Universe (2014),
coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek,
that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.
On two occasions, Singer served as chair of
the philosophy department at Monash University,
where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics.
In 1996 he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens
candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004
Singer was recognised as the Australian Humanist
of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist
Societies. In 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald
placed Singer among Australia's ten most influential
public intellectuals. Singer is a cofounder
of Animals Australia and the founder of The
Life You Can Save.
== Early life, education and career ==
Singer's parents were Austrian Jews who immigrated
to Australia from Vienna in 1938, after Austria's
annexation by Nazi Germany. They settled in
Melbourne, where Singer was born. Singer's
father imported tea and coffee, while his
mother practiced medicine. He has an older
sister, Joan (now Joan Dwyer). His grandparents
were less fortunate: his paternal grandparents
were taken by the Nazis to Łódź, and were
never heard from again; his maternal grandfather
David Ernst Oppenheim (1881–1943), a teacher,
died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Oppenheim was a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic
Society and he wrote a joint article with
Sigmund Freud, before joining the Adlerian
sect. Singer later wrote a biography on Oppenheim.Singer
is an atheist, and was raised in a prosperous,
happy, non-religious family. His family rarely
observed Jewish holidays, and Singer declined
to have a Bar Mitzvah. Singer attended Preshil
and later Scotch College. After leaving school,
Singer studied law, history, and philosophy
at the University of Melbourne, gaining his
BA degree (hons) in 1967. He has explained
that he elected to major in philosophy after
his interest was piqued by discussions with
his sister's then-boyfriend. He received an
MA degree for a thesis entitled "Why should
I be moral?" at the same university in 1969.
He was awarded a scholarship to study at the
University of Oxford, and obtained from there
a BPhil degree in 1971, with a thesis on civil
disobedience supervised by R. M. Hare and
published as a book in 1973. Singer names
Hare and Australian philosopher H. J. McCloskey
as his two most important mentors. One day
at Balliol College in Oxford, he had what
he refers to as "probably the decisive formative
experience of my life". He was having a discussion
after class with fellow graduate student Richard
Keshen, a Canadian, over lunch. Keshen opted
to have a salad after being told that the
spaghetti sauce contained meat. Singer had
the spaghetti. Singer eventually questioned
Keshen about his reason for avoiding meat.
Keshen explained his ethical objections. Singer
would later state, "I'd never met a vegetarian
who gave such a straightforward answer that
I could understand and relate to." Keshen
later introduced Singer to his vegetarian
friends. Singer was able to find one book
in which he could read up on the issue (Animal
Machines by Ruth Harrison) and "within a week
or two" he approached his wife saying that
he thought they needed to make a change to
their diet, and that he didn't think they
could justify eating meat.After spending two
years as a Radcliffe lecturer at University
College, Oxford, he was a visiting professor
at New York University for 16 months. He returned
to Melbourne in 1977, where he spent most
of his career, aside from appointments as
visiting faculty abroad, until his move to
Princeton in 1999. In June 2011 it was announced
he would join the professoriate of New College
of the Humanities, a private college in London,
in addition to his work at Princeton. He also
has been a regular contributor to Project
Syndicate since 2001.
According to philosopher Helga Kuhse, Singer
is "almost certainly the best-known and most
widely read of all contemporary philosophers".
Michael Specter wrote that Singer is among
the most influential of contemporary philosophers.Since
1968 he has been married to Renata Singer;
they have three children: Ruth, Marion, and
Esther. Renata Singer is a novelist and author
and she also has collaborated on publications
with her husband.
== Applied ethics ==
Singer's Practical Ethics (1979) analyzes
why and how living beings' interests should
be weighed. His principle of equal consideration
of interests does not dictate equal treatment
of all those with interests, since different
interests warrant different treatment. All
have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance,
but relatively few have an interest in cultivating
their abilities. Not only does his principle
justify different treatment for different
interests, but it allows different treatment
for the same interest when diminishing marginal
utility is a factor. For example, this approach
would privilege a starving person's interest
in food over the same interest of someone
who is only slightly hungry.
Among the more important human interests are
those in avoiding pain, in developing one's
abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food
and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships,
in being free to pursue one's projects without
interference, "and many others". The fundamental
interest that entitles a being to equal consideration
is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment
or happiness". Singer holds that a being's
interests should always be weighed according
to that being's concrete properties. The journey
model is tolerant of some frustrated desire
and explains why persons who have embarked
on their journeys are not replaceable. Only
a personal interest in continuing to live
brings the journey model into play. This model
also explains the priority that Singer attaches
to interests over trivial desires and pleasures.
Ethical conduct is justified by reasons that
go beyond prudence to "something bigger than
the individual", addressing a larger audience.
Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies
moral reasons as "somehow universal", specifically
in the injunction to 'love thy neighbour as
thyself', interpreted by him as demanding
that one give the same weight to the interests
of others as one gives to one's own interests.
This universalising step, which Singer traces
from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him
apart from those moral theorists, from Hobbes
to David Gauthier, who tie morality to prudence.
Universalisation leads directly to utilitarianism,
Singer argues, on the strength of the thought
that one's own interests cannot count for
more than the interests of others. Taking
these into account, one must weigh them up
and adopt the course of action that is most
likely to maximise the interests of those
affected; utilitarianism has been arrived
at. Singer's universalising step applies to
interests without reference to who has them,
whereas a Kantian's applies to the judgments
of rational agents (in Kant's kingdom of ends,
or Rawls's Original Position, etc.). Singer
regards Kantian universalisation as unjust
to animals. As for the Hobbesians, Singer
attempts a response in the final chapter of
Practical Ethics, arguing that self-interested
reasons support adoption of the moral point
of view, such as 'the paradox of hedonism',
which counsels that happiness is best found
by not looking for it, and the need most people
feel to relate to something larger than their
own concerns.
=== Effective altruism and world poverty ===
Singer's ideas have contributed to the rise
of effective altruism. He argues that people
should not only try to reduce suffering, but
reduce it in the most effective manner possible.
While Singer has previously written at length
about the moral imperative to reduce poverty
and eliminate the suffering of nonhuman animals,
particularly in the meat industry, he writes
about how the effective altruism movement
is doing these things more effectively in
his 2015 book, The Most Good You Can Do. He
is a board member of Animal Charity Evaluators,
a charity evaluator used by many members of
the effective altruism community which recommends
the most cost-effective animal advocacy charities
and interventions.His own organisation, The
Life You Can Save, also recommends a selection
of charities deemed by charity evaluators
such as GiveWell to be the most effective
when it comes to helping those in extreme
poverty. TLYCS was founded after Singer released
his 2009 eponymous book, in which he argues
more generally in favour of giving to charities
that help to end global poverty. In particular,
he expands upon some of the arguments made
in his 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and
Morality", in which he posits that citizens
of rich nations are morally obligated to give
at least some of their disposable income to
charities that help the global poor. He supports
this using the drowning child analogy, which
states that most people would rescue a drowning
child from a pond, even if it meant that their
expensive clothes were ruined, so we clearly
value a human life more than the value of
our material possessions. As a result, we
should take a significant portion of the money
that we spend on our possessions and instead
donate it to charity.
=== Animal liberation and veganism ===
Published in 1975, Animal Liberation has been
cited as a formative influence on leaders
of the modern animal liberation movement.
The central argument of the book is an expansion
of the utilitarian concept that "the greatest
good of the greatest number" is the only measure
of good or ethical behaviour, and Singer believes
that there is no reason not to apply this
principle to other animals, arguing that the
boundary between human and "animal" is completely
arbitrary. There are far more differences,
for instance, between a great ape and an oyster,
for example, than between a human and a great
ape, and yet the former two are lumped together
as "animals", whereas we are considered "human"
in a way that supposedly differentiates us
from all other "animals."
He popularised the term "speciesism", which
had been coined by English writer Richard
D. Ryder to describe the practice of privileging
humans over other animals, and therefore argues
in favour of the equal consideration of interests
of all sentient beings. In Animal Liberation,
Singer argues in favour of veganism and against
animal experimentation. Singer describes himself
as a flexible vegan. He writes, "That is,
I'm vegan when it's not too difficult to be
vegan, but I'm not rigid about this, if I'm
traveling for example."In an article for the
online publication Chinadialogue, Singer called
Western-style meat production cruel, unhealthy,
and damaging to the ecosystem. He rejected
the idea that the method was necessary to
meet the population's increasing demand, explaining
that animals in factory farms have to eat
food grown explicitly for them, and they burn
up most of the food's energy just to breathe
and keep their bodies warm. In a 2010 Guardian
article he titled, "Fish: the forgotten victims
on our plate," Singer drew attention to the
welfare of fish. He quoted (author) Alison
Mood's startling statistics from a report
she wrote, which was released on fishcount.org.uk
just a month before the Guardian article.
Singer states that she "has put together what
may well be the first-ever systematic estimate
of the size of the annual global capture of
wild fish. It is, she calculates, in the order
of one trillon, although it could be as high
as 2.7tn."Some chapters of Animal Liberation
are dedicated to criticising testing on animals
but, unlike groups such as PETA, Singer is
willing to accept such testing when there
is a clear benefit for medicine. In November
2006, Singer appeared on the BBC programme
Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing and said
that he felt that Tipu Aziz's experiments
on monkeys for research into treating Parkinson's
disease could be justified. Whereas Singer
has continued since the publication of Animal
Liberation to promote vegetarianism and veganism,
he has been much less vocal in recent years
on the subject of animal experimentation.
Singer has defended some of the actions of
the Animal Liberation Front, such as the stealing
of footage from Dr. Thomas Gennarelli's laboratory
in May 1984 (as shown in the documentary Unnecessary
Fuss), but he has condemned other actions
such as the use of explosives by some animal-rights
activists and sees the freeing of captive
animals as largely futile when they are easily
replaced.
=== Other views ===
==== Meta-ethical views ====
In the past, Singer has not held that objective
moral values exist, on the basis that reason
could favour both egoism and equal consideration
of interests. Singer himself adopted utilitarianism
on the basis that people's preferences can
be universalised, leading to a situation where
one takes the "point of view of the universe"
and "an impartial standpoint". But in the
Second Edition of Practical Ethics, he concedes
that the question of why we should act morally
"cannot be given an answer that will provide
everyone with overwhelming reasons for acting
morally".However, when co-authoring The Point
of View of the Universe (2014), Singer shifted
to the position that objective moral values
do exist, and defends the 19th century utilitarian
philosopher Henry Sidgwick's view that objective
morality can be derived from fundamental moral
axioms that are knowable by reason. Additionally,
he endorses Derek Parfit's view that there
are object-given reasons for action. Furthermore,
Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek (the
co-author of the book) argue that evolutionary
debunking arguments can be used to demonstrate
that it is more rational to take the impartial
standpoint of "the point of view of the universe",
as opposed to egoism—pursuing one's own
self-interest—because the existence of egoism
is more likely to be the product of evolution
by natural selection, rather than because
it is correct, whereas taking an impartial
standpoint and equally considering the interests
of all sentient beings is in conflict with
what we would expect from natural selection,
meaning that it is more likely that impartiality
in ethics is the correct stance to pursue.
==== Political views ====
Whilst a student in Melbourne, Singer campaigned
against the Vietnam War as president of the
Melbourne University Campaign Against Conscription.
He also spoke publicly for the legalisation
of abortion in Australia.
Singer joined the Australian Labor Party in
1974, but resigned after disillusionment with
the centrist leadership of Bob Hawke. In 1992,
he became a founding member of the Victorian
Greens. He has run for political office twice
for the Greens: in 1994 he received 28% of
the vote in the Kooyong by-election, and in
1996 he received 3% of the vote when running
for the Senate (elected by proportional representation).
Before the 1996 election, he co-authored a
book The Greens with Bob Brown.In A Darwinian
Left, Singer outlines a plan for the political
left to adapt to the lessons of evolutionary
biology. He says that evolutionary psychology
suggests that humans naturally tend to be
self-interested. He further argues that the
evidence that selfish tendencies are natural
must not be taken as evidence that selfishness
is "right." He concludes that game theory
(the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments
in psychology offer hope that self-interested
people will make short-term sacrifices for
the good of others, if society provides the
right conditions. Essentially, Singer claims
that although humans possess selfish, competitive
tendencies naturally, they have a substantial
capacity for cooperation that also has been
selected for during human evolution. Singer's
writing in Greater Good magazine, published
by the Greater Good Science Center of the
University of California, Berkeley, includes
the interpretation of scientific research
into the roots of compassion, altruism, and
peaceful human relationships.
Singer has criticized the United States for
receiving "oil from countries run by dictators
.... who pocket most of the" financial gains,
thus "keeping the people in poverty." Singer
believes that the wealth of these countries
"should belong to the people" within them
rather than their "de facto government. In
paying dictators for their oil, we are in
effect buying stolen goods, and helping to
keep people in poverty." Singer holds that
America "should be doing more to assist people
in extreme poverty". He is disappointed in
U.S. foreign aid policy, deeming it "a very
small proportion of our GDP, less than a quarter
of some other affluent nations." Singer maintains
that little "private philanthropy from the
U.S." is "directed to helping people in extreme
poverty, although there are some exceptions,
most notably, of course, the Gates Foundation."Singer
describes himself as not anti-capitalist,
stating in a 2010 interview with the New Left
Project:
Capitalism is very far from a perfect system,
but so far we have yet to find anything that
clearly does a better job of meeting human
needs than a regulated capitalist economy
coupled with a welfare and health care system
that meets the basic needs of those who do
not thrive in the capitalist economy.
He added that "[i]f we ever do find a better
system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist".
Similarly, in his book Marx, Singer is sympathetic
to Marx's criticism of capitalism, but is
skeptical about whether a better system is
likely to be created, writing: "Marx saw that
capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system,
a system which controls us when we should
be controlling it. That insight is still valid;
but we can now see that the construction of
a free and equal society is a more difficult
task than Marx realised."Singer is opposed
to the death penalty, claiming that it does
not effectively deter the crimes for which
it is the punitive measure, and that he cannot
see any other justification for it.In 2010,
Singer signed a petition renouncing his 'right
of return' to Israel, which called it "a form
of racist privilege that abets the colonial
oppression of the Palestinians".
===== Views on the Trump administration =====
In 2016, Singer called on Jill Stein to withdraw
from the US presidential election in states
that were close between Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump, on the grounds that "The stakes
are too high". He argued against the view
that there was no significant difference between
Clinton and Trump, whilst also saying that
he would not advocate such a tactic in Australia's
electoral system, which allows for ranking
of preferences.When writing in 2017 on Trump's
denial of climate change and plans to withdraw
from the Paris accords, Singer advocated a
boycott of all consumer goods from the United
States to pressure the Trump administration
to change its environmental policies.
==== Abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide
====
Singer holds that the right to life is essentially
tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences,
which in turn is essentially tied to a being's
capacity to feel pain and pleasure.
In Practical Ethics, Singer argues in favour
of abortion rights on the grounds that fetuses
are neither rational nor self-aware, and can
therefore hold no preferences. As a result,
he argues that the preference of a mother
to have an abortion automatically takes precedence.
In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks personhood.
Similar to his argument for abortion rights,
Singer argues that newborns lack the essential
characteristics of personhood—"rationality,
autonomy, and self-consciousness"—and therefore
"killing a newborn baby is never equivalent
to killing a person, that is, a being who
wants to go on living". Singer has clarified
that his "view of when life begins isn’t
very different from that of opponents of abortion."
He deems it not "unreasonable to hold that
an individual human life begins at conception.
If it doesn’t, then it begins about 14 days
later, when it is no longer possible for the
embryo to divide into twins or other multiples."
Singer disagrees with abortion rights opponents
in that he does not "think that the fact that
an embryo is a living human being is sufficient
to show that it is wrong to kill it." Singer
wishes "to see American jurisprudence, and
the national abortion debate, take up the
question of which capacities a human being
needs to have in order for it to be wrong
kill it" as well as "when, in the development
of the early human being, these capacities
are present."Singer classifies euthanasia
as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary.
Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the
subject consents. He argues in favour of voluntary
euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary
euthanasia, including infanticide in certain
instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia.
Religious critics have argued that Singer's
ethic ignores and undermines the traditional
notion of the sanctity of life. Singer agrees
and believes the notion of the sanctity of
life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific,
and irrelevant to understanding problems in
contemporary bioethics. Bioethicists associated
with the Disability Rights and Disability
Studies communities have argued that his epistemology
is based on ableist conceptions of disability.
Singer's positions have also been criticised
by some advocates for disability rights and
right-to-life supporters, concerned with what
they see as his attacks upon human dignity.
Singer has replied that many people judge
him based on secondhand summaries and short
quotations taken out of context, not his books
or articles and, that his aim is to elevate
the status of animals, not to lower that of
humans. American publisher Steve Forbes ceased
his donations to Princeton University in 1999
because of Singer's appointment to a prestigious
professorship. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal
wrote to organisers of a Swedish book fair
to which Singer was invited that "A professor
of morals ... who justifies the right to kill
handicapped newborns ... is in my opinion
unacceptable for representation at your level."
Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation
of the Blind, criticised Singer's appointment
to the Princeton Faculty in a banquet speech
at the organisation's national convention
in July 2001, claiming that Singer's support
for euthanising disabled babies could lead
to disabled older children and adults being
valued less as well. Conservative psychiatrist
Theodore Dalrymple wrote in 2010 that Singerian
moral universalism is "preposterous—psychologically,
theoretically, and practically".In 2002 disability
rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson debated
Singer, challenging his belief that it is
morally permissible to euthanize new-born
children with severe disabilities. "Unspeakable
Conversations", Johnson's account of her encounters
with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement,
was published in the New York Times Magazine
in 2003. It also served as inspiration for
The Thrill, a 2013 play by Judith Thompson
partly based on Johnson's life.Singer has
experienced the complexities of some of these
questions in his own life. His mother had
Alzheimer's disease. He said, "I think this
has made me see how the issues of someone
with these kinds of problems are really very
difficult". In an interview with Ronald Bailey,
published in December 2000, he explained that
his sister shares the responsibility of making
decisions about his mother. He did say that,
if he were solely responsible, his mother
might not continue to live.
==== Surrogacy ====
In 1985, Singer wrote a book with the physician
Deanne Wells arguing that surrogate motherhood
should be allowed and regulated by the state
by establishing nonprofit 'State Surrogacy
Boards', which would ensure fairness between
surrogate mothers and surrogacy-seeking parents.
Singer and Wells endorsed both the payment
of medical expenses endured by surrogate mothers
and an extra "fair fee" to compensate the
surrogate mother.
==== Religion ====
Singer was a speaker at the 2012 Global Atheist
Convention. He has debated with Christians
such as John Lennox and Dinesh D'Souza. Singer
has pointed to the problem of evil as an objection
against the Christian conception of God. He
stated: "The evidence of our own eyes makes
it more plausible to believe that the world
was not created by any god at all. If, however,
we insist on believing in divine creation,
we are forced to admit that the god who made
the world cannot be all-powerful and all good.
He must be either evil or a bungler." In keeping
with his considerations of non-human animals,
Singer also takes issue with the original
sin reply to the problem of evil, saying that,
"animals also suffer from floods, fires, and
droughts, and, since they are not descended
from Adam and Eve, they cannot have inherited
original sin."
==== Protests ====
In 1989 and 1990, Peter Singer's work was
the subject of a number of protests in Germany.
A course in ethics led by Dr. Hartmut Kliemt
at the University of Duisburg where the main
text used was Singer's Practical Ethics was,
according to Singer, "subjected to organised
and repeated disruption by protesters objecting
to the use of the book on the grounds that
in one of its ten chapters it advocates active
euthanasia for severely disabled newborn infants".
The protests led to the course being shut
down.When Singer tried to speak during a lecture
at Saarbrücken, he was interrupted by a group
of protesters including advocates for disability
rights. One of the protesters expressed that
entering serious discussions would be a tactical
error.The same year, Singer was invited to
speak in Marburg at a European symposium on
"Bioengineering, Ethics and Mental Disability".
The invitation was fiercely attacked by leading
intellectuals and organisations in German
media, with an article in Der Spiegel comparing
Singer's positions to Nazism. Eventually,
the symposium was cancelled and Singer's invitation
consequently withdrawn.A lecture at the Zoological
Institute of the University of Zurich also
was interrupted by two groups of protesters.
The first group was a group of disabled people
who staged a brief protest at the beginning
of the lecture. They objected to inviting
an advocate of euthanasia to speak. At the
end of this protest, when Singer tried to
address their concerns, a second group of
protesters rose and began chanting "Singer
raus! Singer raus!" ("Singer out!") When Singer
attempted to respond, a protester jumped on
stage and grabbed his glasses, and the host
ended the lecture. The first group of protesters
was distressed by this second, more aggressive
group. It had not intended to halt the lecture
and even had questions to ask Singer. Singer
explains "my views are not threatening to
anyone, even minimally" and says that some
groups play on the anxieties of those who
hear only keywords that are understandably
worrying (given the constant fears of ever
repeating the Holocaust) if taken with any
less than the full context of his belief system.In
1991, Singer was due to speak along with R.
M. Hare and Georg Meggle at the 15th International
Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg am Wechsel,
Austria. Singer has stated that threats were
made to Adolf Hübner, then the president
of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society,
that the conference would be disrupted if
Singer and Meggle were given a platform. Hübner
proposed to the board of the society that
Singer's invitation (as well as the invitations
of a number of other speakers) be withdrawn.
The Society decided to cancel the symposium.In
an article originally published in The New
York Review of Books, Singer argued that the
protests dramatically increased the amount
of coverage he got: "instead of a few hundred
people hearing views at lectures in Marburg
and Dortmund, several millions read about
them or listened to them on television". Despite
this, Singer argues that it has led to a difficult
intellectual climate, with professors in Germany
unable to teach courses on applied ethics
and campaigns demanding the resignation of
professors who invited Singer to speak.
== Honours ==
Singer was inducted into the United States
Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2000.On 11 June
2012, Singer was appointed a Companion of
the Order of Australia (AC) for "eminent service
to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of
public debate and communicator of ideas in
the areas of global poverty, animal welfare
and the human condition."Singer received Philosophy
Now's 2016 Award for Contributions in the
Fight Against Stupidity for his efforts "to
disturb the comfortable complacency with which
many of us habitually ignore the desperate
needs of others ... particularly for this
work as it relates to the Effective Altruism
movement."
== Publications ==
=== Singly authored books ===
Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment
of Animals, New York Review/Random House,
New York, 1975; Cape, London, 1976; Avon,
New York, 1977; Paladin, London, 1977; Thorsons,
London, 1983. Harper Perennial Modern Classics,
New York, 2002. Harper Perennial Modern Classics,
New York, 2009.
Democracy and Disobedience, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1973; Oxford University Press, New
York, 1974; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire,
1994
Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1980; second edition, 1993; third
edition, 2011. ISBN 0-521-22920-0, ISBN 0-521-29720-6,
ISBN 978-0-521-70768-8
Marx, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980;
Hill & Wang, New York, 1980; reissued as Marx:
A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University
Press, 2000; also included in full in K. Thomas
(ed.), Great Political Thinkers: Machiavelli,
Hobbes, Mill and Marx, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1992
The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1981;
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981; New
American Library, New York, 1982. ISBN 0-19-283038-4
Hegel, Oxford University Press, Oxford and
New York, 1982; reissued as Hegel: A Very
Short Introduction, Oxford University Press,
2001; also included in full in German Philosophers:
Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1997
How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-interest,
Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1993; Mandarin,
London, 1995; Prometheus, Buffalo, NY, 1995;
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of
Our Traditional Ethics, Text Publishing, Melbourne,
1994; St Martin's Press, New York, 1995; reprint
2008. ISBN 0-312-11880-5 Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1995
Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal
Rights Movement, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham,
Maryland, 1998; Melbourne University Press,
Melbourne, 1999
A Darwinian Left, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
London, 1999; Yale University Press, New Haven,
2000. ISBN 0-300-08323-8
One World: The Ethics of Globalisation, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 2002; Text Publishing,
Melbourne, 2002; 2nd edition, pb, Yale University
Press, 2004; Oxford Longman, Hyderabad, 2004.
ISBN 0-300-09686-0
Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the
Tragedy of Jewish Vienna, Ecco Press, New
York, 2003; HarperCollins Australia, Melbourne,
2003; Granta, London, 2004
The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics
of George W. Bush, Dutton, New York, 2004;
Granta, London, 2004; Text, Melbourne, 2004.
ISBN 0-525-94813-9
The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World
Poverty. New York: Random House 2009.
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism
Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically.
Yale University Press, 2015.
Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays
on Things That Matter. Princeton University
Press, 2016.
=== Coauthored books ===
Animal Factories (co-author with James Mason),
Crown, New York, 1980
The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making
Babies (co-author with Deane Wells), Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1984. revised American
edition, Making Babies, Scribner's New York,
1985
Animal Liberation: A Graphic Guide (co-author
with Lori Gruen), Camden Press, London, 1987
Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped
Infants (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1985; Oxford University
Press, New York, 1986; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot,
Hampshire, 1994. ISBN 0-19-217745-1
Ethical and Legal Issues in Guardianship Options
for Intellectually Disadvantaged People (co-author
with Terry Carney), Human Rights Commission
Monograph Series, no. 2, Australian Government
Publishing Service, Canberra, 1986
How Ethical is Australia? An Examination of
Australia's Record as a Global Citizen (with
Tom Gregg), Black Inc, Melbourne, 2004
The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices
Matter (or The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices
Matter), Rodale, New York, 2006 (co-author
with Jim Mason); Text, Melbourne; Random House,
London. Audio version: Playaway. ISBN 1-57954-889-X
Eating (co-authored with Jim Mason), Arrow,
London, 2006
Stem Cell Research: the ethical issues. (co-edited
by Lori Gruen, Laura Grabel, and Peter Singer).
New York: Blackwells. 2007.
The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing the
Ancient Contract (with Marian Stamp Dawkins,
and Roland Bonney) 2008. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick
and Contemporary Ethics (with Katarzyna de
Lazari-Radek), Oxford University Press, 2014
Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction
(with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), Oxford University
Press, 2017
=== Edited and coedited volumes and anthologies
===
Test-Tube Babies: a guide to moral questions,
present techniques, and future possibilities
(co-edited with William Walters), Oxford University
Press, Melbourne, 1982
Animal Rights and Human Obligations: An Anthology
(co-editor with Tom Regan), Prentice-Hall,
New Jersey, 1976. 2nd revised edition, Prentice-Hall,
New Jersey, 1989
In Defence of Animals (ed.), Blackwells, Oxford,
1985; Harper & Row, New York, 1986. ISBN 0-631-13897-8
Applied Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1986
Embryo Experimentation (co-editor with Helga
Kuhse, Stephen Buckle, Karen Dawson and Pascal
Kasimba), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1990; paperback edition, updated, 1993
A Companion to Ethics (ed.), Basil Blackwell,
Oxford, 1991; paperback edition, 1993
Save the Animals! (Australian edition, co-author
with Barbara Dover and Ingrid Newkirk), Collins
Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, NSW, 1991
The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity
(co-editor with Paola Cavalieri), Fourth Estate,
London, 1993; hardback, St Martin's Press,
New York, 1994; paperback, St Martin's Press,
New York, 1995
Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1994
Individuals, Humans and Persons: Questions
of Life and Death (co-author with Helga Kuhse),
Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, Germany,
1994
The Greens (co-author with Bob Brown), Text
Publishing, Melbourne, 1996
The Allocation of Health Care Resources: An
Ethical Evaluation of the "QALY" Approach
(co-author with John McKie, Jeff Richardson
and Helga Kuhse), Ashgate/Dartmouth, Aldershot,
1998
A Companion to Bioethics (co-editor with Helga
Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford, 1998
Bioethics. An Anthology (co-editor with Helga
Kuhse), Blackwell, 1999/ Oxford, 2006
The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics
Through Literature (co-edited with Renata
Singer), Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
In Defense of Animals. The Second Wave (ed.),
Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
The Bioethics Reader: Editors' Choice. (co-editor
with Ruth Chadwick, Helga Kuhse, Willem Landman
and Udo Schüklenk). New York: Blackwell,
2007
J. M. Coetzee and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives
on Literature (co-editor with A. Leist), New
York: Columbia University Press, 2010
=== Anthologies of Singer's work ===
Writings on an Ethical Life, Ecco, New York,
2000; Fourth Estate, London, 2001. ISBN 0-06-019838-9
Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics
(edited by Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford,
2001
=== Commentary volumes on Singer's work ===
Jamieson, Dale (ed.). Singer and His Critics.
Wiley-Blackwell, 1999
Schaler, Jeffrey A. (ed.). Peter Singer Under
Fire: The Moral Iconoclast Faces His Critics.
Chicago: Open Court Publishers, 2009
Davidow, Ben (ed.). "Peter Singer" Uncaged:
Top Activists Share Their Wisdom on Effective
Farm Animal Advocacy. Davidow Press, 2013
== See also ==
Animal liberation
Animal liberation movement
Animal liberationist
Argument from marginal cases
Demandingness objection
Effective altruism
Intrinsic value (animal ethics)
Utilitarian bioethics
Utilitarianism
== 
References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Column archive at Project Syndicate
Appearances on C-SPAN
Peter Singer on IMDb
An in-depth autobiographical interview with
Singer
