Peter Singer

Peter Singer's books include Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter.

From his Q & A with the photographer Howard Schatz:

HS: Suffering has been a major issue for you, powerfully informing your moral philosophy. I would like to explore something that I’m sure you’ve thought about, although I haven’t read anything you’ve written nor heard you discuss – how the fact that your parents escaped the Holocaust has affected you regarding the idea of suffering?

PS: Yes, it’s a good question, but it’s a very difficult question for me to answer because, of course, from my point of view, I came to the views that I hold through reflection, through philosophical arguments and discussion. And although I was always well aware of the background of my family… And not only, as you mentioned, that my parents escaped the Holocaust, but that my grandparents did not. Three of the four of them perished in the Holocaust. So, clearly, I was very aware of that.

But it’s very hard for me to say, really, whether that had a decisive role in the views that I now hold.

HS: You would think such psychological input has informed your objective thinking; that history and your upbringing has had an influence on you.

PS: I’m sure it informed it to the extent of an abhorrence of racism and authoritarian rule, and the use of force in government. Did it lead to the more general views I hold, in particular to the idea that reducing suffering is one of our primary ethical obligations? Possibly… Possibly, it did. But, as I say, I can’t trace that psychologically. I can’t look back and think, yes, I was conscious of that when I adopted this philosophical position.

HS: And that suffering transfers to some identification with the non-human animal kingdom?

PS: Yes, that’s right. Because I do think we see a related phenomenon. Isaac Bashevis Singer, the great Yiddish writer, who’s no relation to me, said: “When it comes to the animals, all men are Nazis.” He...[read on]

Peter Singer is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books, including Animal Liberation, widely considered to be the founding statement of the animal rights movement, Practical Ethics, and One World: Ethics and Globalization.

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