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The Observer Interview

Animal welfare
Philosopher Peter Singer: ‘There’s no
reason to say humans have more
Sun 21 May 2023 15.00 BST
worth or moral status than animals’
Zoë Corbyn

‘I’ve had to develop a thicker skin’: philosopher Peter Singer. Photograph: Alletta Vaandering
The controversial author on the importance of updating his
landmark book on animal liberation, being ‘flexibly vegan’ and the
ethical dangers of artificial intelligence for the nonAhuman world Most viewed

A
ustralian philosopher Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, Israeli troops, tanks and
published in 1975, exposed the realities of life for animals in bulldozers enter Gaza in
overnight raid
factory farms and testing laboratories and provided a powerful
moral basis for rethinking our relationship to them. Now, nearly
50 years on, Singer, 76, has a revised version titled Animal Liberation Now. It Live Maine shootings: 1
comes on the heels of an updated edition of his popular Ethics in the Real killed and suspected
gunman still at large, po
World, a collection of short essays dissecting important current events, first say A latest updates
published in 2016. Singer, a utilitarian, is a professor of bioethics at Princeton
University. In addition to his work on animal ethics, he is also regarded as the England on brink of Wo
philosophical originator of a philanthropic social movement known as Cup exit after heavy loss
effective altruism, which argues for weighing up causes to achieve the most Sri Lanka A as it happene
good. He is considered one of the world’s most influential – and controversial
– philosophers. Live IsraelHHamas war l
Hamas says ‘almost 50’
Why write Animal Liberation Now? hostages killed in Israel
The last full update was 1990. Though the philosophical arguments have bombardment; Gaza rai
stood up well, the chapters that describe factory farming and what we do to enable ‘next stages of th
war’, says Israeli militar
 animals in labs needed to be almost completely rewritten. I also hadn’t really Live RussiaHUkraine wa
discussed factory farming’s contribution to the climate crisis and I wanted to live: Ukraine to evacuat
reflect on our progress towards animal rights. Effectively, this is a new book children from around
Kupiansk; Slovakia halt
for the next generation, hence the new title.
military aid to Ukraine
What progress have we made in our treatment of animals since the original
book? And what have we learned about animal sentience?
There have been some improvements in factory farming practices in some
regions of the world, but in others we have hit new lows. China now has
enormous factory farms and lacks any national standards for raising animals
for food. Extreme forms of confinement also still dominate the US states with
the most pigs and laying hens. Animal experimentation is now regulated in
many developed nations, but what’s notable is how minimal it is in the US,
where the vast majority of animals used in experiments aren’t covered. On
animal sentience, we now have strong evidence that fish too can feel pain.
There are also good reasons for thinking the same of some invertebrates – the
octopus but also lobsters and crabs. How far sentience extends into other
invertebrates is unclear.

Can you explain your position against speciesism, the belief most humans
hold that we are superior to other animals? Shouldn’t humans count more?
Just as we accept that race or sex isn’t a reason for a person counting more, I
don’t think the species of a being is a reason for counting more than another
being. What is important is the capacity to suffer and to enjoy life. We should
give equal consideration to the similar interests of all sentient beings.
Defenders of speciesism argue that humans have a special rational nature
that sets them apart from animals, but the problem is where that leaves
infants and the profoundly intellectually disabled. Instead of defending the
idea that all humans have rights but no animals do, we should recognise that
many things we do to animals cause so much pain and yet are so inessential
to us that we ought to refrain. We can be against speciesism and still favour
beings with higher cognitive capacities, which most humans have – but that
is drawing a line for a different reason. If there are animals that have higher
cognitive capacities than some humans, there’s no reason to say that the
humans have more worth or moral status simply because they are human.

Many things we The chapters in Animal Liberation Now about animal testing
and factory farming are upsetting to read. Were they upsetting
do to animals cause
to write and rewrite and what pulled you through?
so much pain and
I found them very upsetting, both 48 years ago and as I’ve
yet are so inessential worked on them over the past year. But I also felt driven to
to us that we ought complete them so people know and can help stop it. I’ve had to
to refrain develop a thicker skin and sometimes have had trouble getting
to sleep, but it needed to be done. I do steer away from emotive
language. I’ve never considered myself an animal lover and I
don’t want to only appeal to animal lovers. I want people to see this as a basic
moral wrong.

You have provoked the ire of the disability rights advocates over the years,
including by arguing that parents should have the right the end the lives of
severely disabled newborns. This has been criticised as an ableist view that
could lead to other disabled people being less valued. What’s your
response?
In general, I think it is better to have abilities than not to have them. Most
people hold that view. Obviously, there are forms of discrimination against
disabled people that we should firmly reject. Ableism has a sound purpose
when it calls out discrimination against disabled people on grounds not
related to their disability.

If parents have a newborn with a severe disability and that child needs to be
on a respirator to survive, doctors will invite parents to decide whether to
allow the child to die. That happens regularly and is generally
uncontroversial. Yet it is what the child’s future will be like that is really
relevant. And I think, even in cases where the child doesn’t need a respirator,
parents should be able to consult doctors to reach a considered judgment,
including that the child’s life is not one that is going to be a benefit for the
child or for their family, and that therefore it is better to end the child’s life. If
that is ableist, then it isn’t always wrong to be ableist.

You argue there are certain situations where we could replace the animals
 we experiment on with humans…
During the Covid pandemic, I supported 1Day Sooner, an organisation of well
informed volunteers offering to test the efficacy of candidate vaccines. That
could have saved many thousands of lives by speeding up vaccine
introduction, but the volunteers were rejected. There is also a case for
beneficially using humans in persistent vegetative states from which we can
be absolutely clear that they will never recover. People could sign consent
statements, as they do with organ donation, saying they don’t mind their
body being used for research if that were to happen.

While effective altruism – the philanthropic social movement you helped

originate – has its critics, it has gained a following in recent years, including
in Silicon Valley tech circles (disgraced cryptocurrency founder Sam
Bankman-Fried was prominent in the movement). One newer idea it has
spawned is longtermism. It prioritises the distant future over the concerns
of today and advocates reducing the risk of our extinction, for example, by
thwarting the possibility of hostile artificial intelligence (AI) and colonising
space. To what extent do you endorse longtermism?
We should think about the long-term future and we ought to try to reduce
risks of extinction. Where I disagree with some effective altruists is how
dominant longtermism should become in the movement. We need some
balance between reducing the extinction risks and making the world a better
place now. We shouldn’t negate our present problems or our relatively short-
term future, not least because we can have much higher confidence that we
can help people in these timeframes. Though the lives of people in the future
aren’t of any less value, how we can best help people millennia from now is
uncertain.

Are you vegan and how did you first become concerned about animal
suffering?
“Flexibly vegan” is how I would describe myself today. I don’t do it much,
but I have no objection to eating oysters – I don’t think they can suffer – and
oyster farming is quite an environmentally sustainable industry. Also, if I am
out somewhere where it’s a real problem, I will go for something vegetarian.
That my everyday purchases are vegan is the main thing.

A world of My journey began when I was a graduate student in philosophy

at Oxford University in 1970. It was thanks to another graduate
conscientious
student explaining why he hadn’t chosen the meat option
omnivores would
when we had lunch one day: he was vegetarian because he
produce much less didn’t think the animals were treated right. My wife and I did
meat and dairy some reading and became vegetarians soon after. Becoming
products, with mostly vegan took longer.
vastly less suffering
Conscientious omnivores oppose factory farming but continue
to eat animal products from farmers who treat their animals
well and don’t subject them to suffering. Do they get a pass?
Honestly, I can’t show that they are wrong. Assume that the cows wouldn’t
have existed if they weren’t going to be sold for their meat and the
conscientious omnivores investigate how their food is produced, and can be
confident that the animals really do have good lives and are killed painlessly
and without suffering – then I think they do get a pass. They’re allies in the
movement against factory farming, and a world of conscientious omnivores
would produce much less meat and dairy products, with vastly less
suffering.

What of meat grown from cultured animal cells?

That gets more than a pass and I hope to try it soon. What is needed now is to
produce it cheaply at scale. It is much better for the climate than meat from
animals and for animal suffering. And while it is true that it still suggests that
meat is desirable, there are people who are unwilling to make that switch to
becoming vegan or vegetarian. The companies’ use of fetal bovine serum to
develop their products is regrettable and I am pleased that many companies
have found alternatives and stopped using it, but if there are no alternatives,
its use can be justified. I don’t regard it as a reason for never eating them.

You’ve brought vegan recipes back in Animal Liberation Now. Why

resurrect them and do you have a particular favourite?
Popular demand! In 1975 there weren’t many good vegetarian or vegan
cookbooks so it made sense to include recipes. Then, as that changed, I
didn’t think people needed the recipes any more so I took them out. What I
have put back is different. The focus is on my and my wife’s dishes. Both
vegan recipes from our childhoods that we still make and then things we
have started cooking since becoming mostly vegan. I have shifted to more
Asian food and a favourite is the recipe for dal. It is a good meal and easy to
make.

What are you working on now?

The ethics of AI as it affects animals. A colleague and I published our first
paper on this last year. We need to ensure the AI systems starting to be used
in factory farms to manage animals don’t further negatively affect their lives,
that self-driving cars are programmed to avoid hitting animals and that
biases against farm animals that can be replicated and reinforced through AI
are minimised. ChatGPT refuses to give recipes for cooking dogs on the
grounds that it is unethical but readily provides recipes for cooking chickens.

Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer is published on 8 June by the

Bodley Head (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at
guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Ethics in the Real World: 90 Essays on Things That Matter (updated and
expanded) is published by Princeton University Press

Peter Singer will be speaking in the UK on 4 June at the Hackney Empire,

London, as part of a world tour to discuss Animal Liberation Now

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