Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Peter Singer: Live - The World's Greatest Moral Philosopher

Transcript

Peter Singer: Live - The World's Greatest Moral Philosopher · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  G'day humans. It's a good time to be alive right now. There's no more rain
• 0:06
  in Sydney and New South Wales. Not the rain we've had. We had horrendous floods
• 0:11
  over the southern summer and
• 0:14
  Interminable, interminable rain. My roof is getting fixed. Couldn't handle it
• 0:19
  leaks everywhere and
• 0:21
  It's just nice to have some cold crisp dry winter weather heading down on the snow this weekend
• 0:27
  Then in a couple of weeks. I'm going to Europe on a holiday. Things are good. I hope things are good for you
• 0:32
  Because things are bad in the world
• 0:35
  And it's a moment to remember the difference between the macro and the micro
• 0:40
  There's a grim prognosis for the global economy that came out this week from the World Bank
• 0:45
  They say that the grinding war in Ukraine
• 0:48
  Added to supply chain chokeholds added to COVID lockdowns in China added to inflation and energy and food prices
• 0:56
  All mean that we're approaching an almost inevitable recession a global recession
• 1:02
  When you have a recession combined with inflation
• 1:05
  We haven't had that since the 1970s. It was awful
• 1:09
  Stagflation they call it very hard to deal with very hard to get out of
• 1:14
  At the same time Europe's dealing with one of the biggest waves of refugees since World War II
• 1:19
  Nearly seven million Ukrainians mainly women and children
• 1:23
  Have streamed across the border to escape that horrendous violence
• 1:28
  What do central banks do about
• 1:31
  inflation without also ruining the economy this week in Australia the reserve banks surprised everybody by
• 1:38
  Implementing the largest possible interest rate rise people have thought that it might be a quarter of a percent
• 1:42
  Some people thought it could be 0.4 of a percent which would have been huge. They went with a full half a percent
• 1:48
  So what's that going to do to the property market which is already declining what's that going to do to the economy and to business
• 1:55
  I guess they're just prioritizing getting inflation under control over everything else
• 2:01
  Meanwhile, how many people in poor countries do you think have been vaccinated against COVID you know our lives go on as
• 2:09
  Basically, they did before the pandemic right now
• 2:13
  We're not wearing masks
• 2:15
  We're socializing again. We're going to the theater
• 2:19
  Most of us have our three jabs most of us have had COVID in
• 2:23
  Poor countries
• 2:25
  Only 14% of people have been fully vaccinated
• 2:31
  It's a bipolar world this one. We're on two streams
• 2:36
  I didn't interview this week on my radio show and by the way if you don't listen to my radio show
• 2:40
  You really should it's on from 1230 to 330 Sydney time every day you can listen on the ABC listen app anywhere in the world
• 2:48
  Uh, and I was speaking with a
• 2:51
  Ukrainian family
• 2:53
  Who have been resettled into a small country town in New South Wales a tiny country town near Tamworth
• 2:59
  And they are one of
• 3:01
  Dozens and dozens of families who are being resettled into this regional area
• 3:06
  largely because of a couple a nosy couple who watched the news and thought they'd do something about it
• 3:12
  They heard that there were these Ukrainian families in southeast Asia this family had been in Thailand
• 3:17
  They were running a tourism business for russians visiting
• 3:21
  Thailand of course russians can't travel anymore. They can't use any money if they are traveling
• 3:26
  And so their visas in Thailand were about to expire. They were going to have to go back to Ukraine
• 3:32
  To shell down blown up
• 3:35
  buildings and no home
• 3:37
  So these Aussies
• 3:39
  Applied for their for refugee status for them got them in and they're helping to set them up in this little town
• 3:44
  And this bloke this Ukrainian bloke was saying
• 3:47
  He's been talking to all his friends in Ukraine about how amazing Australia is
• 3:52
  Excuse me. I almost get checked choked up when I think about him
• 3:56
  He was saying when you go to a small town in Ukraine you don't expect there to be a health center
• 4:01
  And a doctor's office you don't expect there to be a government office that
• 4:05
  Will give you money and help you you don't expect the government to be a place
• 4:09
  Which will provide you with the support you need to get yourself set up
• 4:14
  You don't expect people to be so friendly. He said people people here. They say hello in the street
• 4:19
  I said no friends. They said no, we don't know person, but they say hello anyway. Why do people say hello? They don't even know
• 4:29
  And I thought
• 4:31
  My grandparents came here as refugees from world war two
• 4:36
  And they built a life for themselves
• 4:39
  And it's a source of such gratitude for me and admiration for me that I was able to come to a country that was generous enough
• 4:46
  To welcome us in
• 4:48
  And despite all of the foibles of Australia's quite brutal immigration policy which ever since the second world war has
• 4:56
  Helled that the only way to win over the Australian public and get their support for very high rates of legal immigration
• 5:04
  And one of the world's highest rates of humanitarian refugee resettlement
• 5:09
  Was to make sure that people couldn't come here illegally and therefore
• 5:13
  If you arrive by boat you would be imprisoned in this desert island
• 5:17
  That's a more recent policy from the 1980s and 90s, but that essentially
• 5:22
  Australians had to feel that we were choosing who came here and we were in control of who came here
• 5:26
  And when you're not in control
• 5:28
  You see the dysfunction that voters feel
• 5:32
  And the backlash that voters then support in figures like Trump and the far right in Europe
• 5:38
  And Australia has been blessedly free from those kinds of backlashes
• 5:42
  largely I believe because we have controlled the intake of
• 5:47
  refugees and of migrants
• 5:49
  But when you hear from the horses mouth so to speak when you hear from these people themselves
• 5:54
  about how surprised
• 5:56
  And
• 5:57
  Grateful they are to come to this paradise
• 6:01
  It gives you a new reflection on how lucky we were that through the odds of
• 6:05
  Chance through the cosmic lottery
• 6:08
  We just happened to have been born here
• 6:11
  And it reminds me yet again
• 6:14
  That whatever you're seeing in the headlines about global events
• 6:17
  Your life is actually stitched together through a fabric of experiences
• 6:22
  Between you and the people around you in your life the people you actually know
• 6:25
  The things you actually do on a daily basis
• 6:28
  So if you're about to feel yourself getting down on the state of
• 6:32
  The quote unquote global economy or global politics
• 6:36
  Or what's in the headlines
• 6:38
  Re-focus your attention to the people you know the people you love
• 6:42
  The people you can reach out to with whom you can have conversations that are true
• 6:46
  And authentic and sometimes maybe if you're lucky just a little uncomfortable
• 7:01
  Today on the show a real treat for you a special live event that I did with one of the world's most important living philosophers
• 7:09
  Peter Singer the legendary Australian moral philosopher
• 7:13
  He is currently the chief bioethicist at Princeton University where he spends half the year
• 7:17
  And he spends about the other half in Australia
• 7:20
  I won't introduce him too much because I do so on stage at this live event. I was honored
• 7:25
  By Suzy Jamil who runs thinking one of the most extraordinary
• 7:31
  Companies that arrange as speaking tours for the world's most prestigious intellectuals
• 7:36
  To be the moderator of Peter Singer's Australian tour we did an event in Sydney and in Brisbane
• 7:41
  Unfortunately, I was unavailable for the Melbourne event, but you will be hearing today
• 7:46
  The audio of our first interaction together on stage in Sydney at the end more theater
• 7:53
  Where they packed out paid crowd there to hear the wisdom and the insights of the one and only Peter Singer enjoy
• 8:06
  Before we let Peter onto the stage, I'm going to introduce you to another brilliant man
• 8:15
  Here's our host for this evening
• 8:17
  He is the host of uncomfortable conversations
• 8:20
  He is the host of ABC Radio Afternoons in Sydney
• 8:24
  And I'm so glad he's here with us tonight. Please put your hands together for Josh Zeps
• 8:35
  Hello, oh my goodness we get to kiss again and we get to see incredible philosophers again
• 8:47
  Is this anyone's first night out since the pandemic?
• 8:51
  One person down the front isn't that sweet? Oh
• 8:54
  We know who has no life, but that's great. It's lovely that you're here. Welcome
• 8:59
  Uh as Suzy mentioned I host the afternoon show on ABC Radio Sydney. I have a podcast
• 9:05
  Called Uncomfortable Conversations and that's the last you're going to hear about me. This is all about Peter tonight
• 9:11
  Although if you do like this conversation, it's probably worth subscribing to uncomfortable conversations
• 9:18
  Of which tonight will be an episode so you can always come back and listen to it again
• 9:24
  Peter Singer was educated at Melbourne uni. He went to Oxford University
• 9:28
  Study philosophy got his PhD in Oxford
• 9:31
  He's now the professor of bioethics at Princeton University in the States just outside of New York
• 9:37
  And is widely regarded as the world's most influential living philosopher
• 9:42
  He's written
• 9:43
  co-authored edited co-edited more than 50 books
• 9:48
  The most influential first book that he wrote literally coined the term animal liberation
• 9:54
  And that's where he exploded onto the global scene in 1975 and helped to really reshape not just
• 10:00
  Philosophers thinking about the ethics of how we treat animals
• 10:04
  But the layperson's thinking as well and a lot of people who are vegans and vegetarians attribute their sort of awakening
• 10:10
  They're moral awakening to
• 10:11
  Petersoners work and he went on to continue his thinking about
• 10:17
  How we think about the bioethics of life of human life and the sanctity of life
• 10:23
  and our ideas about euthanasia and abortion
• 10:27
  And he's gotten into lots of trouble for his opinions about things like infanticide and
• 10:33
  mercy killing of
• 10:35
  severely mentally handicapped people
• 10:38
  One of the most influential books that I've ever read was his book rethinking life and death
• 10:42
  Which explores all of that and is an incredible read if you haven't read it
• 10:46
  But in recent years his work has really turned towards promoting the idea of effective altruism
• 10:52
  The idea that we shouldn't just donate a bit of charity money when we can to causes that feel like they deserve our attention in the moment
• 11:00
  Because there's someone in front of us asking for money
• 11:02
  But then we can actually construct a systematic way of leading moral lives
• 11:06
  By donating to the most effective
• 11:09
  Charities in the world and actually analyzing in a kind of mathematical or rigorous or rational way
• 11:14
  What gets the biggest bang for a buck in doing good in the world?
• 11:18
  That's been hugely influential
• 11:20
  In terms of public policy in terms of private philanthropy like people like Bill Gates
• 11:25
  And certainly in terms of the way that philosophers think about what it means to be doing good
• 11:30
  He's set up an organization for that purpose. It's called the life you can save
• 11:34
  And it basically hand picks some of the charities that are most effective that have the greatest yield in terms of alleviating suffering and promoting happiness
• 11:43
  And those charities, I mean the best way if you do want to get involved in that after the after you've heard this conversation
• 11:49
  Would be to have a monthly donation
• 11:52
  If you do donate to the life you can save or rather to one of the charities that's recommended by the life you can save then
• 11:59
  Right now an anonymous donor is matching every every the first monthly donation
• 12:03
  So if you if you pledge 50 bucks a month that first 50 bucks will turn into a hundred bucks
• 12:08
  um
• 12:08
  Just a little bit of housekeeping if you are a meet and greet ticket holder and you're going to meet peter singer after the show
• 12:14
  Then when this is overstay in your seats and we'll get you
• 12:17
  If you were foolish enough not to buy one of those premium tickets and you would like to
• 12:22
  You can after the show you can go to the merch desk and you can upgrade your ticket to meet peter and asking many questions
• 12:29
  um
• 12:30
  There is also a course a digital course so Susie jamele who you just saw who's amazing
• 12:36
  During the pandemic obviously these live events went away and she was able to repurpose thinking
• 12:40
  Into offering online courses and so they've got a fantastic array of different ways of finding out about
• 12:46
  Expanding your mind and finding out about all kinds of intellectual pursuits one of which is a course on effective altruism
• 12:52
  And there is 20% off that course at the moment all proceeds go to charity from that course 20% off if you want to if if you want to hear more after what you've heard tonight
• 13:01
  um
• 13:02
  Lastly at the end of the show. There'll be a Q&A. We'll have half an hour of audience questions
• 13:06
  So if put something pops into your mind and you'd like to ask peter singer
• 13:10
  Then you can line up down the down the middle at the end of the show. I'll tell you when to and there'll be a microphone here for you to ask a question yourself
• 13:17
  Ladies and gentlemen this is peter singer
• 13:28
  Come on out peter
• 13:33
  You
• 13:39
  Good to see you
• 13:46
  I'm glad you got to memo about the shirts
• 13:49
  Yes, definitely
• 13:53
  I didn't mention the prize that you're about to get
• 13:56
  He's getting a million dollar prize
• 14:00
  And what do you think he's doing with his it is worth clapping? What do you think he's doing with his million dollars
• 14:07
  Yeah, unsurprisingly
• 14:09
  It's not going to uh a trip to Rio with hookers and cocaine. It's going to
• 14:17
  It's going to charity and that makes me feel peter like
• 14:21
  People like myself and everyone else in the audience should be doing a lot more and giving a lot more
• 14:27
  Should I be giving more than I do?
• 14:29
  I don't know how much you're giving so that makes it a little hard. I could ask you a million bucks
• 14:34
  No, but obviously if you don't have a million bucks, you can't give that much
• 14:40
  but you know
• 14:42
  I think if you're a middle class Australian basically and I presume the ABC pays you enough to be in that category
• 14:48
  um
• 14:49
  Then
• 14:51
  You should be giving a little bit of it in the states too long
• 14:55
  You should be giving something significant
• 14:58
  And in the book the life you can save which I know you can pick up a free copy of when you're here
• 15:03
  There is actually a kind of a chart at the back depending on what your income is suggesting what you might give
• 15:10
  Starting off with pretty low percentages like you know
• 15:13
  1% for people earning $40,000 a year. This was this is US
• 15:18
  figures really but
• 15:19
  Roughly comparable um because you know that's not that easy to live on nowadays
• 15:24
  And then rising as your income rises
• 15:28
  so
• 15:30
  You know getting up to 5% if you're around a hundred thousand, which I think is really pretty lenient
• 15:36
  Probably should afford more than that, but I'm wanting to make it fairly easy on people because I want a lot of people to say
• 15:42
  Yes, that's right. I can do that. I know one people to say that's too tough
• 15:46
  I'm just going to give up
• 15:48
  So um, you know, and then you get up to 10% and um
• 15:52
  I think I top out at something like a third like 33% you know for those who are really earning millions just again
• 15:58
  So that nobody can really say well, you're asking me to make a big sacrifice
• 16:03
  But why?
• 16:05
  Why should you give yeah
• 16:08
  So there's two ways of answering that one is to say you should give because
• 16:13
  There are a lot of people in the world who are far less fortunate
• 16:17
  Than you or me or probably anybody in this audience um because
• 16:22
  You know instead of living on 40,000 or 100,000 or whatever it might be
• 16:27
  They're living on about two dollars a day. So less than a thousand dollars a year
• 16:33
  Um, that's the world bank standard for extreme poverty roughly speaking means that
• 16:38
  You can't reliably have enough to buy the food that you or your dependence need or to provide shelter
• 16:46
  or
• 16:47
  To get even the most limited most basic kind of medical care if you need it
• 16:52
  Um, and you know generally speaking this is because they went fortunate enough to be born in Australia
• 16:57
  But they were born in um a low-income country and in a low-income family
• 17:02
  So they have very few opportunities. It's very difficult to get out of that situation and
• 17:08
  So what you know, you might think of as pretty trivial what you might spend on a cup of coffee
• 17:14
  Is more than they have to live on for the whole day
• 17:17
  And it's easy to imagine therefore that if you do give them something significant if you give them
• 17:21
  Let's say the equivalent of a daily cup of coffee for you
• 17:25
  You're actually making a really substantial improvement in their life
• 17:28
  You're enabling them to do that, you know, you're you're doubling their income and that makes possible all sorts of things
• 17:35
  Maybe to get together with some capital to start a small business
• 17:39
  maybe to
• 17:40
  replace their leaky satchet roof
• 17:43
  Which anyway needs constant maintenance to keep going with a corrugated iron roof that will keep them dry and last for 10 years more
• 17:50
  so
• 17:52
  So one reason we know one answer your question therefore is
• 17:55
  Because it's a really small sacrifice for you if it's even a sacrifice at all and it's a big difference for them
• 18:02
  You're you're reducing the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world. You're improving lies for people
• 18:08
  But of course you might say well, okay, but still you know
• 18:11
  What's in it for me essentially sometimes when people say why should I do that? That's what they mean
• 18:15
  They mean what's in it for me and I do think there is something in it for you
• 18:20
  And that's why I said it's not really a sacrifice. Yes, it's a small sacrifice in material terms
• 18:26
  but I think one of the problems that
• 18:29
  People who are middle-class are above in an affluent society have is you know to find meaning in their life
• 18:34
  Not everybody maybe but a lot of people get to a point where they're saying
• 18:39
  So why am I doing this? You know what's the point now maybe
• 18:43
  The work that you're doing you can see in itself is is important and
• 18:48
  Making the world a better place and maybe the work you're doing on radio is doing that is helping to get people to think and that's certainly true
• 18:56
  But but there's another thing that you can do and that is by thinking about what you can do to help others
• 19:02
  so I think that
• 19:05
  We refer to as altruism when we talk about the effective altruism movement is actually yes
• 19:10
  It's it's helping others and it's motivated to help others and I do consider it altruistic
• 19:15
  But it actually has this other side that really makes our lives more fulfilling and more meaningful and better for us and
• 19:23
  You know, I think there's there's good psychological research the chose of that's true
• 19:28
  I remember having a conversation with a friend about what he'd do if he won the lottery and
• 19:33
  We were in a group of people and many people were saying oh yeah, I'd give half to charity and then I'd spend this on that and this on that
• 19:39
  And he said why would you give half to charity? I mean like yes
• 19:43
  It's nice, but the reality is that poor people have always been around poor people have always been poor
• 19:47
  You give half to charity and in a year's time there's gonna be no material difference
• 19:50
  There's still gonna be poor there's still gonna be poverty in Africa
• 19:52
  There's still gonna be warlords and famines and that's been the reality of life since the dawn of time in the long-grand scheme of things it doesn't make any difference
• 20:02
  Well, yes, there's always been people in in poverty, but if we're talking about
• 20:07
  The kind of poverty that I was talking about extreme poverty. It's on a school absolute poverty where it's not just
• 20:12
  Relative to others in your society, but it's poverty in the sense of can you meet your basic needs
• 20:17
  There's actually been an enormous
• 20:20
  reduction in that
• 20:22
  Over the years, you know depending how far back you go there was obviously time when the vast majority of the population was in that state
• 20:30
  But even if you go back relatively short period, so so the book the life you can save
• 20:36
  The addition that you can get to take home if you want is a 2019 edition
• 20:40
  I was first published in in 2009 now in the 2009 edition
• 20:47
  I say that the number of people in extreme poverty
• 20:51
  By the world bank standards is around a billion in
• 20:58
  Currently in fact it went up a little bit because of covert but he got down to to 736 million
• 21:05
  In just in just 10 years
• 21:08
  So you know pretty significant drop and in fact, you know, although as I say it went up around 800. It's it's coming down again
• 21:15
  So you shouldn't think about well, you know my giving to charity or lottery winner friends
• 21:22
  That that's not that is that going to solve poverty or not obviously it's not bill gates can't solve poverty but
• 21:30
  It is reducing it and so think about it in terms of there are specific people that you can help
• 21:36
  With your donations and certainly with half the lottery price you could you can help whole villages to get safe drinking water for example
• 21:44
  So that you know they can
• 21:46
  Don't have to walk to a polluted river for an hour each day and boil up the water when they come home
• 21:54
  you can
• 21:55
  Provide bed nets so that they're not going to get malaria and their kids are not going to die from malaria
• 22:00
  There are a whole lot of things that you can do with it
• 22:04
  And you're making a difference to those people and and it's just a mistake to say you know
• 22:08
  It drops in the ocean as if somehow it doesn't change anything
• 22:12
  It changes very specific very concrete things
• 22:15
  Yeah, it matters if you're the person who it's whose life the changes doesn't know those things
• 22:19
  You don't think of yourself as being just a part of a big-game office blob of historically
• 22:24
  You know
• 22:25
  Underprivileged people right. I mean actually what I said to him was I stole one of your metaphors about the the person walking pasta
• 22:32
  A lake and seeing a drowning child and having just bought a beautiful pair of shoes. Do you want to relay that to us?
• 22:39
  Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's that's very relevant to thinking of
• 22:44
  The people in poverty as individuals not as amorphous blobs as you put it
• 22:50
  So if you were if you were walking that's that's that's what I say every time I go to a developing country
• 22:56
  I wave out the window of the train and say hello amorphous blobs and people
• 23:01
  Okay
• 23:05
  You want to be careful when you're being recorded
• 23:09
  um
• 23:11
  So it's um, I actually talk about a shallow pond rather than a lake because I want to make it clear that
• 23:17
  You're in no danger of drowning if you jump in and save this child
• 23:20
  The only bad thing that's going to happen to you is you're going to ruin your expensive shoes
• 23:25
  That you don't have time to take off
• 23:27
  But there's a child there you see that this child a very small child has fallen into the pond um
• 23:34
  You don't know why but there's no parent or babysitter just rushing down to save the child
• 23:38
  So it's really up to you if you don't jump into the pond ruining your shoes this child will drown
• 23:44
  So then I ask my audience as I can't see this audience terribly well with a light smile, you know, so
• 23:50
  Would you jump in and say the child and and generally everybody raises their hands and I'll take it for granted that you would all raise your hands too
• 23:59
  so
• 24:01
  If that's the case
• 24:03
  If you're not going to raise your hands you can tell me why in question time
• 24:06
  um
• 24:07
  If that's the case
• 24:09
  then um
• 24:12
  Think about your situation with regard to people in extreme poverty right because for the cost of an expensive pair of shoes
• 24:18
  You could certainly
• 24:20
  You know make a big difference to somebody's life in extreme poverty. Maybe you could you could save a life even
• 24:25
  Depends a little how expensive your shoes are
• 24:29
  But you know
• 24:31
  The psychological difference I grant is that you can see this child in front of you drowning and so that's why I think really
• 24:38
  You would
• 24:39
  jump in and save that child
• 24:42
  You know get the information about here's an effective charity um that
• 24:48
  Can save lives if you
• 24:50
  Give them a donation and people don't quite feel the same because they don't see the identifiable individual and that's
• 24:57
  Something in our psychological makeup. I believe that we we evolved
• 25:02
  To help people in need when we see them in our own society
• 25:06
  Of course we didn't evolve for a situation where we can send money to the other side of the world and help people
• 25:11
  So we don't have that same
• 25:14
  Emotional impulse to do it
• 25:17
  but when you sort of
• 25:19
  Sit down and think well
• 25:21
  Isn't it just as bad if a child dies on the other side of the world who I could save as if a child dies in front of me
• 25:26
  It's pretty hard to say no
• 25:29
  No, it's not it's not bad
• 25:30
  It doesn't matter if the child dies when I don't see the child that only matters if the child's in front of me
• 25:35
  That's that's sort of personalizing the wrong in a way that seems to me to be
• 25:39
  Fundamentally mistaken
• 25:41
  And your confident that charities are good enough now the good charities that when you donate to them
• 25:47
  That has a direct one-to-one impact on somebody's life and if that's the case then does that mean that
• 25:52
  A literal eradication of poverty and hardship is within reach if we were all to follow those precepts
• 26:00
  So um, I do think that if you
• 26:03
  Go to one of the best charities or this is not a not a statement about charities in general or average charities
• 26:09
  But because there's good research being done now about which of the charities than most effective
• 26:15
  completely independent research by a number of organizations
• 26:20
  You can go online you can look at the life you can save dot org and
• 26:25
  You can see a list of about 20 charities which have been carefully screen
• 26:30
  And I think then you if you give to one of those you can be highly confident
• 26:35
  That it will be going to people who need it you know, of course
• 26:38
  You know every charity has to have some administration otherwise it wouldn't even be able to check up on the programs
• 26:43
  What it's doing
• 26:45
  So, you know, let's say 90 cents in every dollar maybe is is going to be directly benefiting the people
• 26:50
  Um, who you want it to be benefiting
• 26:52
  um, so yes, I do think that
• 26:56
  You can be confident of that now. Does that mean that you could eradicate poverty?
• 27:02
  Probably not completely because you know your
• 27:05
  Friend who said, you know, well, there's always going to be warlords and tyrants and so on um
• 27:09
  That's probably true at least on a on a local level
• 27:14
  And then there's going to be disasters that you know, it's very hard to get to all the people who are affected by them
• 27:19
  So the complete eradication of poverty
• 27:22
  We're not going to see any time soon
• 27:25
  Um, but the continued reduction of poverty
• 27:30
  So that you know two or three hundred million fewer people being in poverty
• 27:35
  Um, just in the 10 years between those two editions
• 27:38
  Um, the sort of level coming down
• 27:42
  The sustainable development goals talked about eliminating extreme poverty by 2030
• 27:48
  I think that's again a little optimistic
• 27:51
  But um, the idea that you know, there's mass poverty that there's hundreds of millions of people in a state of uh extreme poverty
• 27:59
  I think yes, that could be eradicated if we had more will if we put more resources into that
• 28:04
  I think we could reduce that to
• 28:07
  You know pockets smaller pockets of people living in different parts of the world that for one reason or another
• 28:12
  With a political or geographic are really hard to reach and get to
• 28:17
  And in addition to alleviating poverty and improving the lives of people
• 28:20
  You're obviously very concerned with alleviating the suffering of animals of uh of non-human animals
• 28:25
  Um, let's not I don't think rehash the basic principle as to why we shouldn't have industrial agriculture and concentrated animal feeding operations
• 28:34
  where we're torturing uh
• 28:36
  Animals and for the purpose of slaughtering and for meat because I think that your success I agree with that already
• 28:42
  I would hazard a guess that if we did a poll
• 28:45
  uh, you know that your success and the success of others
• 28:48
  I mean it's almost a half century since you wrote animal liberation and I think that case has largely been one
• 28:53
  Amongst uh most right-thinking people, but there is a counter pushback, which is
• 28:58
  Okay, let's exclude those horrendous
• 29:01
  industrialized farming situations and talk more broadly about eating animals
• 29:06
  There is a cycle of life
• 29:07
  This is natural the lion eats the gazelle even if you're a vegetarian the combine harvester turns up grasshoppers
• 29:14
  You know, we're all in this together and therefore eating animals is a natural the natural order of things
• 29:21
  What's the retort to that?
• 29:23
  Well first I don't really like this idea that the natural order of things is a good order of things because
• 29:30
  Not only you know the natural order of things may be for for us in particular species to be omnivores and to eat meat
• 29:37
  But maybe the natural order of things also is for a wage war against our neighbors
• 29:45
  And we don't want to say it therefore that's okay. Maybe the natural
• 29:50
  order of things is
• 29:52
  For males to be dominant over females you look at most societies. That's the case um, you know
• 29:59
  But we may want to change that we may say that's not the right thing to do so
• 30:04
  So my first point is that I would object to the argument from something being natural to it being good
• 30:10
  I think I think that's a mistake
• 30:13
  Secondly
• 30:15
  You know your point about the combine harvester
• 30:18
  Turns up the grasshoppers and maybe it occasionally turns up some
• 30:23
  Small
• 30:24
  You know mask or something like that as well
• 30:26
  And so this is not a this is not a point about purity. This is not a point about saying
• 30:32
  My hands are clean. I'm not in any way responsible for any bad thing that happens to any animal
• 30:40
  That would be a very difficult way to live
• 30:44
  Um, and especially if we think that insects are sentient as well
• 30:48
  That's just a separate question, but you know then it becomes I think quite impossible
• 30:52
  um
• 30:54
  But to me it's about
• 30:56
  Minimizing the the suffering that we cause and of course trying to make world better and do positive things as well
• 31:04
  So so the fact that um, there's less suffering going on in some other forms of animal raising
• 31:11
  Then there is in the factory farms that uh, you agreed with me shouldn't be there at all um
• 31:17
  Isn't the reason for saying okay, so then I might as well go on and purchase these products
• 31:23
  Um, I think I think we can do better than that um and we can aim higher and again
• 31:27
  I don't think that this is a real sacrifice um, you know once you're
• 31:33
  Enjoying the way you're living and eating and um you're
• 31:36
  Feeling that this is fully in accord with your values. I think it's a good way to live
• 31:40
  You just uh, you just mentioned in an aside the question of whether or not insects sentient
• 31:46
  Is that what matters here sentience? I mean how do we construct uh, sort of a hierarchy of value of living species or do we do that?
• 31:54
  And maybe you want to sort of tell us what speciesism
• 31:57
  Yeah is yeah, okay, so all right. I'll start with that part of it um
• 32:02
  Speciesism is a term that I didn't actually coin was coined by somebody I knew when I was in Oxford
• 32:10
  Richard writer um, but I suppose I popularized um and
• 32:16
  It's intended to make an analogy with those other isms that
• 32:20
  We are familiar with and disapprove of specifically say racism or sexism
• 32:26
  um, and it's intended to say that just as
• 32:30
  Well, maybe just as is a little simplistic, but you know in a somewhat analogous way to the way in which
• 32:37
  We think that discrimination on the base of race or sex is wrong
• 32:42
  So discrimination on the base of species is also wrong. That is to say that
• 32:48
  The interest of a being let's say the interest in not suffering and not feeling pain
• 32:53
  um
• 32:54
  Matters less if the being is not a member of the species homo sapian than it matters if
• 33:00
  There being is a member of that species
• 33:03
  I think is a prejudice
• 33:05
  In favor of our own species and against other species
• 33:08
  um, and that's not to say that you know that
• 33:12
  There might be things about
• 33:14
  Him about homo sapiens that are valuable um and that maybe
• 33:19
  Give our lives a different kind of value from beings who
• 33:23
  don't have our cognitive abilities who
• 33:26
  Don't think of their life in a biographical sense who don't sort of plan for the future and
• 33:32
  Work now in order to get
• 33:34
  benefits later, you know, maybe years later um, you know those things do make a difference to
• 33:41
  The value of a life to how wrong it is to take a life. I accept that but
• 33:47
  If you a capable of feeling pain or pleasure
• 33:50
  um, and that's you know sentience is like a shorthand for that I think uh then
• 33:56
  You're interested in feeling pain or pleasure
• 34:00
  Should not be discounted because you're not a member of our species or of any particular species
• 34:06
  so
• 34:07
  That's what speciesism is trying to avoid that and that's why
• 34:12
  Sentience is important if a being is sentient then there's something that it's like to be that being
• 34:18
  There's something that it's like to be that being when pain is inflicted on it
• 34:22
  Uh, if a being is not sentient
• 34:25
  Let's say it's it's a plant and I don't I know there can be some discussion about this
• 34:30
  But I don't believe the plants are sentient then there's nothing that it's like to be
• 34:36
  That let us or whatever it might be um, and so you know, even though you you might would say you're growing your own
• 34:42
  Letters and you ready to harvest you pull off the leaves or you cut it with a knife
• 34:48
  You know, it's not feeling anything so in that sense it doesn't have
• 34:52
  The relevant kind of interests um in not feeling pain or or pleasure
• 34:57
  So that's why I do think it's it's relevant to ask which beings
• 35:02
  are sentient and
• 35:04
  As my remark about insect suggested I think there's there's some gray areas
• 35:09
  So I have no data at all at vertebrates a sentient
• 35:13
  Um, the nervous systems are so similar to ours their reactions are similar to ours
• 35:17
  usually
• 35:18
  If they're experiencing pain and you give them analgesics of the kind that we get
• 35:22
  You know, whether it's aspirin or paracetamol or something like that um, their pain behavior is relieved
• 35:28
  um
• 35:29
  So I think it's pretty clear about vertebrates and obviously some invertebrates if some of you have seen the film about the octopus my teacher or
• 35:36
  seen seen videos about
• 35:38
  Octopus solving problems
• 35:40
  It's impossible to believe that they're not conscious beings um and yet they're their mollusks
• 35:46
  They're not they're not vertebrates
• 35:48
  But what's interesting about that Peter is that a lot of people's conclusions about eating octopus is after watching my octopus teacher
• 35:55
  on Netflix
• 35:56
  Would change because of the intellect of the octopus and I think this is an interesting thing to tease out like does intellect
• 36:03
  Matter or is it just capacity to feel pain? There's that scene in
• 36:06
  In pub fiction where they're talking a bee says he doesn't he doesn't eat pig
• 36:10
  Sorry, because it's a dirty animal then you know
• 36:13
  They're comparing dogs and pigs and he says that it would have to be one charming motherfucking pig
• 36:19
  In comparison comparing the personality of a dog and a pig
• 36:23
  Like does it does an organism's ability to sort of understand the world come into its moral standing
• 36:30
  I think it does come into its moral standing and that's why as I said with
• 36:35
  Humans who are capable of seeing their life as a whole and planning ahead and so on
• 36:38
  I think that is relevant to the wrongness of taking life
• 36:42
  Not to the relevance of just inflicting pain
• 36:46
  Where you know non-life threatening pain, but but I do think it's it's relevant in some ways
• 36:52
  with their octopus with my octopus teacher. I'm
• 36:55
  I'm not sure whether
• 36:57
  Some people realize for the first time that octopus is is clearly a sentient being because they might have thought you know well
• 37:05
  It's not even going to feel pain or something or or did they think that it's a being who can relate to other humans
• 37:10
  As in the film and therefore it's wrong
• 37:13
  It's sort of be like a capacity for affection or a capacity for
• 37:17
  Relipto building relationships in that animal that seems morally salient to people. Yeah some curiosity maybe as well
• 37:24
  Yeah, yeah, people identify with that I think that's probably true fallaciously
• 37:32
  Again, if what we're thinking of doing is is hauling the animal out of its environment and
• 37:38
  You know killing it or allowing it to suffocate as we do with with
• 37:42
  tens of billions of fish each year
• 37:44
  Then I think it's fallacious. Yes. I think you know
• 37:47
  Whether they can perform relationships with us is not really relevant to that
• 37:52
  But you know I can understand why people feel a different kind of attraction they identify with it more
• 37:59
  And they think that there's more going on in them in the conscious mind of the octopus than they knew before they saw that film
• 38:05
  So is it worse to eat a dog than an oyster?
• 38:08
  Than an oyster. Yeah, well, I'm not sure that an oyster is any and although an oyster in octopus about mollusks
• 38:14
  The octopus fully has a quite evolved developments
• 38:19
  Uh nervous system and oysters really don't maybe because they let me be let's say a prawn so that it's a fair competition
• 38:26
  You know, they both got nervous systems and brains dogs and prawns. Yeah
• 38:30
  um
• 38:31
  I think we can be more confident still of the kind of pain that the vertebrates or the dogs feel let's say than than shrimps
• 38:38
  again, you know shrimps
• 38:40
  I think probably we should give them the benefit of the dad
• 38:43
  assume that they can feel pain
• 38:45
  But you might think that it's
• 38:47
  In some ways less acute than that of a dog
• 38:50
  Um, but the comparison between a dog and a pig I think is quite wrong because you know
• 38:54
  It wasn't for nothing that George Orwell made the pigs the bosses of animal farm
• 38:58
  Um, they really I think they are fully equally intelligence the dogs and if people don't relate to them
• 39:04
  Um, we'll think that they're dirty. Well, you know
• 39:07
  That it's just that we don't choose them as companion animals maybe
• 39:10
  Because dogs at pack animals they make good companion animals
• 39:13
  They look up to the others in their pack as we we are if they're out
• 39:16
  You know dogs we're living with and and pigs don't do that to the same extent
• 39:21
  Um, but you know, I know that there are people who live with pigs and had good relations with their pigs
• 39:27
  George Clooney George Clooney had a pig. All right. Yeah. There you go. It must be good. Yeah
• 39:33
  The one criticism of your work Peter in recent years has come from this sort of Silicon Valley
• 39:39
  You know techno utopian dude bros over there who
• 39:46
  Who perhaps feel that it's a little bit centered on the here and now and the sort of practical nuts and bolts of alleviating
• 39:52
  Suffering right now and not and not not forward looking enough because you know
• 39:58
  Thinking about like the the philosopher Nick Bostrom's theories about what the future is going to hold
• 40:04
  Maybe you can just articulate some of that the idea that we are on the on the cusp of
• 40:09
  As an era of super intelligent machines of unifying human beings without official intelligence of
• 40:17
  The flourishing of humankind the likes of which we could never have dreamed
• 40:22
  planetary expansions and so on and that really we should be diverting resources into making sure that
• 40:27
  That kind of stuff gets off the ground
• 40:30
  Not just making sure that you know very very poor people are a little bit less very very poor
• 40:35
  Yeah, um, that is an interesting line of thought um
• 40:40
  So there are some philosophers Nick Nick Bostrom is an Oxford philosopher is sort of certainly one of the
• 40:46
  pioneers of this but
• 40:48
  There's an Australian called Toby Ord who's now in Oxford. He's written a book called the precipice which is about this
• 40:55
  Um, and there's another Oxford philosopher called Will McCaskill who's coming out with a book quite soon that I've read the draft of
• 41:01
  Um, and they're wanting to look into the long-term future right and they're not just talking about next century or even the next millennium
• 41:08
  um, you know, they're talking about ethics for the next billion years
• 41:12
  Um, and I find this a little hard to fathom. I have enough trouble getting people to think about ethics for people who are on the other side of the world
• 41:19
  Um or for other species
• 41:22
  um
• 41:23
  But that pointed you know
• 41:25
  Just to try and state the argument for them in the in the strongest way
• 41:30
  um, the claim is that
• 41:32
  If our species survives the next century or two and continues to develop
• 41:37
  Technologies in the way that we have been over the last uh
• 41:42
  century
• 41:43
  Uh
• 41:44
  We will be able not only to live on this planet but to colonize other planets
• 41:50
  So the silicon valley dude that you probably most hate in mind is his Elon Musk right who's
• 41:55
  Setting out to colonize Mars fairly soon. He hopes um, but you know and base us. They're all at it
• 42:02
  They're all building their giant penis spaceships to go into into space
• 42:06
  I think musk is actually more of more genuinely thinking of the long-term future
• 42:10
  And it certainly connected more to the effective altruising community than Bezos has who was
• 42:16
  Mackenzie Scott might be interested in uh a bit of effective altruism, but I don't think Bezos is particularly um
• 42:23
  But uh so just to to to put this this argument um
• 42:29
  Not just colonizing other planets in the solar system, but um going you know
• 42:34
  There is what a billion stars in the in the galaxy and um so many of them will have planets that could be inhabited
• 42:42
  And we'd be able to travel where and we could spread ourselves throughout the galaxy
• 42:47
  Um, and then as you said, you know, maybe we can also
• 42:51
  Put conscious minds into silicon chips and um we can have more
• 42:55
  Intelligent beings who are much more low maintenance in the sense that uh, you know, they don't need to grow food for themselves
• 43:02
  the same way uh
• 43:04
  so
• 43:06
  so um
• 43:07
  Nick bostrom has this sort of vision of an absolutely vast number of lives. He he
• 43:13
  Does some calculation about how many
• 43:16
  Lives this the universe could hold and he comes to um 10 to the 54th. So those of you are mathematically inclined
• 43:23
  We'll know what an absolutely
• 43:25
  Unimaginable number that is and then then the argument goes like this so
• 43:30
  Suppose that we were to become extinct
• 43:33
  Suppose that something really bad would have happened um and with Putin's nuclear saber rattling
• 43:38
  It's not too hard to think of one thing although
• 43:41
  um bostrom is actually in his book super intelligence is more concerned about
• 43:46
  Us getting artificial general intelligence wrong and uh somehow designing
• 43:52
  Intelligence that's smarter than us
• 43:54
  But that um is not benevolent um and that uh wipes us out
• 43:59
  And may not even be conscious itself, but may just be very you know intelligent in the non-conscious sense
• 44:06
  So so his point is then
• 44:08
  That if we were to become extinct
• 44:10
  Uh, there would be this incredibly vast loss of value the loss of the value of all of these lives and there's also a
• 44:18
  An assumption here that because our technology is improved
• 44:22
  We will be able to give all these vast numbers of beings good lives
• 44:26
  So we'll know how to make life rich and fulfilling
• 44:30
  Beyond anything that we can even dream of at the moment
• 44:34
  Uh, so
• 44:36
  So therefore they say
• 44:39
  Rather than worry about trying to improve the lives of
• 44:43
  A billion people in poverty here on this planet
• 44:46
  We should be thinking about this in much faster number of lives
• 44:51
  Because in a sense we are at the hinge of history right if we don't
• 44:56
  Survive through the next century or two though none of those lives will happen because there doesn't seem to be
• 45:02
  A lot of intelligent life around the universe right none of it has come to see us yet
• 45:06
  So you know may there may be intelligent life in the universe
• 45:09
  It's so vast but maybe not in the Milky Way galaxy
• 45:12
  So maybe you know that would remain uninhabited for a very long number amount of time
• 45:19
  So um, so that's kind of the point that in a sense
• 45:23
  Anything that you could do will which will increase the probability of us surviving
• 45:27
  Getting through this
• 45:29
  Air at this time when we can colonize other planets and we're not in such danger of extinction
• 45:33
  Because whatever happens on this planet wouldn't wipe out our species
• 45:37
  Um, but that's what we should be focusing on and do you agree with the premise that we are at a hinge point in history?
• 45:44
  I think it's possible that we are. Yes. Um, I do think the technological progress is remarkable
• 45:49
  And I think that if we do survive another century it'll be even more remarkable beyond what we can imagine
• 45:56
  So um, I'm somewhat attracted by the argument. I'm on the other hand. I'm put off by
• 46:03
  what seems to me the
• 46:05
  The very low chance that we would know at this stage what to do about some of the problems of so Boston wants to talk about that is
• 46:14
  When would we get this intelligence artificial intelligence that is smarter than us, right?
• 46:20
  Um
• 46:21
  There are predictions a lot of predictions around and they range from
• 46:25
  20 or 30 years to
• 46:28
  Sometime, you know, 50 or 100 years now
• 46:32
  most of the people that I talked to in
• 46:35
  AI area think that the 20 years is is completely unrealistic that
• 46:39
  You know, we we've got machines that can be to suggest but that's a very limited set of parameters
• 46:46
  And it has nothing to do with being able to sort of add smart us in
• 46:50
  Directing the future of the planet. So if you think that it's let's say 50 years in the 2070s
• 46:59
  Then I don't think that we would know at this stage how we
• 47:03
  Would be able to guard against these machines that are still 50 years in the future
• 47:08
  Um
• 47:09
  I mean all of the all of the pre-development is taking place now, right?
• 47:14
  I don't mean 50 years sounds like a long time, but animal liberation your book was published almost 50 years ago
• 47:18
  The symptoms has been on the air for 25 years. So it's just two lots of the symptoms right
• 47:22
  It'll it'll come they argument is it'll come sooner than we think and instead of it being an arms race between four profit
• 47:29
  Companies in China and the United States
• 47:32
  Just trying to get smart computers to be able to sort of out with each other
• 47:38
  Maybe there should be ground rules now about
• 47:41
  Even if it's just simple principles that are embedded into all of these systems so that they can't ever do harm to human beings or whatever that might be
• 47:48
  I have absolutely no problem with that
• 47:51
  And I do think that it's good that there are very smart people like like Boston and Auden Macaskill and
• 47:57
  There's a global priorities institute that they got
• 48:00
  Anyway Auden yeah, no Boston too. They all got set up at Oxford and they've got money to do other research
• 48:05
  And there's a future of humanity institute at Cambridge
• 48:08
  And so I'm glad that there are these centers and people are thinking about this what I object to is the idea
• 48:14
  That the money that we're putting into helping people in extreme poverty or
• 48:18
  Fighting climate change which by the way most of them don't think of as an existential risk because they say yeah
• 48:24
  You know climate change could be bad, but there'll still be a you know a few million people surviving in Antarctica or in the north of north
• 48:31
  Poland north of Norway or Siberia or somewhere
• 48:34
  Um so so it's not an existential risk because then eventually the planet will cool down and again
• 48:39
  And we'll repopulate the earth and yes, it'll set back technology and colonizing other planets by a couple of thousand years
• 48:46
  But you know as a fraction of a billion years that's nothing much
• 48:50
  So you know, I don't I don't think
• 48:54
  That we ought to be putting all of these resources into that
• 48:58
  I don't think we know enough. I think it's it's good to have people trying to work out ground rules as you say
• 49:03
  but
• 49:04
  It's too much of a diversion of from really important causes that I think are important now for something that's
• 49:11
  Very speculative as to whether it's going to make a difference in the right direction
• 49:16
  Another thing that a lot of the Silicon Valley tech bros are into
• 49:20
  As I as I turned them
• 49:23
  Is longevity research and the you know the possibility that we're on the cusp not only of
• 49:28
  Radical transformations in technology and transportation
• 49:32
  And artificial intelligence, but in how long we can lead healthy lives, you know
• 49:37
  There is a there are a whole cohort of people who think that
• 49:40
  Yeah, there are there are children alive today who will be living
• 49:44
  routinely lives of 150 years
• 49:46
  In good health. Would that be moral?
• 49:50
  Would that be moral? Yeah, I think it would
• 49:53
  I mean
• 49:54
  It depends on a number of other things really. I think so
• 49:58
  It depends on whether by the time we you know we get to this point we have
• 50:03
  taken care of
• 50:05
  Some of the issues that I was talking about about extreme poverty whether
• 50:09
  Um
• 50:10
  People can get an education whether
• 50:12
  People women in particular can control their fertility as I might want to
• 50:17
  Whether there is a concern about
• 50:21
  Growing population in the world or whether that's in fact, you know some countries already there's a concern about falling population
• 50:27
  but but not globally um, so
• 50:31
  To some extent it would depend on that because you could argue that if in fact
• 50:35
  The world is starting to exceed its capacity
• 50:39
  And technology hasn't enabled us to solve those problems
• 50:42
  then um to extend the life of people to double the lifespan of people
• 50:48
  Is just going to create more of a problem
• 50:50
  Um, so you know, there could be circumstances in which that would not be moral
• 50:55
  But in principle if you could do that and especially if you could make it available to everybody who wanted it
• 51:01
  Um, I would see see that as a desirable thing to do um
• 51:06
  It assumes also by the way that you don't just live to 150
• 51:09
  But you live to 150 in a state that is as
• 51:13
  Good as it is now at whatever age you think is a good state
• 51:17
  Sure, I mean, so you don't give any credence to the argument that you know for those additional
• 51:23
  50 or 60 years of life that person is taking up resources that really belong to future generations
• 51:29
  What do you think the people so I would hope that that's not the case um and that the technology has improved so that
• 51:37
  The we're not the resource not limited in that way, you know, because I mean we shouldn't be doing this research to learn aren't people living in poverty
• 51:44
  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing the research, but uh, I think if it were really to be
• 51:51
  implemented on a wide scale
• 51:53
  Um, and and there were still that shortage of resources that might might be the case. I mean, you know, it's
• 51:59
  What when people talk about using up resources that other people need it does assume a zero some game
• 52:05
  And I think that's not right um if you have you know
• 52:09
  You might argue that if you have if you extend the productive working life of people including
• 52:16
  Scientists and people who are developing new technologies by 50 years um
• 52:21
  They'll use their experience that they built up to do even better things than they've done now
• 52:26
  So you might actually it might be a tool for making life better for everybody
• 52:31
  I mentioned in the introduction that some of you are most controversial opinions have to do with the sanctity of life
• 52:36
  Ethic uh surrounding euthanasia
• 52:39
  Infanticide and abortion and so on where does your thinking come from on that can you explain it to people who don't understand?
• 52:45
  Yeah, so it comes from a I think couple of different places really um the simplest one is that it comes from the general view that I hold that suffering is a bad thing
• 52:55
  And if you know if you ask what's a common thread in my
• 52:58
  Positions about global poverty about animals and about the sanctity of the sanctity of life ethic
• 53:04
  Um it is that there's needless suffering in these areas that we could um make changes in the in the arrangement so that there wasn't that kind of suffering
• 53:13
  And in fact, I think the easiest one to change and one that has now been changed in
• 53:20
  Significant parts of the world and I will say in every state in Australia except the one I'm in now
• 53:26
  Um is that when people are terminally ill or
• 53:30
  incurable ill and they judge the the condition of their life is such that it's not worth living and they don't want to it to continue
• 53:38
  um
• 53:39
  They instead of
• 53:41
  Nature taking its course, which is often does in cruel and painful ways. They could choose
• 53:46
  uh to end their life
• 53:48
  You mainly and peacefully in the circumstances that they want
• 53:52
  um, so that's my views about
• 53:55
  Voluntry's in Asia or as we're now calling it voluntary assisted dying
• 54:00
  um
• 54:00
  Which as I say every state in Australia except New South Wales
• 54:04
  um now has legislated for and
• 54:07
  uh
• 54:08
  A number of a number of other countries and a number of states of the United States and you know more are doing it all time
• 54:14
  Spain has quite recently so it's not as if Catholic countries aren't doing this and uh
• 54:20
  Portugal looks like they're about to do it uh, so um
• 54:24
  Yeah, I think that's something that's happening and I think uh
• 54:28
  You know whether whether you like me you think it's really important to reduce suffering or whether you think
• 54:33
  Individual autonomy and freedom are good things
• 54:36
  I think you ought to be able to agree that that's a sensible reform
• 54:40
  The laws that we have here in Australia tend to permit people to uh kill themselves
• 54:46
  You know with the assistance of a physician
• 54:49
  When they're in that state, but they tend not to allow the physician to do it
• 54:54
  Him or herself
• 54:55
  Which means that people with motor neurone diseases people with dementia people with all sorts of conditions that make an impossible
• 55:01
  For them to make that judgment and for them to do it themselves are still left in the lurch when should it be okay for a doctor to kill someone
• 55:10
  I think I think that you're right about the laws we have in Australia and and actually the laws in the United States in the various states that have that are similar
• 55:20
  but
• 55:21
  I think the Netherlands
• 55:23
  Belgium and Luxembourg certainly allow doctors to give lethal injections
• 55:27
  uh, and I think that that's
• 55:30
  reasonable I think the the law the way that the laws in Australia have been formulated was really political
• 55:37
  You know, it was a compromise to get something through parliament um, and I think it was worth doing
• 55:44
  Because I'm a pragmatist and I think we should think about consequences
• 55:47
  It it was worth doing for that reason, but it's not ideal um
• 55:52
  Some of the cases that you talked about are being discussed in different countries
• 55:55
  So I'm you talked about people with with dementia um our laws don't allow that you have to actually be competent at the time
• 56:03
  Uh, but uh Canada which uh has
• 56:07
  The same sort of laws that most of Australia has now um is has actually set up a parliamentary commission to look at
• 56:15
  The idea of giving advanced directives for people in early stages of dementia or know that they're getting dementia
• 56:21
  So that they wouldn't have to become it under the time they could
• 56:24
  Um, specify that when they reach a certain level they would like to have their life ended peacefully
• 56:30
  And I would support that kind of reform as well
• 56:33
  I want to talk about the pushback that you used to get from the religious right that you now increasingly get from
• 56:40
  progressive university students
• 56:42
  But before doing so it might be worth articulating what their most upset about it's not just youth in Asia
• 56:48
  It's also the question of severely mentally handicapped people and uh infants who are born with no prospect for a good life
• 56:55
  How should those cases be handled?
• 56:57
  Right so
• 56:59
  This is where I said before that my views on
• 57:02
  voluntary as an asia or assisted dying. I really stemmed from my views about the reduction of suffering
• 57:07
  um
• 57:08
  But I started thinking about the case of how we ought to treat uh infants who are born with
• 57:15
  um
• 57:16
  very severe disabilities
• 57:19
  uh
• 57:20
  When I was well
• 57:22
  There were two strands that come together here
• 57:24
  One of them I suppose was thinking about when it's wrong to take life
• 57:28
  Which was influenced by my views about animals my
• 57:31
  View that speciesism is wrong um and one thing that you know once once you think about that
• 57:39
  Then you realize very sharply that
• 57:43
  The lives of all human beings are regarded as sacrosanct
• 57:48
  That's the sanctity of life doctrine or as inviolable would be another way of putting it um and
• 57:54
  uh at least until these laws that we've been talking about came into effect
• 57:59
  The legal view was that it was always wrong
• 58:02
  Directly and intentionally to take the life of an innocent human being
• 58:06
  uh
• 58:07
  But that was never thought about animals
• 58:10
  um
• 58:11
  Not only because we kill animals to eat them but um
• 58:15
  You're the nature of course, you know if you have a dog who's really old and suffering
• 58:19
  Everybody would think it's the right thing to take your dog to the vet and um
• 58:24
  Have your dog put to sleep peacefully rather than continue to suffer
• 58:28
  So I started thinking about well
• 58:30
  What are the differences here? Why would some people think that the killing of a normal of a human being is is worse and
• 58:38
  The only thing that I could think of that would
• 58:41
  Defend this justify it is something to do with the cognitive capacities and in fact I mentioned it earlier the idea that
• 58:48
  We think about our lives over a longer term that we have plans for the future
• 58:54
  Um and to you know killing one of us will interrupt those plans would would make what you've been doing
• 59:01
  Uh pointless a futile um because you couldn't live to fulfill your plans and that's generally not true of
• 59:08
  Of non-human uh of non-human animals um, I don't think they planned the same extent
• 59:15
  uh and
• 59:17
  So then if you think that that makes a difference and then you say well, so here's a here's an infant who's that's been born
• 59:24
  with
• 59:26
  Very severe severe brain damage whether it's um genetic whether it's because of premature birth and a massive
• 59:33
  Bleeding in the brain that has destroyed most of the brain which sometimes happens um
• 59:39
  And uh we go to great lengths often to keep these infants alive
• 59:44
  So we'll put premature infants on respirators and keep them alive
• 59:50
  Particularly I would say more in the United States than here um here doctors tend actually
• 59:55
  Be more ready to discontinue those kinds of treatments
• 59:59
  Uh
• 1:00:00
  Hopefully after consultation with parents when I started thinking about this in the 1980s
• 1:00:05
  Doctors were more paternalistic than they are now um now that
• 1:00:09
  They I think generally we'll talk to the parents about
• 1:00:12
  Whether they're okay with turning off the respirator on their child because of the child's poor prospects
• 1:00:18
  Um and that seemed to me to be a reasonable thing to do
• 1:00:22
  Um given that again um, there isn't this capacity for planning your life
• 1:00:27
  And of course that's true of all infants not just ones with disabilities um, but it may be true for some
• 1:00:32
  People older people who have very profound
• 1:00:36
  Disabilities so
• 1:00:39
  They can't make decisions for their lives. They can't plan for their lives and I think therefore
• 1:00:45
  We are effectively deciding whether they will live or die if we put them on the machines if we treat them
• 1:00:51
  With antibiotics when they get infections they will live
• 1:00:55
  Hope more likely to live if we don't do that they're more likely to die um
• 1:01:00
  And they can't decide they can't express an opinion on it. So I think we have to do it and
• 1:01:07
  Then you might ask well
• 1:01:08
  Who are the people who should do it and certainly in the case of of infants
• 1:01:13
  I think that the parents must play a decisive role in that of course the parents should be advised
• 1:01:20
  Um, they can be advised I used to say they should be advised by their doctors
• 1:01:24
  Then people from disability organizations came and talked to me and said
• 1:01:28
  Doctors are not always well informed on what life is like with particular disabilities um, they don't know
• 1:01:33
  They may be they may have prejudices against disabilities
• 1:01:36
  So I can change my view and I said you know
• 1:01:39
  Parents should consult with organizations of
• 1:01:43
  Parents of children with this disability to get a better sense of what it's like to live with such a child
• 1:01:48
  Um or if you know if it's a case where you can consult with the children themselves
• 1:01:53
  Um
• 1:01:54
  Then you would do that but generally we are talking about people. You don't have the mental capacities to do that
• 1:02:00
  Though there might be some exceptions. I'd make where they're physical abnormalities are very severe
• 1:02:06
  So
• 1:02:07
  So it's really a question of saying well
• 1:02:09
  Somebody has to decide who should decide and so my position has never been
• 1:02:15
  As it's sometimes I think mistated in by my critics that
• 1:02:20
  People with a certain level of disability should not live
• 1:02:24
  That they should be killed. I've never said that what I've always said is um
• 1:02:28
  I think parents in consultation with their doctors and in consultation with people who are well informed about what the condition of their child is
• 1:02:36
  Is going to be like um, they should make these decisions and but they shouldn't only make them as they do now
• 1:02:43
  In fact and by consulting with doctors and saying we think it's okay to withdraw the respirator or we think it's
• 1:02:49
  You know, it's better not to do that operation that you're suggesting that would be necessary to save the child's life
• 1:02:55
  I think that if the child is not on a respirator and is not suffering from some other medical condition that needs
• 1:03:01
  Medical intervention, but the child's prospects are so bad
• 1:03:06
  um, then
• 1:03:08
  Has with voluntary assisted dying there should be
• 1:03:11
  Non-voluntary assisted dying. It's not involuntary assisted dying because that suggests it would be against the will of the child
• 1:03:17
  And the child isn't capable of having a will
• 1:03:20
  So I refer to as as non-voluntary
• 1:03:23
  If it's an Asia or a non-voluntary assisted dying
• 1:03:26
  But the examples there that you've given Peter sound a little bit like just the withholding of proactive attempts to prolong the life of the child
• 1:03:34
  Like turning off a ventilator or administering antibiotics and so on and some people
• 1:03:38
  You'd think that there's a difference between an active
• 1:03:41
  Emission and an active commission that it's one thing to just sort of not try to keep a baby alive
• 1:03:47
  But it's another thing to actually kill the baby right and I don't think that that is an important distinction. So
• 1:03:54
  I was using as examples of what we were already doing what's happening
• 1:03:58
  You know in hospitals here in Sydney. I'm sure quite regularly and every basically in every country that has neonatal intensive care units
• 1:04:07
  There will be decisions made
• 1:04:10
  To turn off respirators and machines and so on
• 1:04:13
  um
• 1:04:15
  And I don't think that there's really a significant difference um, so when you when you do that
• 1:04:20
  It it sort of it adds a random element um the random element is can this baby breathe on its own or does this baby get an infection
• 1:04:31
  Um, that will prove fatal
• 1:04:33
  Uh or in some cases like cases fine of iftar with severe brain damage um is the fluid on the brain the hydrocephalus
• 1:04:42
  Gonna build up to a point where it'll kill the child
• 1:04:45
  um
• 1:04:46
  You know, so and that seems to me irrelevant to the real decision, which is what is the child's gonna be lifelike
• 1:04:51
  Um, I show my students a film that was shot in a neonatal intensive care unit in uh in in new England in in the
• 1:04:59
  The north of England north of the United States um in which the the medical team actually
• 1:05:06
  Alive themselves to be filmed discussing these questions and one of the um, it's actually a senior nurse
• 1:05:13
  Says um, you know have the so the parents were
• 1:05:18
  Sort of the the issue of whether to get whether to turn off the respirator was raised with the parents, but they had trouble deciding
• 1:05:24
  Um about it and so the days are going past and one of the nurses says um
• 1:05:30
  If we don't get a decision from the parents soon the window of opportunity is going to close
• 1:05:36
  Right so what she meant by that was this premature baby who has to be on a
• 1:05:41
  Ventilator because it couldn't breathe lungs were too premature is getting more mature
• 1:05:47
  And if we wait another week probably when we turn off the ventilator
• 1:05:51
  The baby will breathe on its own and then the parents won't have the choice
• 1:05:55
  So you know, that's surely surely not relevant if you're getting these people if you're trying to make this important decision
• 1:06:01
  Is it better that this baby live or is it better that this baby die?
• 1:06:05
  That decision shouldn't depend on um, have the babies lungs developed to the point where the baby needs
• 1:06:12
  Doesn't need a ventilator to breathe anymore
• 1:06:14
  um, so you know, I really think you ought to be focusing on on the
• 1:06:19
  The significant question and not on
• 1:06:21
  There's more mechanical question of how do you bring about that end?
• 1:06:26
  Now if there is a creator of the universe who is guiding all of our lives uh with a gigantic moral school card
• 1:06:33
  It's easy to see why that is an abysmal
• 1:06:36
  position to hold and so it's therefore easy to understand why
• 1:06:40
  conservative Christians
• 1:06:41
  Have had you in their targets for many decades
• 1:06:45
  But now you've sort of talked about the increasing pushback that you get on campus after perhaps a decade or two of some sort of general
• 1:06:53
  Datant between you and your critics which is roiling up again from the opposite side of politics from
• 1:07:00
  Younger people who think that this is what exactly
• 1:07:05
  Uh, so firstly, let me just go back to what you said about God's scorecard
• 1:07:10
  You obviously have insights into the kind of morality that God holds
• 1:07:14
  Which I must admit I don't have written thousands of years ago in a book that is absolutely perfect Peter
• 1:07:21
  So actually, you know, if I were a religious believer there was a people that people you know
• 1:07:26
  I'm a utilitarian as some of you will know
• 1:07:28
  I that means I think that we should judge
• 1:07:30
  Morality by whether actions have good or bad consequences
• 1:07:33
  And most people associate that with with Jeremy Bentham the late 18th century founder of utilitarianism
• 1:07:39
  They don't know that also in the late 18th century there was a reverend William Paley who wrote a book about
• 1:07:47
  Moral theology morality moral theology it actually sold better than Bentham's works at the time
• 1:07:53
  And he said that God so loves his creatures that he's created that he doesn't want them to suffer
• 1:08:00
  And he really ends up with a utilitarian kind of ethic
• 1:08:03
  So, you know, if I were a religious believer I think I would believe that
• 1:08:08
  That loving God would would not want his creatures to suffer unnecessarily
• 1:08:13
  But your your question was leading up to this pushback from the left, right?
• 1:08:18
  Yeah, and so this is this is something that's that's happened within the last decade or so in particular
• 1:08:25
  And I do find it a matter of concern and coming
• 1:08:29
  See myself as being on on the left
• 1:08:32
  Anyway also
• 1:08:35
  I think it's troubling that
• 1:08:38
  People wanting to shut down ideas and discussion
• 1:08:43
  No longer overwhelmingly from the from the right as they were
• 1:08:48
  But now probably you would have to say certainly at least on campuses are more often
• 1:08:53
  From the left than from the right. I mean, I think they they clearly come from both sides
• 1:08:59
  but
• 1:09:02
  This idea that there are you know things that people must not say people
• 1:09:07
  Should be silenced or cancelled or de-platformed or whatever the term is
• 1:09:12
  If they say things that might offend people particularly if they say things that might offend
• 1:09:17
  Vulnerable or marginalized groups
• 1:09:21
  Seems to me to be to be quite wrong. I think we need to have robust
• 1:09:27
  Discussion we need to have freedom of thought and discussion and expression
• 1:09:32
  And the fact that some people will be offended by a view is not sufficient reason for
• 1:09:39
  Stopping people saying it because you know almost anything. Thank you
• 1:09:44
  Um
• 1:09:46
  On almost anything that you know you can say is is going to offend somebody right?
• 1:09:51
  I could easily say that somebody just saying you know, I think it's
• 1:09:56
  fine to
• 1:09:57
  To go out and have chicken for dinner
• 1:09:59
  I could easily say that I find that very offensive because um, I feel for the
• 1:10:04
  sentient beings the chickens who are almost certainly being factly farmed
• 1:10:08
  Having miserable lives and that's a terrible thing to say so you know
• 1:10:11
  But I don't want to shut down people who want to defend eating that
• 1:10:15
  I think I want to have a debate an argument with them and try to show them why that's
• 1:10:20
  Not a view that they should be holding
• 1:10:23
  So you know, I think that
• 1:10:25
  While we don't want to needlessly offend anybody, you know, that's that's a bad thing but
• 1:10:31
  There are important questions out there. There are important questions that have consequences
• 1:10:36
  that need to be discussed and need to be raised and
• 1:10:40
  Uh, you know when people have tried to shut down discussion in the past
• 1:10:44
  They've very often been wrong
• 1:10:47
  Um, I'll give you an example actually. I just mentioned Jeremy Bentham who is a very brave
• 1:10:51
  Uh, bold thinker far ahead of his time
• 1:10:55
  Bentham um
• 1:10:56
  wrote a great deal um, and there's a great deal of what he wrote that was not published
• 1:11:01
  Um, and he didn't publish it because he thought
• 1:11:05
  It would not be possible to publish it and still be you know a respected person who was
• 1:11:09
  Listened to and among his unpublished writing some of which are only just now being published um, you know
• 1:11:16
  Nearly 200 years after his death
• 1:11:18
  Um, they're writing saying
• 1:11:21
  Basically
• 1:11:22
  Why is somebody's taste in having sex a reason for making him a criminal and he's talking about
• 1:11:30
  Having same sex relations which which was a crime and many people were destroyed for that
• 1:11:36
  So you know in in those times that would have been something that people would have wanted to cancel a shocking idea
• 1:11:41
  That uh, it was okay for people to have sex with someone of their own sex um
• 1:11:46
  And there there are many other examples uh, so I think that we need to learn from that and need to know that
• 1:11:52
  There'll certainly be some views that will shock or offend some people that in
• 1:11:58
  20 or 50 or 100 years people will say of course, you know, that was right. Why did people see it?
• 1:12:06
  The pushback from the people who are let's say pro cancel culture
• 1:12:11
  Although no one would characterize themselves that way is that
• 1:12:15
  Sure, you can say controversial things that's your right you are freedom of speech
• 1:12:19
  And we have freedom of speech to heckle you shout you down say that you're fermenting hate speech
• 1:12:25
  So yeah, you know, you're all you're welcome to it from their perspective to mean and denigrate people living with disabilities
• 1:12:33
  You know if you're talking about the reality of biological sex
• 1:12:37
  You're able to demean and denigrate trans people if you're talking about
• 1:12:42
  You know whether or not men have a greater aptitude for certain careers than women
• 1:12:45
  Then you're able to demean and denigrate women
• 1:12:48
  But this is all a class of hate speech. It's the white patriarchy talking yet again its evidence of white supremacy
• 1:12:55
  And so they're going to respond as vociferously as they possibly can
• 1:12:59
  Why is that not legit?
• 1:13:01
  I think they should respond
• 1:13:03
  You know strongly
• 1:13:05
  By putting arguments or evidence for why their views are right and
• 1:13:11
  Other views are wrong and they should certainly be entirely free to do that
• 1:13:17
  but to
• 1:13:19
  Heckle to a point where you can't be heard where other speakers
• 1:13:23
  Can't express themselves
• 1:13:25
  Is not respectful of freedom of thought and discussion or not respectful for the idea that it's
• 1:13:30
  Arguments and reasons that should lead us to form our views rather than
• 1:13:37
  Whether we you know basically it's a kind of force if you're if you're preventing people from from being heard from listening to an audience
• 1:13:45
  It's it's and I think actually it's it's really kind of productive. I think that
• 1:13:52
  You're giving up if you heckle someone you're giving up the opportunity to show them why they're wrong
• 1:13:56
  And if you persuaded that they are wrong if you convince they are wrong you should be able to show that
• 1:14:03
  Our students becoming more fragile
• 1:14:07
  Um, I think to some extent people are more sensitive. Yes, um, you know
• 1:14:12
  There's more there's a lot more talk now, you know when I was a student people didn't talk about being traumatized by what somebody else said
• 1:14:19
  Um, and now you do hear people saying that you know that there was traumatic for me that somebody said this or that
• 1:14:26
  Um, you know, you could say well, maybe people were being traumatized by things that were being said by the weight paid white patriarchy
• 1:14:33
  But they didn't even dare to say that
• 1:14:36
  Maybe I don't know um, I think actually people are pretty resilient um
• 1:14:42
  You know, I suppose they're resilient if they're trained to be resilience and they're fragile
• 1:14:47
  I know whether it's training to be fragile, I think well you could say that you know telling people that
• 1:14:53
  You know, you should be offended by this is training them to be sensitive and and more fragile. Look
• 1:15:00
  I may have a bias, you know, my parents come to Australia as as refugees from
• 1:15:05
  Austria after the Nazis marched in so they spent months under the Nazis
• 1:15:10
  um
• 1:15:11
  My wife's parents
• 1:15:13
  were Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust in Poland
• 1:15:17
  Um, both both of them came to Australia
• 1:15:20
  Um, they didn't sort of say I've been traumatized by what happened and I'm going to you know
• 1:15:26
  fade away or lie down and go to bed and not get up
• 1:15:30
  Um, are you seriously saying they get on them with their life?
• 1:15:32
  You're saying that Nazism is worse than misusing a transgender pronoun
• 1:15:37
  Yes
• 1:15:39
  Watch your mouth you're being recorded Peter
• 1:15:43
  Um in a few minutes uh will wrap up the main portion of the conversation
• 1:15:47
  So if you do have a question you'd like to come up just find a volunteer in a white shirt
• 1:15:51
  Who will be down the front with a microphone in a second and you can start coming up if you'd like now
• 1:15:57
  I just wanted to wrap up by talking about your journal your new academic publication
• 1:16:01
  Peter the Journal of Controversial Ideas which is founded largely in response to precisely
• 1:16:07
  This point
• 1:16:09
  Why did you launch it and what do you want it to achieve?
• 1:16:12
  So what we are trying to achieve is provide a
• 1:16:17
  Place where people can publish rigorous articles. It's an academic journal
• 1:16:22
  We're looking for papers that pass peer review so papers we receive
• 1:16:27
  We get in an anonymous form and we send them out to reviewers
• 1:16:30
  You don't know who wrote them and to report to us on whether they think they're sufficiently
• 1:16:35
  meritorious to be published in a good journal
• 1:16:38
  Um, sometimes quite often we send them back for revisions quite often we reject them of course um, but
• 1:16:45
  If they're good enough and the authors want
• 1:16:48
  To remain anonymous so they want to publish under a pseudonym not under their real name
• 1:16:52
  They can do so
• 1:16:53
  so
• 1:16:54
  For example young untenured academics who want to say something that would be controversial
• 1:17:00
  Um, that might lead to
• 1:17:02
  Campaigns against them and and that has happened on just the kinds of issues that you mentioned
• 1:17:07
  Um don't need to fear that they're going to wreck their academic careers
• 1:17:11
  They don't need to fear that they'll get death threats and that's also happened to people who've written controversial
• 1:17:16
  Um, pieces like this um, and it provides a venue for them
• 1:17:21
  It's a free and open access journal. You can go to journalofcontroversialidears.org
• 1:17:26
  We've published one issue so far. We're going to publish another one. We hope next month
• 1:17:33
  We do rely on donations sort of small donations from quite a lot of people is the way we want to run the thing
• 1:17:39
  It's not very expensive to do um, but we see it as a kind of a safeguard a safeguard um uh of uh keeping
• 1:17:48
  Keeping good discussion at a high level well thought out based on reasons and evidence going
• 1:17:54
  Even on controversial ideas on controversial issues that other places would not publish and we've already had articles
• 1:18:03
  So many of the people said we're rejected by other journals not because a lack of merit of the argument
• 1:18:09
  But because the editors thought they were too controversial to publish
• 1:18:14
  Can you give a couple of examples of what they were or do you not want to spoil it? Yeah
• 1:18:17
  So in the first issue we published an article about wearing blackface
• 1:18:21
  In other words putting on makeup that makes you look like you're African when you're white
• 1:18:26
  Which um is generally regarded as a terrible thing to do
• 1:18:30
  Um, this article was to it taking a more nuanced view it um looked at circumstances in which
• 1:18:37
  That might be defensible and others in which it wouldn't be um
• 1:18:41
  And that article was submitted to another journal um and got favorable reviews
• 1:18:47
  Um, but although the reviews were sent to the author and the author was assuming that he was going to be accepted
• 1:18:53
  Before that could happen George Floyd got murdered um and after the murder of George Floyd the editor wrote and said
• 1:19:00
  I don't think we can publish this paper
• 1:19:03
  without saying that you know, there was anything to do wrong with the merit
• 1:19:06
  So um, so that was one example of a paper that would
• 1:19:11
  Not have been published and there were three articles that we published that were published under pseudonyms
• 1:19:16
  Two of them were on the transgender issue um and again the authors
• 1:19:20
  I think wouldn't have wanted to publish them under their own names
• 1:19:23
  And the third one was actually one which is sort of closer to what we were talking about my interest um
• 1:19:27
  But it was about a defensive violence in defensive animals
• 1:19:31
  Which is I have to say is not something that I support um, I don't support the use of violence to try to
• 1:19:37
  Save animals from things that I think are terrible um
• 1:19:42
  Get it largely. I guess I don't support it because I think it's it's just kind of productive and tarnish as the whole movement
• 1:19:47
  Um, but that author um also did not want to publish
• 1:19:51
  Under his or her own name interesting stuff. Let's take some some questions Duke try to keep them brief
• 1:19:57
  Remember that questions and in a question mark
• 1:20:00
  They're not long screeds in which you can finally tell piece for all the things you believe
• 1:20:07
  Hi um
• 1:20:09
  Sorry
• 1:20:11
  I thank you so much um for your talk today dr singer
• 1:20:15
  I wanted to ask you about unintended consequences because some of the things that you support in particular
• 1:20:21
  euthanasia
• 1:20:22
  Especially the possible euthanasia of the mentally disabled or babies
• 1:20:28
  Um, that argument was used by Nazis to
• 1:20:33
  euthanasia a whole bunch of mentally disabled people and
• 1:20:38
  I think a lot of people are worried that legalizing certain things even if they agree with your message about reducing suffering
• 1:20:47
  That they worried that it would have this unintended consequence of bringing about a society that as a whole
• 1:20:53
  leads to more suffering than not legalizing it. So what would you say to that?
• 1:20:59
  Yeah, thanks for the question um firstly
• 1:21:02
  Although it's it's certainly true that the Nazis um murdered a lot of um people with intellectual disabilities um
• 1:21:11
  They
• 1:21:12
  were not doing this on compassionate grounds for
• 1:21:15
  Those people themselves
• 1:21:17
  They were doing it because they thought they were basically um a blot on the area and race um and you know
• 1:21:24
  evidence that they didn't think it was a benefit for the people was that um
• 1:21:30
  They
• 1:21:31
  Exempted people who had um served in the first world war
• 1:21:37
  So you know the fact that you served for your fatherland was a reason why you wouldn't get killed if you later became you know
• 1:21:44
  became
• 1:21:46
  Mentally incompetent
• 1:21:48
  So I think that that's one difference um, but yes look
• 1:21:52
  I think it's you know
• 1:21:53
  I understand people worrying about the possible slippery slope
• 1:21:56
  Um, it's interesting that when
• 1:21:59
  voluntary euthanasia came in as well people
• 1:22:01
  You know that was a big criticism particularly when it started in the Netherlands
• 1:22:05
  Which was the first country to openly practice voluntary euthanasia and people said you know
• 1:22:11
  This will start with people who are
• 1:22:14
  Terminally ill or in pain great pain and it will end up killing the
• 1:22:18
  Racial minorities or politically undesirable. Well, it's now 40 years since those open euthanasia in the Netherlands and
• 1:22:26
  I don't see
• 1:22:28
  Any signs of that kind of of slippery slope. So um, I think we can draw lines
• 1:22:34
  I think if we have to be careful we do have to have standards and safeguards. I quite agree
• 1:22:39
  But um, I don't think it's inevitable that we will go down the the slope that you're describing
• 1:22:48
  Um, hi hi hi beta. Thank you on behalf of the world for everything you've already done
• 1:22:54
  Do you think there's value in getting meditation and mindfulness integrated into the primary and secondary school system?
• 1:23:00
  Ah
• 1:23:02
  Okay, that's a little question little sort of outside my
• 1:23:05
  expertise although um, I have myself
• 1:23:09
  Practice meditation at various times and sometimes occasionally still do less regularly than I used to
• 1:23:16
  Um, so I do find it helpful um and I certainly think it can be helpful in the school system actually I have a
• 1:23:22
  A granddaughter who finds meditation quite helpful and got that through the school system. So
• 1:23:30
  Yeah, my short answer is I think this is something that is is well worth trying
• 1:23:34
  Um, it would be good to get sort of broader data on it
• 1:23:38
  I know there is already some some data, but I think
• 1:23:41
  It's always worth trying to monitor
• 1:23:43
  Introduction of programs like that and and look at the outcomes
• 1:23:46
  Um, but I would not be at all surprised to find positive outcomes from that
• 1:23:52
  Uh
• 1:23:54
  Hello, uh, Peter. Thank you very much when
• 1:23:58
  We were talking about your critics from the left particularly on your views about disability the conversation went into a discussion of
• 1:24:06
  The legitimacy of sort of cancel culture, but when your critics on the left are behaving and actually making an argument
• 1:24:13
  What do they tend to be saying and what is your response to that?
• 1:24:17
  Uh, right. So the argument that they make is is actually a little bit like the
• 1:24:23
  woman who made the for the first question um a kind of a
• 1:24:27
  An argument based in terms of consequences um and that is that
• 1:24:34
  There is discrimination against people with disabilities in the society and I totally accept that
• 1:24:38
  And I'm totally opposed to for example the fact that somebody has a disability
• 1:24:42
  In interfering with them getting employment for a job that they can do as well as somebody without that disability
• 1:24:47
  That's quite wrong or discrimination in housing or anything like that
• 1:24:51
  Um, and the fear is that this will give people more of the sense that life with the disability is is a bad thing um
• 1:24:59
  Um, so
• 1:25:01
  You know is that likely to happen? I I think that again we need to clearly distinguish cases of people who's you know
• 1:25:09
  really lives
• 1:25:11
  Do not have those possibilities from people who
• 1:25:14
  can have um very good lives and uh should be protected against discrimination and we should try to make life easier for them and give them
• 1:25:22
  Access to all the things that people without those disabilities can enjoy
• 1:25:27
  um, you know, but I think that sort of the category of disability here is too broad um, I've I've had people
• 1:25:36
  Who were you know every bit as articulate as I am but happened to be in wheelchairs telling me that they represent people with disabilities
• 1:25:43
  And I shouldn't be talking about people with disabilities um, but I know I would never suggest that the fact that somebody's in a wheelchair
• 1:25:49
  Means that they shouldn't enjoy their life as much as anybody else um, so you know
• 1:25:56
  They they're no better place. I think to speak for people with profound intellectual disabilities than that I am
• 1:26:05
  Thank you again for your talk
• 1:26:07
  Um, my questions about the increasing nature of the health care system to reflect on its own value
• 1:26:12
  And as we kind of you know impose social welfare and interventions and things like that in the health care system
• 1:26:17
  Increasingly we want to reflect on how much utility they actually provide um, obviously under your philosophy
• 1:26:22
  We want to look out to provide the least suffering or the greatest kind of benefit to everyone in society um
• 1:26:28
  Our institutions that assess the value of you know health care interventions or social interventions are those in necessary
• 1:26:34
  Consequences such a philosophy
• 1:26:37
  Um, so yeah, just so I'm not absolutely sure that I'm sort of but you you're asking about is it a question in philosophy?
• 1:26:43
  How you evaluate the health care interventions? Is that quite I'm asking our institutions like you know statistical institutions that actually assess
• 1:26:51
  Um, you know are the surgeries in this situation necessary or do we actually get more benefit without providing such a surgery
• 1:26:57
  I institutions like that
• 1:26:58
  Necessary to actually evaluate the consequences of certain decision making protocols. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean certainly
• 1:27:04
  I think you know just as with effective altruism
• 1:27:06
  We should be if we have a certain
• 1:27:09
  amount of money that we can donate
• 1:27:11
  Um, and we want to improve the world we should look at research that tells us
• 1:27:16
  How can we best use that and similarly if we have a national health care budget?
• 1:27:22
  I think we want to use that as well as we can so we need institutes that try to assess
• 1:27:28
  How much good you get and that's a complicated question which raises both empirical issues and
• 1:27:36
  ethical issues. So
• 1:27:39
  You want to consider for example? Well
• 1:27:43
  Should we you know if if there's a drug that can prolong somebody's life somebody let's say it's terminally ill
• 1:27:48
  But you have a drug that could prolong their life for another month or two but it costs a hundred thousand dollars
• 1:27:53
  And for that amount of money you could
• 1:27:56
  Um
• 1:27:57
  Do simpler repairs. Maybe you could
• 1:28:00
  Do operations on people with a 3d kips which would enable them to walk again when they can't walk
• 1:28:05
  Um and let's say you could do 10 of those operations for a hundred thousand dollars
• 1:28:09
  um
• 1:28:10
  Who should you be helping? There's there's ethical judgments there about
• 1:28:16
  The amount of good that we're doing and and there's
• 1:28:19
  Factual information we need so I think we should be doing that. I think otherwise we're
• 1:28:24
  Sort of just guessing as to how we use a health care budget. I don't think that's the right thing to do
• 1:28:34
  Thanks for a really great conversation
• 1:28:36
  Getting back into the animal world a little bit. We talked about how public opinion tends to value one animal over another
• 1:28:45
  Maybe not listening to the science completely
• 1:28:49
  um and
• 1:28:50
  Basically, I'm wondering on the behalf of fish. So do we
• 1:28:56
  As researchers scientists the public um, you know, what can we do in the face of them the mass amount of suffering?
• 1:29:02
  Is there any low hanging fruit?
• 1:29:05
  Yeah
• 1:29:08
  So I do think that there's there's like we can do um, but it's
• 1:29:13
  Uh, it's some of those more difficult to get the public to really think about these issues and I
• 1:29:19
  so
• 1:29:20
  As um, Josh said I wrote the first edition of animal liberation
• 1:29:24
  Getting close to 50 years ago
• 1:29:26
  Um, and I didn't say very much about fish because I thought gee
• 1:29:30
  It's so difficult to get people to even think about chickens really um, you know, yes, I'll think about pigs maybe or or cows, but
• 1:29:38
  Um, less sympathy for chickens, but I did do a lot about chickens because they're really the most abused of
• 1:29:44
  Effective farm animals just because each individual chicken is worth so little that the producers don't really care about them as individuals
• 1:29:51
  um
• 1:29:52
  But now I'm working on an revised edition. That's my next major project, which I hope will come out early next year
• 1:29:58
  And I am going to say a lot more about fish than I did in the first edition because um, you know, then I thought
• 1:30:04
  You know, you can't get people to really do much care about fish because they
• 1:30:10
  You know, they don't look like us. They don't have expressions on their faces that show that they're suffering. They don't vocalize
• 1:30:15
  Um, but when you think about the vast numbers of fish
• 1:30:18
  Which you know, including both wild caught and farm fish and when we farm fish by the way
• 1:30:23
  At least can never us fish like salmon. We have to kill you know many more fish
• 1:30:29
  Um, we grind up into fish food and pellets and feed to them
• 1:30:33
  Um, then you actually get out of the the fish farm
• 1:30:37
  So you know, it's a vast number of animals hundreds of billions. We're talking about at least
• 1:30:42
  um, and I think we do need to think about trying to do something about that um
• 1:30:49
  What we can do is really hard to know um, I'm hopeful that we will develop either plant-based fish-like
• 1:30:56
  Products as we're developing plant-based meat products or possibly are cultured from fish cells
• 1:31:02
  Which is again something we're doing with meat and um, maybe if we can do that we can at least reduce the
• 1:31:08
  immense amount of pain and suffering that we're in freaking on fish
• 1:31:18
  It's from all the fish fans in the audience
• 1:31:23
  Hi pizza um coming from the animal rights activism community
• 1:31:27
  I have some friends who are anti-natalists and have had the sector needs
• 1:31:32
  Given the amount of money and time it takes to raise a child
• 1:31:37
  And uh, you know how those can be used for effective altruism
• 1:31:41
  Is it not a moral obligation to avoid having children in today's world?
• 1:31:48
  So um, you're thinking about people who are really going to use the money that they would spend on raising a child for
• 1:31:55
  um
• 1:31:56
  Importantly important causes for reducing
• 1:31:59
  suffering
• 1:32:01
  I think there was a case
• 1:32:03
  To be said for that um
• 1:32:05
  But I am
• 1:32:06
  Troubled about the possibility that
• 1:32:10
  If these people don't have children
• 1:32:12
  Um, and if people who don't care about the suffering of animals or about the suffering of humans continue to have children
• 1:32:18
  Are we essentially going to breed out the kind of compassion?
• 1:32:22
  I think it's a real problem actually. I don't thank you
• 1:32:29
  So uh, you know as I say I respect that view if that's really what they're doing with the with the money they're saving
• 1:32:35
  But I um, I think I would become uncomfortable if that became very widespread um because you know
• 1:32:42
  We don't really know a lot about what is it that lead some people to be more compassionate and more live more ethical lives and others
• 1:32:48
  But it would be surprising if it had nothing to do with either genetics or your upbringing
• 1:32:56
  As a child and the values you get from your parents um, my guess is it might be some combination of those
• 1:33:02
  But certainly I think they'd play a role
• 1:33:06
  Hi, Peter. Thank you for your talk tonight
• 1:33:09
  The most recent IPCC report noted that it's code read for humanity noting that there's a rapidly closing window
• 1:33:16
  And given this context and given that I'm about to start my career and like many other young professionals
• 1:33:21
  It seems to me that it would be deeply unethical not to act on climate change
• 1:33:26
  And so my question to you is with regards to the ethics of choosing career
• 1:33:31
  Is it unethical to choose a career that is not going towards helping humanity in terms of climate change?
• 1:33:39
  I think there are various um
• 1:33:42
  Ways of choosing an ethical career
• 1:33:45
  I certainly think that climate change is an enormously important issue
• 1:33:50
  um, but I also think that reducing extreme poverty and uh
• 1:33:55
  Of reducing animal suffering are also important issues um
• 1:33:59
  So I'm not going to say that climate change dominates all other issues
• 1:34:04
  But I do you know, I think it's it's great that you're thinking about choosing an ethical career at all because a lot of people give very little
• 1:34:11
  Thought about the ethics of their career choice um, they choose on the basis of as people so I say what I'm most passionate about
• 1:34:19
  And and what I'm most passionate about may not be something that is
• 1:34:23
  um, the best choice in terms of living ethically or making the biggest possible difference to making the world a better place
• 1:34:30
  So um, I do think people should think about that and and then of course, you know, even within what you just mentioned
• 1:34:36
  Let's say I did want to focus on climate change. There's a big variety of possible careers
• 1:34:41
  So you could say I should become a research scientist and find
• 1:34:44
  uh
• 1:34:45
  How to make clean energy cheaper and more effective that would be one thing or um
• 1:34:51
  You know, again, you could be a climate scientist and
• 1:34:54
  Provide even further evidence of the seriousness of climate change
• 1:34:57
  But you might decide to go into politics because politics needs more people who are committed to the seriousness of climate change
• 1:35:04
  Um, and you might even this might sound a stretch
• 1:35:07
  But you might even decide to go into the finance industry because you could earn a lot of money that way
• 1:35:12
  And then you could donate a lot of money to organizations that are trying to alert people to the danger of climate change
• 1:35:18
  Now, you know, if you were going into finance sector for that reason and somebody said hey
• 1:35:23
  um, your job is to raise more money for a
• 1:35:25
  Adani um, I think you would acquit but um
• 1:35:29
  But you know, there's a lot of things in the finance sector that are fairly neutral
• 1:35:33
  I mean they make money for some people rather than others
• 1:35:35
  But they don't destroy the environment or make people poor or anything like that
• 1:35:39
  So um, you know, there are some people in the effective altruism movement who make those choices
• 1:35:44
  Um, and I might mention if anybody you know is thinking about
• 1:35:47
  Options for ethical careers go to 80,000hours.org
• 1:35:51
  Just the numbers 80,000 and hours um, and uh, you'll find a lot of information on ethical career choices there
• 1:35:58
  Can I just ask a quick follow-up because I think there are a lot of university and high school
• 1:36:02
  Students here who would value the advice. What about going into the industries that are doing the worst
• 1:36:09
  In the hopes of being an agent of change within
• 1:36:12
  Those industries. I've heard this you know going work for an oil company
• 1:36:16
  It's almost analogous to the point that you were making about anti-natalists
• 1:36:19
  You know, we we want the right people to be having babies and we want the right people to be in oil companies
• 1:36:25
  Is it ever justifiable? I got to work in it
• 1:36:27
  Are you thinking of somebody who who's kind of
• 1:36:29
  Is
• 1:36:30
  Cloak and data dagger and and pretends to be enthusiastic about oil until they get to the top and then they say hey
• 1:36:37
  We're going solar we know
• 1:36:40
  No, I think I think most I think most oil companies nowadays are
• 1:36:43
  You know openly recognize the need to transition so are openly recruiting people who who see the need to do so
• 1:36:49
  Well, if you if that is the case and if there's a company that is looking for people who will help them transition
• 1:36:56
  And you'd be talented at that
• 1:36:58
  Um, then I think that's acceptable
• 1:37:00
  But I think you you wouldn't need to be really careful that you don't get subverted by the company ethos
• 1:37:05
  Which you know might have a PR side that says transitioning is really important but
• 1:37:11
  Doesn't really do that as enthusiastically as they would be because they're aware that that's going to
• 1:37:17
  Mean that some of the assets that they're currently holding become valueless right? Yeah
• 1:37:22
  Uh, hi, Peter. Thank you for the talk tonight and it's a pleasure to speak to a fellow sentientist
• 1:37:27
  Um, you got into some hot water about comments concerning an astable field a carer who is convicted of aggravated sexual assault against the men in her care with severe intellectual and physical disabilities
• 1:37:39
  stating it seems reasonable to assume that the experience was pleasurable for him
• 1:37:43
  You were also forced into a somewhat awkward position on ABC's Q&A
• 1:37:47
  Regarding sexual relations with animals where you refuse to object to a particular sexual relationship between a woman and her dog
• 1:37:54
  The common thread between these two cases to me seems to be the issue of consent
• 1:37:59
  Which leads me to ask can an principle of consent fit into your utilitarian framework
• 1:38:05
  Beyond the idea that non-concentral sex often involves or results in suffering
• 1:38:10
  Uh, I think
• 1:38:12
  What you just said is is the the key thing that is
• 1:38:16
  Ultimately underlying why we have um strict laws prohibiting and making a crime of um sex without consent
• 1:38:28
  But that doesn't mean that in every instance um
• 1:38:33
  Where there is non-consensual sex and let's say there is no suffering
• 1:38:37
  That doesn't mean that that shouldn't be a crime
• 1:38:39
  It may be that you know the laws need to make a clear line here to prevent
• 1:38:44
  The great harm that will otherwise occur
• 1:38:47
  Um, I think the interesting thing about these these debates um is that
• 1:38:52
  uh
• 1:38:55
  Anything to do with with with sex of some kind that is not currently accepted um
• 1:39:00
  Just arises a real deep
• 1:39:03
  Anonymous a real hostility um and I think it's quite parallel to what I mentioned Jeremy Bentham was thinking of if he were to talk about
• 1:39:11
  Same sex in you know, 18
• 1:39:14
  20 or whenever he was writing um that it would arouse um and it seems really hard for people to
• 1:39:20
  Think about this with that
• 1:39:22
  Those sorts of hostile responses. I mean, I I
• 1:39:25
  Stand by the views that I hold um certainly in the the stubblefield case where um both I and uh Jeff McMahon whose professor of moral philosophy at Oxford and a good friend um
• 1:39:37
  Thought that she was being
• 1:39:39
  penalized again because of this reaction and and incidentally although a lot of people jumped on us
• 1:39:44
  We published an article an opinion piece in the New York Times
• 1:39:48
  Um and a lot of people jumped on us and abused us including a lot of people from the left um
• 1:39:53
  but uh
• 1:39:55
  She appealed and um
• 1:39:58
  The judgment was set aside um the the appeal court ruled that the judge had misdirected the jury um and then
• 1:40:06
  There was a bit of plea bargaining went on and she pleaded guilty to um
• 1:40:12
  Not complying with the views of the Guardian um or not containing the permission of the Guardian for some element of her interactions with with uh
• 1:40:22
  And didn't do anymore jail time. So um I feel that our judgments were were indicated in that case um and as for Q&A
• 1:40:30
  Well, you know very often on those programs you think D. I could have said that a bit better afterwards
• 1:40:36
  But but you know the fundamental point I think I would stand by
• 1:40:41
  I'll take that as a comment
• 1:40:43
  We've got less than ten minutes left
• 1:40:45
  So if you're more than about four people back and I'm sorry that we won't get to you
• 1:40:49
  We'll see how many we can burn through but if you like six seven eight my turn probably not gonna happen go for it
• 1:40:55
  Hey, Dr. Singer my name is Tim and I'm more interested in the idea of why should we take individual responsibility for problems such as poverty and absolute poverty
• 1:41:04
  When these issues seem to be at consequences of more institutionalized problems such as colonialism and other
• 1:41:11
  foreign policies of
• 1:41:12
  developed nations
• 1:41:14
  Is our time and money better spent making those more directly responsible
• 1:41:19
  Take responsibility for these problems and sort of educate people on domestic and foreign policy so they can better be informed with their voting decisions and stuff like that
• 1:41:29
  well
• 1:41:31
  Somebody who's concerned about the consequences. I think it depends on where you're going to get the best consequences
• 1:41:37
  so
• 1:41:38
  I mean you know the the cloneless wrongs that we're done to many countries that are now in poverty have been done
• 1:41:44
  We can't go back and and change the past so
• 1:41:48
  it's only
• 1:41:50
  Things that we could change at present and the question is what can you change what's what's politically realistic to to think that you might change and what would in fact if you did change
• 1:41:59
  Have those effects. So I certainly support
• 1:42:04
  Various kinds of structural change. So one of the things when I'm in the United States that I talk about when people talk about
• 1:42:11
  Change in poverty is the United States has huge farm subsidies that it pays often to wealthy farmers and that enables them to produce their products
• 1:42:20
  More cheaply
• 1:42:22
  Australia doesn't do this of course because we're an agricultural state and we would do better
• 1:42:26
  Without the competition of the United States so we don't like that either but
• 1:42:30
  But the the subsidy that I particularly focus on is cotton the United States has
• 1:42:35
  grows some cotton in the South
• 1:42:39
  That would be without subsidies significantly more expensive than cotton grown by peasant farmers in West Africa
• 1:42:47
  growing, you know small small holdings
• 1:42:50
  Many of whom are in poverty
• 1:42:52
  But because the United States subsidizes its cotton
• 1:42:56
  It sells it for below the price that they're producing and drives down the price and therefore makes these
• 1:43:01
  Peasant farmers extremely poor
• 1:43:02
  So I certainly support for example efforts to change that to to get rid of those subsidies that are harming people in West Africa
• 1:43:10
  Um, and you know anything like that where you could see that there's there's something that could be done
• 1:43:16
  We might achieve this it would make a big difference for millions of people
• 1:43:19
  Um, I would support you know if you have a good pathway and a reasonable probability of success
• 1:43:25
  I would support doing that as an alternative to giving to individuals, you know providing them with bed nets or
• 1:43:32
  Helping them to get out of poverty in some other way
• 1:43:34
  But it's all going to depend on on how plausible is it that you're going to succeed
• 1:43:39
  I'm not into kind of gestures, which means you know that I feel good
• 1:43:43
  But actually doesn't make any difference at all to the people who need help
• 1:43:49
  In the final five minutes we'll have two more questions
• 1:43:52
  So if you're not one of the next two then our apologies
• 1:43:55
  And you can take a seat if you want to meet PD you can always upgrade to
• 1:43:59
  To the meet and greet VIP package
• 1:44:03
  Hi, and thank you so far
• 1:44:05
  Um, so I guess I was wondering about what you were saying about the non voluntary assisted death in the infant space
• 1:44:10
  And two differences I guess that came up for me
• 1:44:13
  Um, and apologies are not familiar on the other work you've already done um
• 1:44:17
  But in terms of one of the differences being on the person who then makes that decision. It's not
• 1:44:24
  I guess it's it's not a passive decision. It's an active decision and what that then has
• 1:44:30
  On them and and how they feel about that and knowing whether it's right or wrong
• 1:44:34
  And then following on from that
• 1:44:36
  Then who is to say if it's not a passive decision of taking them off life support or something like that then
• 1:44:44
  At what point is that right to do so if you're not just
• 1:44:50
  You know being passive about it what at what point you know
• 1:44:54
  Whether that's the right thing to do so I guess I was thinking what's your answer to that and where do you draw the line
• 1:45:00
  As whether you should determine whether it's the end of someone's life
• 1:45:04
  Yeah, so on the first bit of it. I mean what you said about the burden of making that decision was the reason why when I first got into this in the 70s
• 1:45:12
  Doctors would say you know, no, it's too hard for for parents. We have to bear that burden
• 1:45:17
  But but that's really incredibly paternalistic
• 1:45:20
  And and a lot will end depend on which doctor you get you know a doctor who thinks that you are to treat every patient
• 1:45:26
  To make them live or a doctor who doesn't think that um, so that's why I
• 1:45:30
  Sort of form the view that really the parents sort of make um the most that decision now
• 1:45:36
  How they gonna make the right decision? You know probably not in every case
• 1:45:41
  Um, but if you just say you're not gonna make the decision and you are gonna treat every child
• 1:45:46
  Um, so that they live then you're certainly gonna make the wrong decision
• 1:45:50
  I think in in many cases and you'll get children who will suffer for some months or maybe years
• 1:45:56
  Um, and then we'll die without having
• 1:46:00
  You know experienced any positive times in their life at all
• 1:46:04
  So that's why I think just saying you know advocating
• 1:46:09
  decision-making at all isn't really the answer here
• 1:46:13
  Thanks
• 1:46:15
  Hi, Peter. Thanks for the talk tonight
• 1:46:18
  Um, I'm just curious you talked before about disability advocacy groups and taking
• 1:46:23
  I suppose evidence from them and incorporating it into your views on
• 1:46:27
  non-voluntary dying and I'm curious. What are some other
• 1:46:32
  Sort of high profile issues where you've changed your mind
• 1:46:34
  You know in the public spotlight after incorporating new evidence and what did it feel like
• 1:46:39
  I suppose defending those new positions on the other side of the fence
• 1:46:44
  Uh, so I think you know, we should I should be open to learning things from people including people who are
• 1:46:50
  Strong critics um, and that seemed to me to be a good a good point a good point of change
• 1:46:56
  Uh
• 1:46:57
  So in terms of other things um
• 1:47:00
  I
• 1:47:02
  Mean, there's some philosophical questions that I've changed my mind on but it's it's difficult in a short time to explain
• 1:47:07
  Um some of some of the reasons for that
• 1:47:09
  uh
• 1:47:11
  so
• 1:47:12
  otherwise
• 1:47:14
  Perhaps I've been persuaded to be to go further um in terms of
• 1:47:19
  What I suggest people should do in their personal diet and their personal choices um
• 1:47:25
  It's further on in say in terms of advocating being vegan rather than just being vegetarian
• 1:47:30
  I think that's something that has become more acceptable partly the world has changed
• 1:47:34
  Um, so again, I sort of soft-pedaled that a bit in the first edition of animal liberation um and I wouldn't do so now to that extent
• 1:47:44
  Okay
• 1:47:46
  One more
• 1:47:48
  You can you can do your best quick rapid fire and so I'll keep this quick thanks Peter further talk to so my question is that I mean
• 1:47:55
  It's often said that we have the um, I don't know knowledge
• 1:47:59
  And resources to solve the big problems of the world but not the political will do you think that that's true
• 1:48:05
  If so how do we solve those political problems if not what do you think is the gap to you know to do that? Thanks
• 1:48:13
  Wow, that's a big question right?
• 1:48:16
  Because if I if I if I knew the answer I would be doing it right um
• 1:48:21
  So I often you know in a technical sense we often do but it's the human issues that are the problems for us, right?
• 1:48:28
  I mean um, I said something rather quickly talking about global population that um, you know
• 1:48:33
  If if every woman who wanted to control a fertility had access to it
• 1:48:38
  But in fact that was a little bit glib because it's not just that they cannot get contraceptives
• 1:48:44
  It might be for example that their husbands don't want them to use contraceptives
• 1:48:48
  And they're not in a position where they're
• 1:48:50
  Emboldened to stand up for their husbands
• 1:48:53
  So so that's the human problem and how do we solve that right because that's that's a cultural issue
• 1:48:58
  They're living in a culture in which women give deference to their husbands and husbands expect their wives to do it
• 1:49:02
  And may act violently if they don't so
• 1:49:06
  Those are the problems that I think we don't really have
• 1:49:10
  Answers to as yet maybe we will at some point can hope but they're very difficult
• 1:49:17
  Yes
• 1:49:18
  Last question Peter comes from me
• 1:49:21
  When I have four-year-old twins and when they are your age
• 1:49:28
  What will it will be like
• 1:49:32
  I'm not sure why people think they're giving you having a philosophy degree give your crystal ball
• 1:49:38
  Oh, why do you say a new tell that will it be better what what's your general hunch? I mean will be better or worse
• 1:49:47
  So that clearly there's things that can go very seriously wrong our climate change has been mentioned
• 1:49:51
  That's a big overhanging problem and it's quite possible that the world will be worse because of that
• 1:49:56
  Um, it's quite possible
• 1:49:58
  Unfortunately that they won't live to my age because
• 1:50:02
  Putin will take out his threats to use nuclear weapons and
• 1:50:06
  You know, I don't know whether NATO will respond. I mean you know the that that particular doomsday scenario which
• 1:50:12
  Uh was very present when I was young during the Cold War
• 1:50:16
  Um, and then started to decline
• 1:50:19
  Did just certainly go up a few notches
• 1:50:24
  But if we can avoid that and if we can
• 1:50:27
  mitigate the worst effects of climate change um, which will take a lot more action
• 1:50:33
  Rapid action um
• 1:50:35
  Then I think the world will be better than it is now because I do think I guess in that sense. I'm
• 1:50:40
  A technological a guarded technological optimist that we will be better at
• 1:50:45
  producing food. We will be better at um limiting
• 1:50:49
  Uh or people will control their own fertility in ways that um
• 1:50:53
  We were worried some years ago that they wouldn't and I think there are signs that they might uh and
• 1:51:00
  Um, we I also think that not only is their technological progress
• 1:51:05
  But that over the longer arc there is moral progress and again, that's pretty hard to see
• 1:51:10
  At the moment, you know, we've just gone back to a situation that's
• 1:51:13
  reminiscent of what Nazi Germany was doing in the 30s um, what uh, Putin's been doing in the last month um
• 1:51:22
  So uh, it's hard to say in that sort of time that there has been moral progress
• 1:51:27
  But if you look over a longer perspective um, one of my
• 1:51:31
  Less widely read books is called the expanding circle uh, and it talks about the idea that the circle of morality has expanded
• 1:51:39
  Over millennia you go back and morality was mostly tribal
• 1:51:45
  You know then it was national um, we eventually got to the idea that we would talk about all human beings
• 1:51:51
  Although very often we really meant all men
• 1:51:53
  Then we got to include uh women as well and now at least we we talk about
• 1:51:59
  Some kinds of ways of including animals in that sphere
• 1:52:02
  So I do see that as a kind of long arc of moral progress. It's sort of Martin Luther Kingline
• 1:52:08
  Um, adapted a bit um, but of course with with ups and downs in it. So
• 1:52:14
  With a lot of caveats
• 1:52:16
  Maybe your four four-year-olds will live in a better world uh, than we're living in today
• 1:52:21
  A reminder that if you are a meet and greet sicker holder stay seated
• 1:52:25
  If you're not and you want to be you can get a ticket at the merch desk
• 1:52:28
  If you would like to become a monthly donor to the life you can save
• 1:52:33
  List of charities if you do so now than the first monthly donation will be matched one for one
• 1:52:38
  It'll be doubled and also the e getting 20% off the uh the online course that thinking is running in effective altruism
• 1:52:46
  Thanks to Susie Jumeil and think in thanks to you for coming. Please think
• 1:52:50
  Peter Singer
• 1:52:58
  Uncomfortable conversations is produced by Stefan Postuma
• 1:53:02
  Follow me Josh Zeps on twitter and instagram for all the latest may your day be fruitful your mind humble your enemies
• 1:53:10
  Generous and your conversations perfectly sparklingly
• 1:53:13
  Delectably
• 1:53:15
  Uncomfortable