Making a Better World

Josh Landy
Can philosophy help us become better people?

Ray Briggs
What can ethics tell us about ending poverty and suffering?

Josh Landy
Are thought experiments ever relevant to real life?

Ray Briggs
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
… except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. We’re coming to you from the studios of KALW San Francisco Bay Area.

Josh Landy
Continuing conversations that began at Philosophers Corner on the Stanford campus, where Ray teaches philosophy and I direct the philosophy and literature initiative.

Ray Briggs
Today, we’re thinking about making a better world.

Josh Landy
Ray, I’m telling you, making a better world would be a wonderful thing. And you know what? I think we need philosophers to help us do that.

Ray Briggs
Yeah. Come on. Josh, what are you talking about? Some of the worst people I know are philosophers. They’re the last people we should be taking moral advice from.

Josh Landy
What do you mean? I think you must be hanging out with the wrong philosophers. There are tons of thinkers out there who have not just had good ideas, but use them to change the world for the better. I mean, think about Du Bois, who played such a crucial role in the civil rights movement. Or Hannah Arendt, who helped organize reparations for Jews after WWII.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, Josh, not all philosophers are bad. But what I’m saying is that philosophers aren’t any better than other people. I mean, there have been some terrible ones too—like John Stuart Mill. He talked a good game about freedom, but he was just in bed with the East India Company. Why should we listen to him?

Josh Landy
Well, maybe because it’s do as I say, not do as I do. I feel like we can reject Mill’s career while still learning something important from his ideas. And if we want to make the world a better place, it’s going to help us if we listen to interesting folks like him.

Ray Briggs
Okay, but there are also tons of philosophers whose ideas are bad, not just their actions—like Immanuel Kant. He said that women were not fully rational beings. And David Hume said that black people are naturally inferior to white people. These are not ideas we should be living by.

Josh Landy
Well, I agree with that. I mean, those are obviously terrible beliefs. But the point of studying moral philosophy isn’t just to pick up a bunch of ideas, even in the cases where the ideas are good. It’s also to sharpen our skills of moral reasoning. And if we want that better world we’re talking about, we’re going to need to think critically think carefully think insightfully about all the problems we face,

Ray Briggs
Okay, but if a philosophy is such a great tool for thinking insightfully about moral questions, how come it keeps producing bad answers? Kant and Hume were using philosophical reasoning when they came up with their sexist and racist ideas.

Josh Landy
I don’t know, I think maybe they were failing to use their reason. That was just prejudice talking. And either way, what’s the alternative, Ray? I mean, if you want people to do as much good as possible, and you don’t want them to be guided by philosophical thinking about ethics, what else is there?

Ray Briggs
I don’t know, maybe we could start by actually listening to the people who are most affected by our choices. Moral philosophers just spend so much time on these far fetched thought experiments with trolleys and violinists they totally miss out on everything that’s ethically meaningful about the real world.

Josh Landy
Well, that sounds good. But when you say listen to the people affected, how are you going to do that? That that could be millions of people?

Ray Briggs
Okay, yeah, great question. But a lot of the time, moral philosophers don’t even consider it—like in the Trolley Problem, where you have one person tied to one track who’s gonna die. If you pull the lever, and five people tied to this other track, we’re gonna die if you do nothing.

Josh Landy
I don’t get the problem, Ray. I mean, seems like that thought experiment is all about how people are affected by a decision you’re making. What’s it getting wrong?

Ray Briggs
Well, the whole setup assumes you know, exactly who’s affected and what the consequences are. In real life, for all you know, the train driver can just throw on the brakes, or the whole thing is a stunt for a movie, or there are even more potential victims down the track that you can’t even see. These details are really important, and philosophy doesn’t tell you how to think any of them through.

Josh Landy
Well, I agree with that. I mean, we do need to do actual research to figure out the consequences of our actions for all parties concerned. But still, once we’ve done that research, we’ve got to weigh up everybody’s needs and everybody’s consent. So we still going to need moral philosophy.

Ray Briggs
I’m still not convinced, but maybe our guest will convince me. It’s the renowned ethicist Peter Singer, author of “Ethics in the Real World.”

Josh Landy
Thinking of ethics in the real world, we sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Holly J. McDede, to find out how to think about athletes who break the rules. She files this report.

Holly McDede
Louis Suarez is still known as the devil to soccer fans in Ghana because of his shenanigans during the World Cup semi finals in 2010.

Announcer
Wherever Luis Suarez goes, something seems to happen. It was no different at the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

Holly McDede
Unlike other Suarez controversies, this one did not involve biting other players. Suarez was playing for Uruguay. Ghana was aiming to become the first ever African team to make the Final Four.

World Cup
Here we go! Blocked on the line, blocked on the line again!

Holly McDede
With only seconds of extra time left, Ghana took a shot on a goal that should have ended the game. But then Suarez used both of his hands to stop the ball from landing in the net. For the record, Suarez is not a goalie.

World Cup
What drama! It’s Suarez on the line, the striker—look at that as he beats it away, volleyball-style! Suarez is off!

Holly McDede
Ghana went on to lose 4-2, eliminated on a penalty shootout. Suarez was given a red card but was still proud of himself. He declared, “Mine is the real hand of God,” and has refused to apologize since.

Luis Suarez
I don’t apologize about that, because I take the hand-ball, but the Ghana player missed a penalty—not me. It’s not my responsibility to shoot a penalty.

Steven Mosher
It’s like… Really? That doesn’t sit with me. And I think it didn’t sit with a lot of soccer fans

Holly McDede
That’s Steven Mosher, a recently retired professor of Sports Studies at Ithaca College in New York. He’s been teaching about ethics and sports for decades. Antics like these frustrate, him but unscrupulous athletes don’t surprise him.

Steven Mosher
The offense was so egregious that even the people who play all these games like tugging jerseys and faking, being fouled and flopping and writhing on the ground. Even day knew that that was diminishing the game experience for everybody.

Holly McDede
Mosher has been cynical about ethics and sports for a long time. This goes back to when he was 13 years old, playing first base in a youth baseball game. He missed the runner with the ball and the umpire call the runner out anyway.

Steven Mosher
Until I interjected, “But I missed him!” And the umpire spun around and said, “One more word out of you and thrown you out of the game!” I said, “But I missed him!” And he throw me out of the game. It’s the only time I’ve ever been thrown out of the game.

Holly McDede
This was at a Catholic youth baseball organization.

Steven Mosher
And the coach was the parish priest. He shook his head and he says, “Oh, that’s the life Mosher—this is sports.”

Holly McDede
Mosher had been a good Irish Catholic kid who viewed the rules of the game like the commandments. Now he says society normalizes unethical behavior and sports examples are everywhere. Take disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who has admitted to doping.

Lance Armstrong
If you take me back to 1995 when it was completely and totally pervasive… I’d probably do it again. People don’t like to hear that. That’s the honest answer? Yeah, that’s the honest answer.

Holly McDede
Or the more everyday transgressions, like flopping in basketball.

NBA annoucer
Boy, Allen sold that. But then the post-reaction—I mean, this is theatrical right here, watch this: “Oh yeah, I forgot I gotta sell it more!”

Holly McDede
Or the 2018 Australian ball tampering scandal, where Australia’s cricket team rubbed a ball with sandpaper. Maybe Lance Armstrong can learn about regret from cricketer Steve Smith, who broke down in tears over that.

Steve Smith
I’ll do everything I can to make up for my mistake and the damage it’s caused.

Holly McDede
A professor of sports ethics at UNC Chapel Hill was tied to this massive cheating scandal and 2014 accused of directing fake courses where athletes could earn fake high grades. You can look at entire sports teams for examples of unfair behavior. Manchester City is accused of more than 100 financial violations.

Steven Mosher
There’s so much money involved in so much status that people lose their minds and they lose their moral life. And they go wherever the dollars take them.

Holly McDede
Mosher says maybe if society tries to teach ethics in youth sports, people will listen when they’re adults, But advocating for that is like tilting at windmills—not a game you can win. He likes bowling, though. It’s not scandal free, but he says it’s pretty boring to watch, which helps keep the money and the greed at bay. For Philosophy Talk, I’m Holly J. McDede.

Josh Landy
Thanks for that fascinating report, Holly. That is a report after my own heart as a non-repentant Brit. I’m Josh Landy, with me is my Stanford colleague, Ray Briggs. And today we’re thinking about making a better world.

Ray Briggs
We’re joined now by Peter Singer. He’s professor of bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton, and author of “Ethics in the Real World: 90 Essays on Things That Matter,” as well as an updated edition of his classic book, “Animal Liberation.” Peter, welcome back to Philosophy Talk.

Peter Singer
Thank you. Thanks, Ray. It’s good to be back after many, many years.

Josh Landy
It’s wonderful to have you back, Peter. Now you’ve devoted your philosophical career to trying to make the world a better place, and indeed, in many cases, succeeding, astonishingly well, but what first got you interested in ethics?

Peter Singer
What first got me interested were the issues that were around when I was an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in the 1960s. And I suppose the dominant issue then was the Vietnam War, Australia was an ally of the United States. And we reintroduced conscription, the draft for American in order to provide troops to fight alongside Americans. And I was of draft age. So this was clearly a great personal interest to me. But I was opposed to the war, as many people were, at the time as well. So that was the perhaps one big issue. And the other issue was the question of abortion, because we had a law prohibiting abortion, that had not really been enforced. And then a Roman Catholic police man was appointed to head the Homicide Squad, and he started bringing charges against doctors who had been terminating pregnancies for women in need. And that made that a very hot issue at the time.

Ray Briggs
Those do seem like really important real world issues. But earlier, Josh, and I were arguing about how useful philosophy is for bringing about real world change. So what’s the best thing that moral philosophy can do to make the world a better place?

Peter Singer
Moral philosophy can clarify the issues that are being discussed and the arguments. And I think it can help to raise the level of discussion on these questions. So if you take, for example, the war in Vietnam, there’s a long tradition of what makes a war a just war. And I think that it was helpful to have some of those discussions, some of those claims set out there. And it sort of pushes back against the kind of what might sometimes be called realism in politics, that nations will just fight in their when it’s in their interests. And I think the fact that there is a different tradition helps people to think about that issue in an ethical framework. Was it a war, which one had to there was a justified self defense, you know, who was who was being attacked? There were, I suppose there were a lot of factual issues in that rent dispute in the case of the Vietnam War. But there were also questions about to what extent was it legitimate to attack civilians or to carry out actions that were likely to kill civilians, those some of those doctrines, so called doctrine of double effect was used and had to ask whether that’s a valid doctrine that it was legitimate.

Ray Briggs
What’s the doctrine of double effect? And how does it apply here,

Peter Singer
The doctrine of double effect says that you may do something that would in itself be wrong, such as killing an innocent human being, if it’s not your intention to kill, but you are carrying out legitimate activity. So for example, you just do, you’ve talked about the trolley problem. So the doctrine of double effect can be used there as a way of saying that when you throw the switch killing the one person that’s justifiable, because it’s not your intention to kill the one person, your intention is to save the five. And that’s sufficiently important to make it acceptable to for the death of the one person who you would have rather not killed if you could have. So you can apply that to, for example, bombing a military target where you know, that you will be killing civilians around that target. But your intention is not to kill the civilians and you try to minimize the deaths of those civilians. And that raises questions about are you really trying to minimize the deaths of those civilians? Or are you just doing it Whatever will be the simplest for you and have the least risk to, let’s say, the people in the plains who are dropping bombs on the military target.

Josh Landy
Yeah, there’s clearly a big question for the Vietnam War.

Peter Singer
It was a huge question. Yes, that’s right.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today we’re thinking about making a better world with Peter Singer from Princeton University.

Ray Briggs
Has philosophy ever helped you solve a moral dilemma? Did thinking about animal rights inspire you to go vegan? Have you ever read something that changed how much you give to others

Josh Landy
when philosophy meets the real world, along with your comments and questions when Philosophy Talk continues.

Billy Bragg
In a perfect world we’d all sing in tune / But this is reality so give me some room / Waiting for the Great Leap Forward

Josh Landy
Can philosophy inspire us to make a great leap forward, ethically speaking? I’m Josh Landy and this is Philosophy Talk, the program of questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs, and we’re thinking about making a better world with Peter Singer, author of “Ethics in the Real World.”

Josh Landy
Got questions or suggestions about making a more ethical world? Email us comments@philosophytalk.org, or comment on our website. And while you’re there, you can also become a subscriber and lose yourself in our library of more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
So Peter, you are telling us about how philosophy can help us think through whether a war is justified? Do you have another example of a real world issue that moral philosophy can help us get right or think through better?

Peter Singer
Oh, I have several, but one that I’ll start with is our treatment of animals. I think that philosophy has made a real difference in that area. Because when I first got interested in this question, around 1970, the assumption was that the people who were interested in protecting animals and not experimenting on them, for example, in the ways that were being done, or even didn’t need them, although that was extremely rare then, that they were animal lovers that they had this feeling for animals that other people might not have. And so it was understandable for them to want to improve the conditions of animals. But why, you know, just wasn’t an issue for anyone else wasn’t really, as as a moral issue wasn’t on very many people’s radar at all, then. But I think if you think about this, philosophically, you can say, well, these are sentient beings, they can feel pain they can suffer. Why should we think that their pain and suffering is less significant than similar kinds of pain and suffering that human beings might feel? And that then raises the question of, well, they’re not our species, does that make a difference? And that gets you into that discussion. So I think that philosophy has really helped to put the treatment of non human animals on the radar and, you know, made it one of the issues that gets frequently discussed in philosophy courses, but also discussed outside the university.

Josh Landy
What’s the best way to think about nonhuman animals from a philosophical perspective, in relation to the question of what’s morally permissible? I mean, you know, one strand of thought, suggests that what makes a nonhuman animal, particularly worthy of our moral attention, is their ability to reason. For example, their capacity to plan the great apes very much have this, another strand suggests that it’s more to do with sentiment, their their capacity to feel we shouldn’t mistreat non human animals, because after all, they feel suffering. They they they feel pain, they feel sorrow and anxiety, the way that perhaps we do or something like the way we do, does it matter that they respond the way we do? Does it matter that they have or don’t have reason? Does it matter that they have or don’t have the capacity to feel what what are the crucial criteria here?

Peter Singer
So to me, the basically it is a question of suffering. Jeremy Bentham said this almost 200 years ago, the question is not can they reason nor can they talk. But can they suffer? Any back this up by saying, Well, if it was whether they can reason or talk than a dog or a horse is both more rational and more conversable than an infant of a day or a week or a month? So if we want to say that infants have rights, or shouldn’t be, we shouldn’t ignore their interests, then we need to extend them to non human animals as well. But I think that there is some relevance to some of the things you mentioned. If For example, the ability to think ahead and think about your future, because that may change the interests you have. So my view is that we should give equal consideration to similar interests. And as I said before, that means that if a nonhuman animal feels a similar kind of pain to what I might feel, I shouldn’t give more weight to my own pain that I give to that of the animal, or, of course, some other human who feels similar pain. But if we’re talking about things like taking life, then maybe the fact that some beings have a different kind of interest in living for in living continuing to live, because of plans and projects that they’ve made and things that they’ve worked for, perhaps for many years in order to try and achieve. And if they kill, they can’t achieve those things. And so maybe that has a greater significance for beings capable of thinking about their own future in that way, then the loss of life does for another being who doesn’t have that capacity.

Ray Briggs
So does that mean that it is okay to say, kill and eat a cow as long as you do it humanely?

Peter Singer
Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s okay. That’s a big debate, you could say, well, the cow could still have continued to live and enjoy life. And that’s a harm to the cow that that cow account. But I certainly think that, it means that it’s different, it means that we don’t have to equate the killing of the cow with the killing of somebody who has been planning for their future and wanting to go and live and want to go and living and wanting to, you know, whatever it might be to see their children grow up, or something of that kind that we can assume perhaps the cow does not have those thoughts.

Ray Briggs
So you know, who else doesn’t have those thoughts as babies? So here’s a kind of a thing that most people think is that it’s like, it’s way worse to kill a baby human than to kill a cow. But they seem kind of similar in terms of their ability to look forward to the future like neither of them has a conception of the future. Yet, does that mean that we’ve just kind of misjudged sort of the relative values of babies versus cows?

Peter Singer
Well, I do think that it’s relevant to how tragic the death of a baby is, that the baby does not have those thoughts of the future. And I think a lot of why the deaths of very young infants tragic has to do with the hopes and wishes of the parents and others who love and care for that child. Because I do think that in some respects, yes, as you say, the mental life of the infant, or as Bentham said to is not more rational than than that of the cow, maybe probably less if we’re talking about the very young infant. So yeah, I think you have to look externally, if you like outside that particular child, to see why it’s tragic that that child should die.

Josh Landy
Peter, we’ve got a question from a listener it said Jenny in San Francisco. Jenny writes this during COVID, my partner and I strongly disagreed about whether the government should be able to force people to get vaccinated. I said that no one was ever held down and forcibly vaccinated, but there were restrictions imposed for those who chose not to get vaccinated. My partner thought the restrictions in some cases amounted to state coercion. Can philosophy help with our disagreement?

Peter Singer
Well, philosophy can help by asking what counts as as coercion. And I suppose asking where the state coercion is, is always wrong, because clearly, state collusion is not always wrong. Your partner needs to explain more about that, because we think that the State is entitled to coerce you to take taxes so that it can do that provide the various essential services that states provide. In this case, I’m inclined to agree with you that the restrictions were not really coercion. Let’s say that you could not go to public events without showing a vaccination certificate. You couldn’t go to the theater or to a sports event, or maybe even you couldn’t use public transport, or certainly you couldn’t fly. But you know, but you can survive without those things. They’re not strictly essential. The public transport well, and if it really applies to everything, trains and buses might be a great hardship. But after all, if you are not vaccinated, and you do use public transport, you are likely to be increasing the risk that your fellow passengers will get COVID. So if that is in fact, a correct statement of the facts, then it’s not for your own good that the state is coercing you to be vaccinated. It’s so that you don’t harm others.

Ray Briggs
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re thinking about making a better world with Peter Singer from Princeton University. Peter, we’ve been talking a bit about places where philosophy can provide insight that’s useful for people. Do you think that there are any moral questions on which philosophy has been particularly unhelpful

Peter Singer
Questions on which philosophy is less helpful questions which depend greatly on the facts on and there are different views of the facts. And it’s hard for people to solve that. And sometimes, questions about whether a war is a just war will depend very much on disputed facts about what’s happening. I don’t think that’s the case in the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today, but it was more disputed in the case of the Vietnam War as to what the origins of the conflict were, and whether it was a civil war, or whether it was an invasion of one country by another.

Josh Landy
And that seems like so it seems like we need to have facts. But once we have the facts, then there are three possible positions, right. One position is the one that you have, and that, frankly, I agree with, which is that moral philosophy, at that point, often can help us. But then there are folks who say no, it’s neither here nor there. All that philosophy is doing at that point is rationalizing the beliefs we came in with, we just had some intuitions, they aren’t particularly rational, maybe their prejudices. And then we use all this machinery of philosophy to rat to justify them. And then there’s a an even worse thought, which is moral philosophy. All it does is confuse us right moral dumbfounding, it just we just get put in front of these thought experiments that bamboozle us and cause us to give up and perhaps become less morally good. Or maybe we we have moral self self licensing, we feel like well, I just did all my morality in the classroom when I learned all that moral philosophy and and now Now I’ve done all that I gave it the office, now I can go and break a lamppost. So what’s your best justification for saying no, it’s not bad for you morally, it’s not even neutral, it’s actually morally good that you read moral philosophy or or listen to moral philosophers?

Peter Singer
Well, I think the the clear proof of that is a carefully controlled experiment that Eric Schmidt skateable, Brad coklat, and I did a couple of years ago, which has been published in peer reviewed journals. This experiment, thanks, in which we, Eric, I should say, had a large class at UC, Riverside, and randomized, so that half of the class took part in a discussion about the ethics of eating meat. And the other half took part in a different discussion about giving to charity. But that was just a control group, we had no way of assessing whether that increased people’s giving to charity. But we did have a way of assessing whether the class on the ethics of eating meat changed what they ate. And that was because at UC Riverside students use their student ID card to pay for meals at the student cafeteria. And the cafeteria agreed to cooperate with us in giving us feedback so that we could check the ID numbers with the students who had been in the two groups. And somewhat to Eric surprise, because he was a little bit on the skeptical side about the value of moral philosophy, we actually got a statistically significant drop in meat consumption in those who had been in the class discussing meat ethics, and no change at all in the others who had been in the control group. So I think, you know, that has really established that class in moral philosophy can change what people eat. And that’s a pretty significant change in the real world.

Ray Briggs
That’s a cool result. I do wonder about how it generalizes to cases where there’s more disagreement. Like what what happens if you present moral philosophy classes on an issue that moral philosophers don’t agree with? Like, I’m worried that meat is an easy issue. Maybe it’s not.

Peter Singer
I’m really glad you think meat is an easy issue. Because, you know, you don’t have to go back very far. For people to think it wasn’t an issue at all, but it was just obvious that, you know, animals were here for us to use, and we were so superior to them, that it didn’t really matter very much what we did to them. So I’m not sure what other issues you would say. Not easy issues. What about giving something significant to people in extreme poverty, which is another issue that I worked on, you know, you may say, Well, that’s an easy issue we all agree we should give but in fact, people generally don’t give or they give you know, trivial amounts, even though they could easily afford to give substantial amounts. So that’s that’s another area where moral philosophy has certainly changed things and you know, I’ve had I don’t have a nice steady like the like the one I mentioned with with meat, but there is some research showing that some arguments you know, a variety of arguments can can infer Most people, including both philosophical arguments and emotional arguments influenced people in that direction, but the philosophical arguments do have some influence.

Ray Briggs
Right. So I guess the the issue that I had in mind was actually abortion, where you have people sort of arguing on different sides about what is right or what is right for society to do. And it seems like in the meat and charity cases, you have sort of more people agreeing about what the right thing is, in theory, but being kind of weak willed about doing it in practice, and maybe the the meat issue has kind of changed over the decades that you’ve been doing philosophy, so I might, I might just be taking the wrong moral snapshots.

Peter Singer
Right. So on the abortion issue, I think religion clearly plays a big role. So one of the facts that you would need to establish is, is there a garden? Or if there is a God, does God think that it’s bad for us to terminate pregnancies, because I think if you took religion out of the abortion debate, you would get overwhelming support for abortion. And I think that’s actually the right conclusion to come to philosophically as well. So it’s difficult for philosophy to actually affect that issue with that, getting it the religious basis of many people’s beliefs.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re thinking about making a better world with Peter Singer from Princeton University, author of “Ethics in the Real World.”

Ray Briggs
Will future generations be horrified by our moral failings? How can we rise above the prejudices of our era? Would it help to require an ethics class?

Josh Landy
Saving the world one argument at a time. Plus commentary from Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher, when Philosophy Talk continues.

Howard Jones
And if we throw it all away / Things can only get better

Josh Landy
What do we need to throw away for things to get better? I’m Josh Landy, and this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs. Our guest is Peter Singer from Princeton University, and we’re thinking about making a better world.

Josh Landy
So Peter, with the enormous powers vested in us by KALW radio, we’re going to make you a global philosopher king for the day. What’s the first big thing you’re going to do to bring about a better world?

Peter Singer
I think I’m going to decree that we should stop eating animals and commercially raising animals for their meat, milk and eggs. I think that that will not only enormously reduce animal suffering on a scale that is so vast, it’s difficult to comprehend. But it will also dramatically reduce greenhouse gases, which is something that we very urgently need to do, it will reduce in local pollution, because factory farms in particular are extremely polluting of water and air in their local area. And it will reduce public health risks, both from the overuse of antibiotics and other anti microbials which creates resistance among bacteria. And it will also reduce the risk of another pandemic emerging from factory farms, as the swine flu pandemic did in the early 2000s.

Josh Landy
I mean, I’m totally on board with that. But since we have you as philosopher king, maybe we can ask you to issue more excellent decrees. One of the things I’m wondering about is long termism, right. So your your name is associated with Effective Altruism. And one of the offshoots of Effective Altruism is the is the idea of paying more attention than before to the long term prospects of the human species trying, trying to get out ahead of dangers to our entire kind. How much should do you think, you know, if you’re, you as philosopher king, how much of your decree would be devoted to what you see as potential threats, whether it be AI or climate change, or anything else that’s potentially on the horizon at the species level?

Peter Singer
I certainly would pay attention to those threats. The rather different climate change, as I already mentioned, is something that we need to deal with. Now. It’s already changing the climate in really adverse ways. I’m speaking to you from Australia, where of course we are greatly at risk of bushfires. We’ve had terrible fires previously, and in the United States. Now, of course, the Canadian forests are burning in ways that they haven’t previously. So that’s not a long term issue. It’s also a long term issue, because it is going to get worse for centuries, but it’s a present issue as well. So I think that’s something that I would definitely make decrees about I already mentioned eliminating meat production. As a contributing factor, but there’s a lot more that we need to do to cut out fossil fuels as well. When you talk about things like AI, and that being a danger of extinction, which is something a lot of people have been talking about just recently, that one question is, can we actually do something about this? Because the problems have to be tractable? What’s one of the AI mantra is that you should think about problems that are large scale that are neglected. And also that attractable. And if people have been saying, Well, yes, you know, we should have a moratorium on AI. But nobody is suggesting how we’re actually going to have a moratorium on developing AI, given that it’s being developed in different countries that the Defense Department’s of both the United States and China, I’m sure, looking at this, and how are you going to get a treaty that we will not try to develop AI, it’s going to be much harder to monitor, obviously, than a nuclear disarmament treaty. So you need to think how we’re actually going to be able to contribute to this issue. I think it’s great that people are working on this and thinking about it, and that’s fine. But to me, it’s it’s not the issue that ought to get the lion’s share of the resources that are going into Effective Altruism, I think there are more present issues, including global poverty, that should get more of those resources.

Ray Briggs
So if we’re flagging technologies that could pose a threat to human beings, and that are hard to stamp out, I always also wonder about sort of military technologies. So you have countries building and stockpiling weapons, which seems bad from a climate perspective, using these weapons kind of accelerates climate change, and also bad from a poverty perspective, those those resources could be going to sort of food and housing for people. Do you have any views on militarization? And what we might do about it?

Peter Singer
I don’t know what we can do about it. Because again, it’s an issue in which countries compete. And there isn’t enough trust to say, well, we’ll we’ll just all agree not to build more weapons. And you look exactly what’s happening in Europe. Now. Europe had cut down its commitment to defense. And then Russia invades Ukraine. and Europe, I think very reasonably sees this as a threat. Certainly the countries that were formally under the domination of the Soviet Union, like Poland, and the Baltic states, certainly see this as a threat. So your now starts increasing its expenditure on the military. And I don’t blame them for doing that, honestly. I mean, I do think that looking at what Putin is doing, brings back memories of the 1930s and Hitler’s incremental expansions of German territory, leading up to the Second World War. And a lot of people say, well, it would have been better if Hitler had been stopped earlier. So I don’t think we want to allow Putin to take over Ukraine and then have a larger and more powerful country, which could then start to attack other neighbors that, in some sense, used to be part of the Soviet sphere. So I don’t see a way of actually stopping that in the world at present. But it’s up to us what we eat. And also, of course, we can be politically active on things like the treatment of animals in factory farming. The same is true for global poverty. It’s up to us how much of our income or wealth we donate to effective charities that are helping people in extreme poverty. And we can also let our political representatives know that we think it’s shameful that the government is giving so little to foreign aid. Those are clearly tractable issues where we can have an impact. And I haven’t really focused a lot on the militarization for just the reasons I gave.

Josh Landy
One of the things I love about your book is I mean, it’s it’s uniformly brilliant, but also extremely wide ranging, and you have all kinds of recommendations all kinds of various, for example, recommending the Australian system for voting, but people are required, essentially required to vote and you make this very nice suggestion. Australians want to be coerced into voting. So it’s not paternalistic. It’s not really coercive. It’s ultimately what people want you you talk about fake news, you you criticize judge Brandeis for saying the response you know, our proper response to misinformation is more speech, all all these areas but the what I want to come back to before we run out of time, in spite of the fact that it’s lower stakes, is cheating in sports, because I love your chapter about this. You know, I also think of that you cite Manuel Neuer, the the German goalkeeper who essentially pretended the bolding go in I think of positive cases, Robbie Fowler saying no, it wasn’t a penalty. He didn’t trip me. But what bothers me is that in this context is that commentators seem to be changing. They seem to be normalizing cheating. And when I was a kid, it used to be, that was a cynical foul. This shouldn’t be part of the game. And nowadays, people are these commentators are saying, Oh, that was great that he took one for the team, that was a good foul to give, you know, what’s happening, why? Why are these norms being eroded? Right? So you’ve got rules, and you’ve got norms? Yeah, of course, you can trip somebody up. And you could say, well, he tripped the person up, he got the yellow card. That’s all within the rules. What’s going on? Is this just a kind of a microcosm of a general erosion of adherence to norms in our societies?

Peter Singer
Well, in the case of sport, it may also be that the stakes get higher, that becomes more important to win the idea of sport as a kind of amateur gentleman Lee, or I shouldn’t really say gentleman, he should I obviously includes women. But that was a bit of the atmosphere, that it wasn’t something that was entirely serious. And, you know, I mean, I’m old enough to remember when when the big tennis tournaments were Milton and US Open, we’re only open to amateurs, you couldn’t be a professional player. So I think that’s the fact that it is professional, that there’s huge amounts of money at stake sponsorships, as well. That so much effort goes into winning, I think, has probably helped to decay, that sort of code of, you should, you should not cheat, you should act honorably.

Josh Landy
And I like your prescription, which is, let them get away with it, though, even though the stakes appear to be low, because just a game. On the other hand, as you say, this is least these matters are watched by millions or 10s of millions of people, these ship, these folks should be a good example, thinking of which I did want to ask you about Effective Altruism. This is a movement that you have essentially brought into being large numbers of folks, including many of my my friends who are following your recommendation to do the most good you can, by using reason by looking for evidence giving to the most effective charities giving as much as you can. But it’s kind of hit a little bit of a bump in the road recently with the scandal around Sam Backman fried, who’s in the effective altruists movement, but has been charged with a number of financial crimes. And and so as I understand it, one of the questions that’s been raised is, does this shed any kind of troubling light on the movement as a whole because this is a consequentialist movement, where the idea is, it’s okay to take a job in the financial world, which we might or might not love in itself, because you can do the most good with the money you make. But then when you see a case like this, where you think, Well, this guy kind of cut corners in order to achieve that, is it okay to cut corners? And what is a good consequentialist say about that if you’re going to make billions to give to charity? Is it okay, that sounds that seems kind of troubling?

Peter Singer
Well, I think a consequentialist will say, it’s great to make billions and give them to charity. If, firstly, you’re not doing more harm by making the billions then the amount of the good that the charities can do. But if in fact, you are violating some basic rules, which consequentialist to will do well to observe, because in general, the consequences of observing those rules will be better than the consequences of breaking them, then you’ve made a very serious mistake. And I think that’s, well, if we accept the the allegations made against Sam bank, Manfred. Then he did make an extremely serious mistake he really was was, I suppose gambling with other people’s money. And when the gamble didn’t pay off, the money wasn’t there. And that was loss of trust in what he was doing. And because he was perhaps the most prominent proponent of earning to give as it’s called this practice of trying to earn a lot of money in order to give it effectively to do good in the world. He certainly tarnished that idea, which I think is still basically a sound idea. Maybe we’re now more aware of the temptations that people may be under when they’re doing that. But I don’t think it really undermines the ethics of Effective Altruism as a whole. I think it is a case of showing Well, this, you know, there are people who will make mistakes in any lives. institution and make very serious mistakes.

Josh Landy
Peter, thank you so much for joining us. I feel like a better person already.

Peter Singer
That’s great good. Keep doing it. And I hope other people who are listening will, because that’s another thing that we haven’t talked about actually that doing good and living in accordance with your values, does make people feel better and enjoy their life more. So yeah, go for it.

Josh Landy
Thanks a billion. Our guest has been Peter Singer, Professor of bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton, and author of “Ethics in the Real World,” as well as an updated edition of his classic book “Animal Liberation.” So Ray, what’re you thinking now?

Ray Briggs
There’s so much to get to in this conversation. I’m regretting that we didn’t get to talk at all about disability rights. There’s been some really interesting criticism of and exchanges with Peter Singer on that I particularly recommend the essay “Unspeakable Conversations” by Harriet McBride Johnson, which is in this wonderful anthology “Disability, Visibility” edited by Alice Wong, and so I recommend the whole anthology. And I also recommend “Animal Liberation.”

Josh Landy
Yeah, me too. And again, “Ethics in the Real World” is it’s a treat to read, I’m telling you. We’re gonna put links to that and to everything we’ve mentioned today on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can also become a subscriber and gain access to our library of more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
And if you have a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s show, we’d love to hear from you. Send it to us at comments@philosophytalk.org, and we may feature it on the blog.

Josh Landy
Now, a man who speeds his way to a better world—it’s Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher.

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales… It’s not easy building a better world. Much of the world is in flames, making it hard to gather pieces from which to build. It’s like working with melted Legos, or so encumbered with proprietary restrictions you have to wade through lawyers just to make a tiny house. You ever try to make an Organic Farm Play Set from the SpiderMan Versus Doctor Octopus Mech Battle Building set? Well, you know what I’m talking about. Also, doing the right thing often means doing the wrong thing. Take the ongoing switchover from gas to electric in our moving vehicles. Despite enthusiasm from patchouli reeking tree huggers Big Oil lumbers on, as red states like Texas make it illegal to use state funds to promote or invest in alternative energy sources. And electric means batteries, which means copper, cadmium. Bad enough getting support for wind and solar, who wants to greenlight copper mines? Remember the Anaconda Pit Mine out of Butte, Montana? Finally abandoned, it filled up with ground water, and it was a frequent cause of death for migrating birds, who would land there for a refreshing drink, and then fall dead from the sky moments later. After many years of toxic cleanup, it has eventually became something of a tourist attraction. Before you know it, there will be Scuba diving forays to see what three headed trout have evolved in those deeps. Who knows? Mines are a kettle of fish. And water power means dams. Hoover Dam’s reservoir is running low, as is the Colorado River. Arizona itself is in the middle of a mega drought, in the middle of always being a desert, which is probably why it became pals with Saudis, way back in the early 20th century. Saudis went nuts for Arizona’s desert farming techniques, which are said to be amazing, but might be better employed, I’d think, in areas more conducive to farming, such as, oh, a place with top soil, and some kind of measurable annual rainfall. They do have sunlight. Which led to alfalfa farms in Arizona, a very water intensive crop, first used for silage for Saudi race horses. Alfalfa in Arizona uses the aquifer, while farms and houses surrounding alfalfa farms often have to bring in their own water on trucks. So here is the free market in action. On the plus side, innovative desert farming. On the minus, water only belongs to who has it. In the west, water is kind of like bitcoin, a commodity, but also currency. Except now, because of advanced desert farming to feed Saudi quadrupeds, Arizona’s running out of ground water. One of the county supervisors in Arizona, referred to the aquifer as “forever water”. Of course, forever water doesn’t last forever, if you drink it all it’s gone. Water is fraught. Especially in California. Farmers want it. Business wants it. Agribusiness wants so much of it, they think the rest of us are traitors for being thirsty. Not to mention those who want Salmon to spawn. Bleeding heart fish breeders. Go suck on a sponge with Greta Thunberg. Golf courses though? Golf courses and lawns will always get their portion. In red state world, water’s mine, not a privilege, a right, and you only want it because you’re too woke. And the manufactured outrages all just bleed together. I read an article in Slate about “breastfeeding in the trans community,” which has the right in a tizzy. See, I didn’t know this but ANYBODY can produce milk. But, Slate sez, “… When it comes to producing enough milk to be a food source for a child, something called the Newman-Goldfarb Protocols for Induced Lactation comes into play.” So! With hormones and patience, anybody can be a wet nurse! I don’t know why conservatives get so worked up about it. I mean, if trans women are lactating, who cares? Pay attention! Cis MEN can lactate. And it won’t be long before they take over from women. Which means no more free lunch, babies. Monetize! It’s like your own personal aquifer, only milk. Eventually, we could end world hunger with an army of male wet nurses, fully armed, breasts proud, marching from village to village, expressing milk in bottles in special huts, for a reasonable fee, then moving on. To a future world with a little more water certainty. Hopefully. I gotta go.

Josh Landy
Philosophy Talk as a presentation of KALW San Francisco Bay Area and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University, copyright 2023.

Ray Briggs
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Josh Landy
Thanks also to Jaime Lee, Elizabeth Zhu, Emily Huang, Merle Kessler, and Angela Johnston.

Ray Briggs
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Josh Landy
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Ray Briggs
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

Josh Landy
Not even when they’re true and reasonable. The conversation continues on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can become a subscriber and gain access to our library of more than 500 episodes. I’m Josh Landy

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. Thank you for listening.

Josh Landy
And thank you for thinking.

Admission
We should be educating ourselves to be citizens of the world, not of some guarded suburban enclave. What we want is to leave the planet better than we found it. Okay, well good luck with that.