Peter Singer

For other people named Peter Singer, see Peter Singer (disambiguation).

Peter Singer, AC
Born	Peter Albert David Singer (1946-07-06) 6 July 1946 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Alma mater	University of Melbourne University College, Oxford
Website	www.princeton.edu/~psinger
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy · Utilitarianism
Main interests	Ethics
Notable ideas	Equal consideration of interests, Drowning child analogy
Influences John Stuart Mill  · Henry Sidgwick  · R.M. Hare  · Jonathan Glover  · Derek Parfit  · Karl Marx
Influenced Peter Unger · Colin McGinn · Roger Crisp · Dale Jamieson · Gregory Pence · Erik Marcus · James Rachels · Mylan Engel · Steven Best · Toby Ord

Peter Albert David Singer, AC (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book, Animal Liberation (1975), a canonical text in animal rights/liberation theory. For most of his career, he supported preference utilitarianism, but in his later years became a classical or hedonistic utilitarian, when co-authoring The Point of View of the Universe with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek.

On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996 he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004 he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, and in June 2012 was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for his services to philosophy and bioethics. He serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal. He was voted one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals in 2006. Singer serves on the advisory board of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP).

Life and career

Singer's parents were Austrian Jews who emigrated to Australia from Vienna in 1938, after Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany. They settled in Melbourne, where Singer was born. His grandparents were less fortunate: his paternal grandparents were taken by the Nazis to Łódź, and were never heard from again; his maternal grandfather died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He has a sister, Joan (now Joan Dwyer). Singer's grandfather, David Oppenheim, published numerous papers with Sigmund Freud before a falling out between the two in Venice. Singer's father imported tea and coffee, while his mother practiced medicine. He attended Preshil and later Scotch College. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history, and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, gaining his BA degree (hons) in 1967. He received an MA for a thesis entitled Why should I be moral? in 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, and obtained from there a B.Phil in 1971, with a thesis on civil disobedience supervised by R. M. Hare and subsequently published as a book in 1973. Singer names Hare and Australian philosopher H. J. McCloskey as his two most important mentors.

After spending two years as a Radcliffe lecturer at University College, Oxford, he was a visiting professor at New York University for 16 months. He returned to Melbourne in 1977, where he spent most of his career, aside from appointments as visiting faculty abroad, until his move to Princeton in 1999. In June 2011 it was announced he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London, in addition to his work at Princeton.

According to philosopher Helga Kuhse, Singer is "almost certainly the best-known and most widely read of all contemporary philosophers". Michael Specter wrote that Singer is among the most influential of contemporary philosophers.

Animal Liberation

Main article: Animal Liberation (book)

Published in 1975, Animal Liberation has been cited as a formative influence on leaders of the modern animal liberation movement. The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that "the greatest good of the greatest number" is the only measure of good or ethical behaviour. Singer believes that there is no reason not to apply this principle to other animals, arguing that the boundary between human and "animal" is completely arbitrary. There are far more differences, for instance, between a great ape and an oyster, for example, than between a human and a great ape, and yet the former two are lumped together as "animals," whereas we are considered "human" in a way that supposedly differentiates us from all other "animals."

He popularized the term "speciesism", which had been coined previously by English writer Richard D. Ryder to describe the practice of privileging humans over other animals. In Animal Liberation, Singer argues in favour of vegetarianism and against animal experimentation.

Applied ethics

Singer's Practical Ethics (1979) analyzes why and how living beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor. For example, this approach would privilege a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.

Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others". The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness". Singer holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a 'journey' model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures.

Ethical conduct is justifiable by reasons that go beyond prudence to "something bigger than the individual," addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies moral reasons as "somehow universal", specifically in the injunction to 'love thy neighbor as thyself', interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one gives to one's own interests. This universalising step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him apart from those moral theorists, from Hobbes to David Gauthier, who tie morality to prudence. Universalisation leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others. Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that is most likely to maximise the interests of those affected; utilitarianism has been arrived at. Singer's universalising step applies to interests without reference to who has them, whereas a Kantian's applies to the judgments of rational agents (in Kant's kingdom of ends, or Rawls's Original Position, etc.). Singer regards Kantian universalisation as unjust to animals. As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter of Practical Ethics, arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as 'the paradox of hedonism', which counsels that happiness is best found by not looking for it, and the need most people feel to relate to something larger than their own concerns.

Abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide

Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.

In Practical Ethics, Singer argues in favour of abortion on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have an abortion automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks personhood.

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

Singer classifies euthanasia as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the subject consents. He argues in favour of voluntary euthanasia and some forms of non-voluntary euthanasia, including infanticide in certain instances, but opposes involuntary euthanasia.

Religious critics have argued that Singer's ethic ignores and undermines the traditional notion of the sanctity of life. Singer agrees and believes the notion of the sanctity of life ought to be discarded as outdated, unscientific, and irrelevant to understanding problems in contemporary bioethics. Bioethicists associated with the Disability Rights and Disability Studies communities have argued that his epistemology is based on ableist conceptions of disability.

Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. His mother had Alzheimer's disease. He said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult". In an interview with Ronald Bailey, published in December 2000, he explained that his sister shares the responsibility of making decisions about his mother. He did say that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.

Effective altruism and world poverty

Singer is an advocate of effective altruism. He argues that people should not only try to reduce suffering, but reduce it in the most effective manner possible. While Singer has previously written at length about the moral imperative to eliminate the suffering of nonhuman animals, particularly in the meat industry, and end world poverty, he writes about how the effective altruism movement is doing these things more effectively in his 2015 book, The Most Good You Can Do. He is a board member of Animal Charity Evaluators, a charity evaluator used by many members of the effective altruism community which recommends the most cost-effective animal advocacy charities and interventions.

His own organisation, The Life You Can Save, also recommends a selection of charities deemed by charity evaluators such as GiveWell to be the most effective when it comes to helping those in extreme poverty. The organisation was founded after Singer released his 2009 book, The Life You Can Save, in which he argues more generally in favour of giving to charities that help to end global poverty. In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972 essay Famine, Affluence and Morality, in which he posits that citizens of rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the drowning child analogy, which states that most people would rescue a drowning child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined, so we clearly value a human life more than the value of our material possessions. As a result, we should take a significant portion of the money that we spend on our possessions and instead donate it to charity.

Other views

Meta-ethical views

In the past, Singer has not held that objective moral values exist, on the basis that reason could favour both egoism and equal consideration of interests. Singer himself adopted utilitarianism on the basis that people's preferences can be universalised, leading to a situation where one takes the "point of view of the universe" and "an impartial standpoint". However, in the Second Edition of Practical Ethics, he concedes that the question of why we should act morally "cannot be given an answer that will provide everyone with overwhelming reasons for acting morally".

However, when co-authoring The Point of View of the Universe (2014), Singer shifted to the position that objective moral values do exist, and defended the 19th Century utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick's view that objective morality can be derived from fundamental moral axioms. Furthermore, Singer and de Lazari-Radek (the co-author of the book) argue that evolutionary debunking arguments can be used to demonstrate that it is more rational to take the impartial standpoint of "the point of view of the universe", as opposed to egoism - pursuing one's own self-interest - because the existence of egoism is more likely to be the product of evolution by natural selection, rather than because it is correct, whereas taking an impartial standpoint and equally considering the interests of all sentient beings is in conflict with what we would expect from natural selection, meaning that it is more likely that impartiality in ethics is the correct stance to pursue.

Doping in elite sports

Singer agrees with Julian Savulescu that elite athletes should be allowed to take whatever performance-enhancing drugs they wish "as long as it is safe for them to do so". The argument is that "without drugs, those with the best genes have an unfair advantage. [...] Setting a maximum level of red blood cells [for endurance events] actually levels the playing field by reducing the impact of the genetic lottery. Effort then becomes more important than having the right genes."

Evolutionary biology and leftist politics

In A Darwinian Left, Singer outlines a plan for the political left to adapt to the lessons of evolutionary biology. He says that evolutionary psychology suggests that humans naturally tend to be self-interested. He further argues that the evidence that selfish tendencies are natural must not be taken as evidence that selfishness is "right." He concludes that game theory (the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments in psychology offer hope that self-interested people will make short-term sacrifices for the good of others, if society provides the right conditions. Essentially, Singer claims that although humans possess selfish, competitive tendencies naturally, they have a substantial capacity for cooperation that also has been selected for during human evolution. Singer's writing in Greater Good magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley, includes the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.

In 2010, Singer signed a petition renouncing his 'right of return' to Israel, which called it "a form of racist privilege that abets the colonial oppression of the Palestinians".

Singer describes himself as not anti-capitalist, stating in a 2010 interview with the New Left Project:

Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy.

He added that "[i]f we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist".

Similarly, in his book Marx, Singer is sympathetic to Marx's criticism of capitalism, but is skeptical about whether a better system is likely to be created, writing: "Marx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realised."

Personism

Although he has expressed admiration for many of the values promoted by secular humanism, Singer believes it to be incomplete and promotes a preference utilitarian view he calls "personism" instead.

Surrogacy

In 1985, Singer wrote a book with the physician Deanne Wells arguing that surrogate motherhood should be allowed and regulated by the state by establishing nonprofit 'State Surrogacy Boards', which would ensure fairness between surrogate mothers and surrogacy-seeking parents. Singer and Wells endorsed both the payment of medical expenses endured by surrogate mothers and an extra "fair fee" to compensate the surrogate mother.

Veganism and ethics of food consumption

Singer describes himself as a flexible vegan. He writes, "That is, I'm vegan when it's not too difficult to be vegan, but I'm not rigid about this, if I'm traveling for example."

In an article for the online publication Chinadialogue, Singer called Western-style meat production cruel, unhealthy, and damaging to the ecosystem. He rejected the idea that the method was necessary to meet the population's increasing demand, explaining that animals in factory farms have to eat food grown explicitly for them, and they burn up most of the food's energy just to breathe and keep their bodies warm.

In his book Animal Liberation, Singer promoted a vegan diet against the killing of animals. The book received widespread support in the Animal Rights community.

In addition to his addressing issues concerning the consumption of animal products, Singer's "Can You Do Good by Eating Well?" in Greater Good examines the ethics of eating locally-grown food.

Bestiality

In a 2001 review of Midas Dekkers' Dearest Pet: On Bestiality, Singer argues that sexual activities between humans and animals that result in harm to the animal should remain illegal, but that "sex with animals does not always involve cruelty" and that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans and animals, and that writer Otto Soyka would condone such activities. This position is countered by fellow philosopher Tom Regan, who writes that the same argument could be used to justify having sex with children. Regan writes that Singer's position is a consequence of his adapting a utilitarian, or consequentialist, approach to animal rights, rather than a strictly rights-based one, and argues that the rights-based position distances itself from non-consensual sex.

Singer lecturing at Oxford University

Religion

Singer is an atheist. He was a speaker at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention. He has debated with Christians such as John Lennox and Dinesh D'Souza. Singer has pointed out the problem of evil as an objection against the Christian conception of God. He stated: "The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world was not created by any god at all. If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. He must be either evil or a bungler." In keeping with his considerations of non-human animals, Singer also takes issue with the original sin reply to the problem of evil, saying that, "animals also suffer from floods, fires, and droughts, and, since they are not descended from Adam and Eve, they cannot have inherited original sin."

Death penalty

Singer is opposed to the death penalty, claiming that it does not effectively deter the crimes for which it is the punitive measure, and that he cannot see any other justification for it.

Criticism of Singer

Singer's positions have been criticised by groups, such as advocates for disability rights and right-to-life supporters, concerned with what they see as his attacks upon human dignity. Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not his books or articles and, that his aim is to elevate the status of animals, not to lower that of humans.

Some claim that Singer's utilitarian ideas lead to eugenics. American publisher Steve Forbes ceased his donations to Princeton University in 1999 because of Singer's appointment to a prestigious professorship. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal wrote to organisers of a Swedish book fair to which Singer was invited that "A professor of morals ... who justifies the right to kill handicapped newborns ... is in my opinion unacceptable for representation at your level." Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, criticised Singer's appointment to the Princeton Faculty in a banquet speech at the organisation's national convention in July 2001, claiming that Singer's support for euthanizing disabled babies could lead to disabled older children and adults being valued less as well. Conservative psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple wrote in 2010 that Singerian moral universalism is "preposterous—psychologically, theoretically, and practically".

Singer's work has attracted criticism from other philosophers. Bernard Williams, who was a critic of utilitarianism, said of Singer that he "is always so keen to mortify himself and tell everyone how to live". Williams criticised Singer's ethic by saying that he's "always so damn logical" and thus "leaves out an entire dimension of value". Williams claimed that Singer's utilitarianism is impractical as it's impossible to "make these calculations and comparisons in real life".

Williams develops an extended critique of Singer for suggesting that speciesism is a prejudice roughly equivalent to sexism or racism by suggesting that we have yet to face the sort of scenarios where species membership would become a morally significant property, but that some science fiction-style thought experiments may provide such examples. He imagines an invasion of aliens who are "very disgusting indeed: their faces, for instance, if those are faces, are seething with what seem to be worms, but if we wait long enough to find out what they are at, we may gather that they are quite benevolent". Said aliens "want to live with us—rather closely with us" even though their "disgustingness is really, truly, unforgettable". Williams also suggests that another sort of alien visitors might have "much more successful experience than we have in running peacable societies" but that they would need to exercise significant control and remove the cultural autonomy of human beings. In both scenarios, Williams argues, it would be perfectly reasonable for human beings to treat their species membership as a reasonable morally significant property. Singer responds to Williams by arguing that the right and courageous thing to do is to make the decision without regards to species.

The aesthetics philosopher Roger Scruton wrote in 2000, "Singer's works, remarkably for a philosophy professor, contain little or no philosophical argument. They derive their radical moral conclusions from a vacuous utilitarianism that counts the pain and pleasure of all living things as equally significant and that ignores just about everything that has been said in our philosophical tradition about the real distinction between persons and animals".

In 2002 disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson debated Singer, challenging his belief that parents ought to be able to euthanize their disabled children. "Unspeakable Conversations", Johnson's account of her encounters with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement, was published in the New York Times Magazine in 2003. It also served as inspiration for The Thrill, a 2013 play by Judith Thompson partly based on Johnson's life.

Protests

In 1989 and 1990, Peter Singer's work was the subject of a number of protests in Germany. A course in ethics led by Dr. Hartmut Kliemt at the University of Duisburg where the main text used was Singer's Practical Ethics was, according to Singer, "subjected to organized and repeated disruption by protesters objecting to the use of the book on the grounds that in one of its ten chapters it advocates active euthanasia for severely disabled newborn infants". The protests led to the course being shut down.

When Singer tried to speak during a lecture at Saarbrücken, he was interrupted by a group of protesters including advocates for disability rights. He offered the protesters the opportunity to explain why he should not be allowed to speak. The protesters indicated that they believed he was opposed to all rights for the disabled. They were unaware that, although Singer believes that some lives are so blighted from the beginning that their parents may decide their lives are not worth living, in other cases, once the decision is made to keep them alive, everything that can be done to improve the quality of their life should, to Singer's mind, be done. The ensuing discussion revealed that there were many misconceptions about his positions, but the revelation did not end the controversy. One of the protesters expressed that entering serious discussions would be a tactical error.

The same year, Singer was invited to speak in Marburg at a European symposium on "Bioengineering, Ethics and Mental Disability". The invitation was fiercely attacked by leading intellectuals and organizations in German media, with an article in Der Spiegel comparing Singer's positions to Nazism. Eventually, the symposium was cancelled and Singer's invitation consequently withdrawn.

A lecture at the Zoological Institute of the University of Zurich also was interrupted by two groups of protesters. The first group was a group of disabled people who staged a brief protest at the beginning of the lecture. They objected to inviting an advocate of euthanasia to speak. At the end of this protest, when Singer tried to address their concerns, a second group of protesters rose and began chanting "Singer raus! Singer raus!" ("Singer out!") When Singer attempted to respond, a protester jumped on stage and grabbed his glasses, and the host ended the lecture. The first group of protesters was distressed by this second, more aggressive group. It had not intended to halt the lecture and even had questions to ask Singer. Singer explains "my views are not threatening to anyone, even minimally" and says that some groups play on the anxieties of those who hear only keywords that are understandably worrying (given the constant fears of ever repeating the Holocaust) if taken with any less than the full context of his belief system.

In 1991, Singer was due to speak along with R. M. Hare and Georg Meggle at the 15th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. Singer has stated that threats were made to Adolf Hübner, then the president of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, that the conference would be disrupted if Singer and Meggle were given a platform. Hübner proposed to the board of the society that Singer's invitation (as well as the invitations of a number of other speakers) be withdrawn. The Society decided to cancel the symposium.

In an article originally published in The New York Review of Books, Singer argued that the protests dramatically increased the amount of coverage he got: "instead of a few hundred people hearing views at lectures in Marburg and Dortmund, several millions read about them or listened to them on television". Despite this, Singer argues that it has led to a difficult intellectual climate, with professors in Germany unable to teach courses on applied ethics and campaigns demanding the resignation of professors who invited Singer to speak.

Honours

Singer was inducted into the United States Animal Rights Hall of Fame in 2000.

On 11 June 2012, Singer was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areas of global poverty, animal welfare and the human condition."

Personal life

Since 1968 he has been married to Renata, née Diamond; they have three children: Ruth, Marion, and Esther. Renata Singer is a novelist and author and she also has collaborated on publications with her husband.

See also

• Effective altruism
• Intrinsic value (animal ethics)
• Argument from marginal cases
• Utilitarian bioethics
• Utilitarianism
• Demandingness objection

Publications

Singly authored books

• Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, New York Review/Random House, New York, 1975; Cape, London, 1976; Avon, New York, 1977; Paladin, London, 1977; Thorsons, London, 1983. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, New York, 2009.
• Democracy and Disobedience, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973; Oxford University Press, New York, 1974; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1994
• Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980; second edition, 1993; third edition, 2011. ISBN 0-521-22920-0, ISBN 0-521-29720-6, ISBN 978-0-521-70768-8
• Marx, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980; Hill & Wang, New York, 1980; reissued as Marx: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000; also included in full in K. Thomas (ed.), Great Political Thinkers: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Mill and Marx, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992
• The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1981; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981; New American Library, New York, 1982. ISBN 0-19-283038-4
• Hegel, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1982; reissued as Hegel: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2001; also included in full in German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
• How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-interest, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1993; Mandarin, London, 1995; Prometheus, Buffalo, NY, 1995; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
• Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1994; St Martin's Press, New York, 1995; reprint 2008. ISBN 0-312-11880-5 Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995
• Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 1998; Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1999
• A Darwinian Left, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1999; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000. ISBN 0-300-08323-8
• One World: The Ethics of Globalisation, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002; Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2002; 2nd edition, pb, Yale University Press, 2004; Oxford Longman, Hyderabad, 2004. ISBN 0-300-09686-0
• Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna, Ecco Press, New York, 2003; HarperCollins Australia, Melbourne, 2003; Granta, London, 2004
• The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, Dutton, New York, 2004; Granta, London, 2004; Text, Melbourne, 2004. ISBN 0-525-94813-9
• The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. New York: Random House 2009.
• The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. Yale University Press, 2015.

Coauthored books

• Animal Factories (co-author with James Mason), Crown, New York, 1980
• Test-Tube Babies: a guide to moral questions, present techniques, and future possibilities (co-edited with William Walters), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1982
• The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies (co-author with Deane Wells), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984. revised American edition, Making Babies, Scribner's New York, 1985
• Animal Liberation: A Graphic Guide (co-author with Lori Gruen), Camden Press, London, 1987
• Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985; Oxford University Press, New York, 1986; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1994. ISBN 0-19-217745-1
• Ethical and Legal Issues in Guardianship Options for Intellectually Disadvantaged People (co-author with Terry Carney), Human Rights Commission Monograph Series, no. 2, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1986
• How Ethical is Australia? An Examination of Australia's Record as a Global Citizen (with Tom Gregg), Black Inc, Melbourne, 2004
• The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (or The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter), Rodale, New York, 2006 (co-author with Jim Mason); Text, Melbourne; Random House, London. Audio version: Playaway. ISBN 1-57954-889-X
• Eating (co-authored with Jim Mason), Arrow, London, 2006
• Stem Cell Research: the ethical issues. (co-edited by Lori Gruen, Laura Grabel, and Peter Singer). New York: Blackwells. 2007.
• The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing the Ancient Contract (with Marian Stamp Dawkins, and Roland Bonney) 2008. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
• The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), Oxford University Press, 2014

Edited and coedited volumes and anthologies

• Animal Rights and Human Obligations: An Anthology (co-editor with Thomas Regan), Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1976. 2nd revised edition, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1989
• In Defence of Animals (ed.), Blackwells, Oxford, 1985; Harper & Row, New York, 1986. ISBN 0-631-13897-8
• Applied Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986
• Embryo Experimentation (co-editor with Helga Kuhse, Stephen Buckle, Karen Dawson and Pascal Kasimba), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; paperback edition, updated, 1993
• A Companion to Ethics (ed.), Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; paperback edition, 1993
• Save the Animals! (Australian edition, co-author with Barbara Dover and Ingrid Newkirk), Collins Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, NSW, 1991
• The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (co-editor with Paola Cavalieri), Fourth Estate, London, 1993; hardback, St Martin's Press, New York, 1994; paperback, St Martin's Press, New York, 1995
• Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994
• Individuals, Humans and Persons: Questions of Life and Death (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, Germany, 1994
• The Greens (co-author with Bob Brown), Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1996
• The Allocation of Health Care Resources: An Ethical Evaluation of the "QALY" Approach (co-author with John McKie, Jeff Richardson and Helga Kuhse), Ashgate/Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1998
• A Companion to Bioethics (co-editor with Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford, 1998
• Bioethics. An Anthology (co-editor with Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, 1999/ Oxford, 2006
• The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature (co-edited with Renata Singer), Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
• In Defense of Animals. The Second Wave (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford, 2005
• The Bioethics Reader: Editors' Choice. (co-editor with Ruth Chadwick, Helga Kuhse, Willem Landman and Udo Schüklenk). New York: Blackwell, 2007
• J. M. Coetzee and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Literature (co-editor with A. Leist), New York: Columbia University Press, 2010

Anthologies of Singer's work

• Writings on an Ethical Life, Ecco, New York, 2000; Fourth Estate, London, 2001. ISBN 0-06-019838-9
• Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics (edited by Helga Kuhse), Blackwell, Oxford, 2001

Commentary volumes on Singer's work

• Jamieson, Dale (ed.). Singer and His Critics. Wiley-Blackwell, 1999
• Schaler, Jeffrey A. (ed.), Peter Singer Under Fire: The Moral Iconoclast Faces His Critics. Chicago: Open Court Publishers, 2009
• Davidow, Ben (ed.). "Peter Singer" Uncaged: Top Activists Share Their Wisdom on Effective Farm Animal Advocacy Davidow Press, 2013

External links

• Official website at Princeton University
• Column archive at Project Syndicate
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Peter Singer at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Peter Singer in libraries (WorldCat catalog)