Intelligent viewers, welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today’s show features the eminent Australian vegan animal rights advocate, environmentalist, internationally known author and humanitarian Dr. Peter Singer.
Dr. Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, USA, is renowned for his １９７５ classic 『Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals,』 which asserts that animals must never suffer due to human action and that humans should avoid 『speciesism』 or the view that other species
are below our level.
Many observers consider the book a milestone in the development of the animal rights movement.
Over the years, Dr. Singer’s work on behalf of animals has profoundly influenced animal welfare leaders such as Ingrid Newkirk, founder of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and has prompted many people to recognize the sanctity of all life.
Dr. Singer now discusses how he became an animal advocate.
Prof. Singer (m): When I was a graduate student studying philosophy at Oxford (University) (UK)and I met another student who was a vegetarian and I asked him why, because at that time, in the early １９７０’s, you hardly met any vegetarians at all. He really gave me a very simple answer: He said he was a vegetarian
because he didn’t think we were right to do what we do to animals to turn them into meat.
So I started to think about it, and I started to read a little bit about how animals are treated, and I soon came to the conclusion that I couldn’t justify it either, and so the only thing really left for me was to say, 『OK, I’m not going to take part in this abuse of animals, this cruelty to animals.』
For more about Dr. Singer, please visit
www.princeton.edu/~psingerAnimal Liberation and other books by Dr. Singer are availalbe at
amazon.com
