How have you chosen where to put your efforts and energy over the years, Peter, when there's so much good work you could, you could do in different spheres? You've, you've kind of got to choose.

It is hard to choose.

Um, I picked one that I just mentioned, um, helping people in extreme poverty, because I think that's clearly a good thing to do, and one that, as I say, you know, we can make a big difference t- to others for relatively modest amounts by our standards.

Um, the other big cause that I've been concerned about for a long time, since writing the book Animal Liberation more than 50 years ago, is the way we treat animals.

And I'm particularly concerned not about the dogs and cats that many people love and care about, but about all the farmed animals, the vast numbers.

It's actually something like 200 billion vertebrate animals worldwide that are spending their entire lives in captivity, extremely crowded in, in factory farms.

Uh, and so we're talking here about, uh, pigs and chickens and also, uh, fish that are factory farmed in the sea.

What do you mean by that?

How have you chosen where to put your efforts and energy over the years, Peter, when there's so much good work you could, you could do in different spheres? You've, you've kind of gotta choose.

It is hard to choose.

Um, I picked one that I just mentioned, um, helping people in extreme poverty, because I think that's clearly a good thing to do and one that, as I say, you know, we can make a big difference to, to others for relatively modest amounts by our standards.

Um, the other big cause that I've been concerned about for a long time, since writing the book Animal Liberation more than 50 years ago, is the way we treat animals.

And I'm particularly concerned not about the dogs and cats that many people love and care about, but about all the farmed animals, the vast numbers.

It's actually something like 200 billion vertebrate animals worldwide that are spending their entire lives in captivity, extremely crowded in, in factory farms.

Uh, and so we're talking here about, uh, pigs and chickens and also, uh, fish that are factory farmed in the sea.

This idea of effective altruism, what do you mean by that?

Do you accept that your arguments are not gonna convince a religious believer?

Well, I accept that what I've said so far is not gonna convince a religious believer, but let's look at things that religious believers-- Of course, there's a variety of religious believers, and we're making a huge generalization.

Let's say we're thinking specifically of Roman Catholic teachings about life because that, at least in Western societies or societies where there's a large number of Roman Catholics, is probably the center of the opposition to abortion.

They say that life begins at conception, and as I said, I can agree with that.

Then they make the further claim that it's always wrong to take an innocent human life, yet they often act in ways that effectively condone the ending of a innocent human life.

For example, they have the view that suppose a baby is born very prematurely, and suppose also that they've had a massive brain hemorrhage so that you can see that much of the brain has been destroyed, and they will have a very limited life.

It's very unlikely that they'll be able to look after themselves, to become independent.

Under what circumstances do you think that assistance should be offered?

So my question is really, you know, what has changed in your thought?

Right, and the answer is a, a couple of things changed.

And I think in a way the first and most fundamental change was that quite by accident after a philosophy class, I got into a discussion with a Canadian student called Richard Keshen, and we were talking about free will and responsibility.

It was a class taught by Jonathan Glover.

But Richard suggested, 'cause the class ended just before lunchtime, suggested we continue our discussion over lunch at his college, Balliol College.

And when we walked into the dining hall for lunch, you sort of...

There was a table and somebody asked you what you would like to have, and there were only two possibilities.

So tell us what you've added in The Life You Can Save that was such a hit again, uh, and s- such a source of change.

Um, I, I'm interested in your view of whether criticism is-- the qu-key issue seems to be when does criticism of Israel tip over into antisemitism? Can you give me your, your views on that?

Yeah, I think that's a very good question, and many people appeal to a definition, um, put forward by the Holocaust, uh, Authority that says, um, criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism when it is different from that that would be levied against other countries that are similar to Israel in what they're doing.

Um, and, you know, in a sense that, that makes sense.

But what exactly is similar to Israel? I mean, e-every country is different.

Every country has a, a different founding story.

Um, and, uh, I think that it's, it's not really a very workable standard.

So, um, I think that we should be very careful about clamping down on criticism of Israel's policies as, as a, as a, a nation, as a government, um, uh, the actions of its military.

What's that about? Why, why should someone like me or people in Australia, what's our moral obligation to help people in extreme poverty, which I think is what that book's about?

But didn't God and nature both also intend for that chicken to be, you know, torn to shreds by a

fox as well? I have to correct you, James.

I did not say as nature intended.

I don't believe nature has any intentions.

Nature is a blind process.

Chickens evolve in a certain way because their ancestors survived.

They were free-living jungle fowls around Burma, and then they were domesticated, and then the modern chicken was specifically bred, as David mentioned, to put on weight.

And Peter, I must ask, have there been animals in your life that you've loved and lost? And has that invited you to re-question the mathematics, the cold mathematics of calculating suffering that utilitarianism invites?

It was thought up in 1971 by a young Australian lecturer at the University of Oxford named Peter Singer.

One of my favorite places to go for lunch, and I would often buy a sandwich or a roll or something, is at Worcester College, and there is a beautiful pond with some very attractive old trees around it, some lilies, I think, growing in the water.

I think the idea of the drowning child in the shallow pond came from the thought of, well, suppose a child fell into this pond, and I was walking past it, and I realized that I could rescue it, that there would be a minor cost to me, but there was no danger to me.

Wouldn't I have an obligation to rescue this child? And I think the answer is obviously, you know, yes, it would be wrong if I didn't rescue that child.

He updated his original essay in two New York Times articles that spread his argument to a huge audience.

I was invited to visit Oxford in, I think, 2007 to give some talks, and I got an email from Toby Ord, who I had never heard of at that time, saying that he was a graduate student at Christ Church in Oxford and had read Famine, Affluence and Morality and agreed with the argument, and he'd come up with this idea of calculating how much he would be able to give away over his lifetime, expecting to be an academic and have an academic salary, uh, until retirement age.

And then he started looking around for where it could do the most good.

And he discovered, to his surprise, that he could give enough to prevent 80,000 people from going blind by treating trachoma, which is the, the most common form of preventable blindness and is relatively easily treated.

It was thought up in 1971 by a young Australian lecturer at the University of Oxford named Peter Singer.

One of my favorite places to go for lunch, and I would often buy a sandwich or a roll or something, is at Worcester College.

And there is a beautiful pond with some very attractive old trees around it, some lilies, I think, growing in the water.

I think the idea of the drowning child in the shallow pond came from the thought of, well, suppose a child fell into this pond and I was walking past it and I realized that I could rescue it, that there would be a minor cost to me, but there was no danger to me.

Wouldn't I have an obligation to rescue this child? And I think the answer is obviously, you know, yes, it would be wrong if I didn't rescue that child.

He updated his original essay in two New York Times articles that spread his argument to a huge audience.

I was invited to visit Oxford in, I think, 2007 to give some talks, and I got an email from Toby Ord, who I had never heard of at that time, saying that he was a graduate student at Christ Church in Oxford and had read Famine, Affluence and Morality and agreed with the argument, and he'd come up with this idea of calculating how much he would be able to give away over his lifetime, expecting to be an academic and have an academic salary, uh, until retirement age.

And then he started looking around for where it could do the most good.

Thanks.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So I was a preference utilitarian, um, again, somewhat under the influence of, of R.M. Hare because Hare's view was, as I said before, that, um, moral judgments universe, uh, have to be universalizable, and that means we have to put ourselves in the position of others.

And when we put ourselves in the position of others, Hare said, we take on their preferences.

So we take on the, what it is that they want and how much they want it, um, and that's what we should be maximizing, giving... satisfying their preferences.

Mm.

It's Unexplainable. I'm Noam Hassenfeld. And this week, the third episode of our series, Good Robot. If you haven't heard the first two, they should be right behind this in your feed. So just scroll back, find a comfy spot to listen, and meet us right here when you're done. Once you're all prepped and ready for me to stop talking, here is episode three of Good Robot from Julia Longoria.

Okay. On your way to work, you pass a small pond. Children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather's cool though, and it's early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond. As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who's flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there's no one else around. The child is unable to keep her head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don't wade in and pull her out, she seems likely to drown. Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for her and change your clothes, you'll be late for work. What should you do? Uh, breakfast will be ready shortly. Okay. Everyone's just gonna... So we don't have to go anywhere first before I check in? No.

But interpreting the parable to mean that the biggest issue of our time is saving future children from an AI apocalypse?

I think there's been too much focus. I'm not dismissing it. I think it's good that there are some people thinking about that and working on it, but compared to some of the other problems that are around, I have the sense that people like it because it's a kind of nerdy problem that's, you know, interesting things to think about. So I think that's why it gets more attention.