“Ethics Into Action” l Animal Equality Interview with Peter Singer

All
[Applause]
right, ENOUGH.
SO, you you already got a standing
ovation and you said nothing. Don't have
to do anything there.
I think we're done. we can leave.
Well, I speak English, but I'm going to
do this interview in English because I
think it's going to be easier for all of
you and we will have translation. Okay.
So, honor to have Professor Peter Singer
here with us. Um he's just received uh
the bea foundation frontiers of
knowledge award in humanities and social
science and he's just public published
after 50 years since uh animal
liberation animal liberation now which
we will also be talking a little bit
about.
So I want to thank you for being here
with us today.
My pleasure. Thank you. the father of
the animal rights movement but also the
father of the effective altruist
movement and we're going to be speaking
about Henry Spira and a little bit about
animal liberation now so any initial
words you want to start with
oh I want to say thank you very much for
coming here I want to thank all the
people who organized this event uh it
was a great opportunity as I was coming
to Bill Bao for the prize that you
mentioned to be able to come to Madrid
uh and to present this book. Um so I was
really happy to be invited to do that
and uh both for the for the book and the
publisher and also of course for animal
equality.
Thank you so much. Yeah, we've spent two
days together and uh it's been an
absolute pleasure. Um someone who's so
important and who has won and achieved
so much and to see so much humility. So
anyway, thank you. So let me start by
asking you. We're here to talk about
Edika
uh Henry Spira and uh
Multinathon.
So let me ask you first why did you
decide to write a book on Henry Spira?
I wanted to write this book because um
Henry had been uh the most effective
campaigner for animals I think perhaps
in the whole 20th century anyway in the
last quarter of the 20th century when he
was active. He developed new ideas about
how to run campaigns for animals and how
to actually improve the lives of animals
and change things.
uh so up to that time I felt that really
the animal campaigns had not been
effective in bringing about any change
and perhaps we'll go into that more as
to why Henry was successful at doing
that but um
at the time when I started thinking
about this book Henry had told me that
he had been diagnosed with cancer and
that it was not really operable and that
he probably had maybe 6 months to a year
to live. So I wanted to get from him as
much as possible about his life and
about his tactics, how he had succeeded
in bringing about change for animals uh
while I still had the opportunity. And
Henry wanted that too. He didn't want
the methods that he had developed to die
with him. So that's why I I recorded a
lot of things with him in conversation.
Uh then I went I went back to Australia.
I was living in Australia then and wrote
the book. Fortunately he lived a little
longer than his doctors had predicted.
So he was able to see the book in print.
Um but he didn't last sadly very much
longer than that. So let let's start
with the beginning because you've uh in
the book you say and and you've told me
um about um Henry Henry's thoughts on
the anti-ivction movement until he
arrived with these new tactics. So what
did he believe in the 70s and the 80s
were the issues of the animal protection
movement and specifically of the
vivisection anti-ivisection movement.
Right. Okay. Yeah. And we start with the
anti-ivction movement because that was
the first campaign that Henry ran and
we'll talk about that soon. But the
antivction movement was quite old
already in the 1970s. It it in fact was
about a hundred years old. Uh the first
anti-ivction societies were founded in
England when uh vivisection started to
to grow significantly. So in the 19th
century and um then there were American
ones as well that developed. But Henry's
view of what they did which I think
actually was was accurate was
they had a mailing list of people that
they would mail out their literature to.
And so every month they would send out
nauseiating pictures of animals being
experimented upon in various ways with
descriptions of what was happening to
the animals and they were really very
grim. They would make you very sad.
Maybe they would actually, you know,
make you feel ill that people could do
these things to animals.
But then what? Well, then they said,
"Send us a donation." And what are we
going to do with this donation? Well,
next month we'll send you another piece
of literature which will make you sick
and angry and disgusted again.
And they kept doing that over and over.
They've been doing that for years. And
they had not changed things at all. They
had not saved a single animal from uh
being experimented on because they had
no strategy for how to change. They just
said vivisection is evil. It should
stop. But you know that was of course
ignored by the uh people doing the
experiments and the industry behind
experimentation. So nothing happened.
But then Henry arrived and his first
successful campaign was to get the
natural museum of the natural museum of
history in New York. Maybe I'm getting
that wrong.
The Museum of Natural History.
The Museum of Natural History in New
York. That's a big word. Uh to end
experiments um with cats. So I'd like to
talk to you. I I would like you to tell
us a little bit about that and what was
the develop like what was he thinking
when he came up with this strategy? What
made it so different than everything
that had happened before in the
antivction movement? Okay, so Henry's
initial idea was he wanted to do a
campaign about experiments happening in
New York City because that was where he
lived and that was where he could get
some people to come to and to do
something and he wanted he was thinking
about protests against a particular set
of experiments. He also wanted the
experiments preferably to be on cats and
dogs, cats or dogs because that was what
people mostly cared about especially
then and that was what you would be able
to arouse people and get them to protest
against. So how would he find out about
these experiments? Well, America has
something I think many countries do now
called the Freedom of Information Act.
uh government bodies are required to
give you information about the things
they do and that includes the research
that they fund. So he applied to the US
government funding bodies to uh for
information about experiments that they
were funding in New York City on cats or
dogs.
And to his surprise,
what he found was that six blocks from
where he lived, the Museum of Natural
History, which was a big museum that
lots of people went to, and you saw the
skeletons of the dinosaurs, and you saw,
you know, the other things about
animals, prehistoric animals, about
geology as well, all of that.
And he had never known, and most people
had never known, that in the upper
floors of that building,
there were experiments going on which
involved mutilating cats, depriving them
of either their sense of sight or their
sense of smell, and then examining their
sexual behavior in unusual situations.
So for example, the experimenters have
discovered that if you remove the sense
of smell and uh from a uh a male cat and
put it in a room with a female rabbit,
it will try to mount the rabbit. It will
try to have sex with a rabbit. Well, you
know, that's going to be a very useful
result for humans, isn't it? Um
so so this was the perfect kind of uh
first campaign that he that he had um to
go to the museum to tell people about
what was happening on the upper floors
um to get them to protest about it and
uh to put pressure on the museum and on
the government funding body to stop
these useless experiments.
I'm going to take a step back because
one of the most inspiring things about
your relation with Henry was that you
were a professor and uh I think it was
New York University,
right? Yes, I was then
and uh you had a you had a course on
animal ethics and Henry attended the
course and then you ended up writing a
book about the student, right? So I'd
like to know more about how that
relationship started when you met Henry
and uh how exactly you you started to
develop this friendship and this special
relationship with him.
Right. So um this was an adult education
course. This wasn't a regular course for
you know undergraduates who would have
been 20 or something like that. Um this
was an adult education course uh taught
in 1974.
when I was actually already writing
animal liberation. I had published an
article in the New York Review of Books
in April 73
and that brought a fairly strong
response and I decided to turn this
article into a book. So I already had
some material on that and when uh was
suggested that I teach an adult
education course uh I decided to do it
using the material I had for the book.
So I advertised this course on uh
essentially a new ethics for our
treatment of animals. Um and when the
class turned up there was like 20 25
people in the class. Uh they were mostly
women, not entirely. Um and they were
mostly people who seemed like
well-dressed and welleducated
people. But there was one person who
came in who who didn't seem to fit. Um
firstly, he was really, you know, rather
shabily dressed, you would have to say.
He wore um he wore sneakers. He he
didn't bother tying up the laces on the
sneakers. I noticed they were always
undone. Um he had a a a sort of open
necked shirt which was hanging out which
in those days was a bit unusual. You
usually tucked your shirt in. Um and he
had pretty wild hair. Um and when he
spoke it was with a really workingclass
accent that I later learned he picked up
working on the General Motors assembly
line in New Jersey. So he'd worked as a
automobile assembly worker and he'd also
worked as a merchant seaman. he spent
several years on merchant ships. Uh so
so he had this different accent and
different approach. Um but he asked some
interesting questions and comments in
the class. Um, but the most thing that
that really was surprised me a little
was at at the last class after the class
the course was finished and we were
getting ready to say goodbye and thank
you and so on. Henry stood up at the
back of the room and said, "Well, all of
this philosophy is really, you know,
very good, very interesting, I know, but
what really matters, doesn't it? is if
we believe what I had been saying um if
we believe it we ought to be doing
something about it. if something is
wrong and he was convinced and most of
the class I guess were already
sympathetic so they were convinced that
something was wrong with the way we
treat animals then let's do something
about it that was Henry's line and so he
gave out his address and he said um
let's get together let's let's find a
time when those who want to do something
about it can meet and you can meet in my
apartment and we'll talk about what
comes next so obviously you know I was
pleased by that I totally agreed that I
was wanting something to happen. I was
hoping that when the book was published,
people would do things about it. But
here was somebody already ready to do
something about it. Now, I was about to
go back to Australia. My position at New
York University was a visiting
appointment and at the end of the year,
I was going back to Australia. But I
said to Henry, "Let's keep in touch. I
want to find out, you know, what you can
do." uh and he was happy to keep in
touch because um you know he also wanted
my my thoughts on on what he was
planning to do. So um uh I gave him the
I wrote to him gave him the phone number
where I was. And in those days actually
calls from New York to Melbourne um were
pretty expensive and people usually
talked for 3 minutes which was the
minimum time you're going to have to pay
for and then hang up. Um but Henry used
to call and talk for half an hour and
you know my wife would say who are you
on the phone with all this time? Um uh
so you know in a way the friendship
built up after the course in that way
and then um when I did get a chance to
to go to New York and and visit Henry I
would he would invite me to stay with
him which was a bit of a privilege
because he was a bit of a loner and he
didn't have anybody else living with
him. So the friendship then built up um
as he was developing these campaigns and
as he was running the campaigns. So, the
Museum of Natural History in New York,
that's his first win. He ends the
experiments, these horrific experiments
that were absolutely pointless on cats.
Right.
I would say the first win for the animal
rights movement in the US. Would you
agree?
Yes, I would totally agree because as I
said, you know, no other organization
had actually stopped an experiment. Um,
so maybe there were I don't know maybe
there were dogs and cat wins if you like
for some things like like in terms of
you know how you sold animals or
something of that sort the pet shop
regulations but but in terms of wins
that you would really say were part of
the animal rights movement um yes this
was definitely the first
so first win. What happened then? What
did Henry decide to do then? So because
Henry had achieved this and it was very
public. Um it was written about in the
New York Times um it was a unusual
thing. Uh the science correspondent of
the New York Times wrote a big article
about how you know this was shaking up
science to have their experiments
actually challenged in a way that that
had some impact on them. Um and so Henry
now had credibility. You know remember
he had had he'd done nothing before in
the animal movement. um nobody had heard
of him. He was a high school teacher. Uh
he worked out of his own apartment. He
had no organization, no office. Um
but he now had credibility and uh so
people did come to him and offer him
support including financial support if
he wanted to run further campaigns. So
um he actually had one very short
campaign which wasn't really a campaign
but was a second success. Um, this is a
bit hard to believe, but Amnesty
International, the organization that
helps prisoners of conscience, was
actually funding experiments on pigs to
see whether you could detect torture,
the signs of people being tortured. So
to do that, they had to inflict harm on
the pigs. Now admittedly they anisttized
the pigs to do the torture but the pigs
then recovered from the anesthetic and
were examined. So they were probably
still suffering the effects of this. Um
and Henry found out about this and
thought this is not something that an
organization like Amnesty International
ought to be doing. So he went to them
and talked to them. He didn't start a
campaign. He talked to them and said
look I have this information.
I don't think that this is the right
thing to do. Um, this is what I did at
the Museum of Natural History when they
didn't stop their experiments. They got
a lot of very bad publicity. Um, would
you consider ceasing your experiments on
pigs and fortunately they listened to
him. So that was a victory really with
no campaign. Um, having done that though
he wanted to do something bigger right
the experiments. So he stopped I think
there were about 50 experime cats being
used in the experiments of the museum of
natural history and there were probably
not even that many pigs a small number
of pigs um but he wanted to do something
bigger so one of the bigger things was
uh the drey's eye test this was a test
that the really was required by the US
uh administration the food and drug
administration to bring new substances
to market if they might possibly get in
somebody's eye. Um, and of course, uh,
so many experiments, many substances
could get in your eye. And the way you
tested that was you took rabbits, you
put them in a in a in a stock like a
kind of box with a hole for their head
so that only their head was sticking
out. Then you opened their eyes and you
dropped the substance into their eyes
with no anesthetic or anything like
that. and they couldn't scratch of
course because their only their head was
sticking out of this box. Um, and uh,
there was actually an official chart I
think in the book there are pictures of
it showing the degree of damage to the
eyeball and how you would grade the
results of this, how damaging it was,
which included, you know, horrible
images of completely blistered eyeballs.
Um, really, really sickening. And Henry
again used Freedom of Information Act to
discover that major cosmetics companies
were doing this test to um release new
products because of course cosmetics
might get in your eye. Um and this was a
requirement though you know in a in a
way the companies had to do this if they
were going to release new products
because it was required by the
government. So, um, Henry picked the
biggest of the cosmetic companies at the
time. The number one cosmetic company
then was Revlon. And their headquarters
were in a very prominent place in New
York. If you've been to New York, just
near the bottom corner of Central Park,
there's a big skyscraper now. There's an
apple shop uh, sort of there downstairs.
Um, but there was a nice forcourt, if
you like. Um, and Revlon was in that
building. So, again, he went to Revlon.
First thing he did as he did with
Amnesty International was to go to
Revlon to say look um I've got
information again through Freedom of
Information Act that you are doing
experiments on in this case I think it
was uh certainly many hundreds um I
think over a thousand rabbits that they
were using each year to do this test on.
He said, um, you know, I would like you
to I would like you to, so he didn't
say, I would like you to stop this
because he realized that it wasn't
realistic for a company to stop a test
which was required for it to bring new
products to the market. Uh, he realized
that he was not going to succeed in
getting Revlon to say, "Okay, we just
won't introduce any new cosmetic
products." Um so instead he said if you
agree to set aside a tiny percentage of
your revenue to fund a center to develop
alternatives to the use of animals for
this kind of testing.
I won't do a campaign against you.
But unfortunately Revlon did not take
this guy seriously. Right? As I said he
was not a very well-dressed educated
guy. He still hadn't bought himself a
suit. Um, so, uh, they they really
didn't take it seriously even though,
you know, they he made them aware that
he had done this campaign against the
Museum of of Natural History. So, they
basically tried to stall. They tried to
delay. They just, you know, they they
said nice things, but they did nothing.
The tests continued. So Henry got
together with those people who had
offered him financial support and said,
"I want to run a full page advertisement
in the New York Times and he had
somebody who was prepared to design it."
Uh, a guy called Mark Graham who was a
great advertising designer who did care
about animals and volunteered his
services.
And uh the ad, which you can see a
picture of in the book, um had a a white
rabbit with sort of bandages over its
eyes. Um and a couple of sort of
laboratory flasks, like you would put
things you wanted to test in. And the
words, "How many rabbits does Revlon
blind for beauty's sake?" And then it
had testimony down the bottom of experts
saying you know these tests were not
really reliable and uh you know didn't
really need to be done and should be
changed and alternatives were possible.
Um, so, uh, they got that ad in in in
the New York Times and at the same time
they had, uh, protests in this handy
little plaza in front of the Revlon
building and they got media to come out
and, uh, essentially it was a public
relations disaster for Revlon because,
you know, Revlon was trying to have this
image of beauty was primarily marketing
to women who tend to be more sympathetic
to uh, animals.
Um, and uh, so you know, the campaign
continued until eventually Revlon
realized that the bad publicity they
were getting was costing them more, was
going to cost them more than the very
small percentage of profits that Henry
was asking to be donated to fund a
center for finding alternatives. And so
they did fund that center. Once once
Revlon had agreed to do that, the next
step was to go to Avon and then Estee
Lauder and you know you can run your
list of the big cosmetics companies and
most of them just said okay we'll be in
this too. They didn't they didn't want
the kind of campaign they'd seen against
Revlon. So the center was pretty well
funded and it has developed alternatives
to that uh animal test and that's why
the European Union now um prohibits
cosmetics to be tested on animals and
prohibits the importation of cosmetics
tested on animals anywhere else. And yet
guess what you still have cosmetics in
the European Union. So uh it was a
completely successful campaign that I
think validated what Henry had been
saying.
And what year was this? uh this is about
1980 I think that the campaign started.
So it's it's so interesting to me to
hear this in 1980 because organizations
like us like animal equality um it took
us several years to get to the po to
that level of sophistication of
understanding well we have to engage
diplomatically with these companies um
and we have to try to get them to end
this or this other form of abuse. Um,
and if if we can't reach an agreement,
we'll launch a campaign. And that took
us years, and Henry was already doing it
in the 1980s. Um, and these strategies
are still so effective. I mean, we've
managed to get Compass Group uh to um to
eliminate uh cages for pigs. We've
managed to to get hundreds of companies
to eliminate cages for hens. And this
basically is the same strategy that
Henry was using in the 80s. Um perhaps
one of my favorite
tactics that Henry used um was and I
think this was probably also the first
time that was done when he bought shares
on Proctor Proctor and Gamble shares and
that gave him the opportunity to go to a
shareholder meeting and tell Proctor and
Gamble to stand up and talk and tell
Proctor and Gamble about the animal
experiments and they were soon meeting
with him uh talking to him about what
they were going to be doing about animal
experiments. And it's it's funny because
now there's whole organizations in the
US that are dedicated exclusively like
HSUS or the accountab not HSUS but the
accountability board to buy sharers to
be able to influence these companies. So
it's so groundbreaking and so
innovative. So that is my favorite
story. the fact that he would be so
smart to buy sharers and get into a
company meeting and tell them what he
thought. What is your favorite Henry
Spar story? I know I know which one it
is already, so we're going to have a
good laugh.
It's a bit of a Yes, it's slightly less
serious than than that. So, um Henry was
campaigning against factory- farmed
chicken um and in particular against uh
there was a a chicken producer called
Frank Purdue, which was one he was one
of the biggest factory farmed chicken
producers in the United States. wasn't
the biggest but maybe third and he
appeared in these ads sort of he he did
his you know he was the he was the
frontman he was the boss for the TV ads
and gave it his personality brand you
know perdu chicken is so good etc etc
and Henry got information that perduru
chicken was actually very often
contaminated with bacteria and it was
easy to get um uh you know diseases
salmonella serious diseases
um from from chicken if it uh you know
wasn't uh thoroughly cooked and in those
days people were not aware of this. So
um he wanted to get the idea that
chicken is not safe. Now this was at the
beginning of the HIV AIDS epidemic.
Right? So there was all this talk about
if you have sex wear a condom.
That's the way to have safe sex. Right?
And everybody's talking about safe sex.
So Henry decided to do an ad under the
idea that
chicken is is not safe. There is no safe
chicken.
So how would he connect this with the uh
what people were talking about? He this
he and and Mark Graham, the advertising
guy I mentioned, talked about it and
they decided to put a chicken inside a
condom.
The problem with this is that in case
you haven't noticed, a chicken is
actually a bit larger than the average
male sex organ.
[Laughter]
So, they had to find a big condom, a
particularly large condom. So, they went
around to um places in in uh Greenwich
Village saying, "I want the biggest size
condom you've got." And everybody looked
at them uh they said with a new respect.
So eventually they found a condom big
enough that they could actually stretch
out and the chicken could go in it. And
and you'll see if you get the book
there's a there's a photo of the ad
which has this chicken in a inside a
condom. Um and then it has the text
about the lack of safety. So that wasn't
exactly, you know, a clear win. I mean
it's not that people completely stopped
eating chicken unfortunately but um
perhaps it had an impact in reducing the
number of people who have uh who were
buying chicken and it certainly
disturbed Perdue and the others.
Yeah, it's a it's a very
it's quite the story. So um I'm going to
engage a little with the public. Raise
your hand if you consider yourself
someone who works for animals or an
animal rights activist, an animal rights
advocate, someone who donates to an
organization.
Okay, a lot of people here.
Uh I want the reverse actually. I want
anybody who's brave enough to say no, I
don't I don't do any of that. Well,
there's a hand there. Couple of hands.
We can we can stick to the so we can
stick to the positive. So
what can we learn
from Henry Spira today? What's the most
important lesson that he can teach us?
Well, I think the most important lesson
he can teach us is the one that you know
go back to what I said about his view of
the anti-ivction movement. The
anti-ivction movement were basically
saying they were for the abolition of
vivisection. And of course, you know,
Henry was for the abolition of
vivisection too, but he just didn't
think you were going to get anywhere if
the only thing you were demanding was
the abolition of this large industry
which actually had quite a lot of
support. And and once the industry
started getting attacked, they could do
their own advertising, right? They could
afford more advertising than Henry
could. And they could afford advertising
showing uh an ill child and saying, you
know,
medicine through experiments on animals
could save your daughter. Uh could save
your daughter's life. You know, how do
you value a rat more than you value your
daughter's life? This kind of stuff. So,
you know, basically
what we can learn from Henry is to say
you have to be realistic in your goals.
Of course, we would love to see the end
of all animal exploitation. Um, but uh
we're not going to win that way. We have
to make a series of steps and you have
to have some victories so that people in
the movement will get encouraged. So, I
think that's still something that we
need to remember. We need to choose our
goals and our targets carefully. But if
we do, then we're not, it's not just
that we're helping the particular, you
know, the 50 cats, the few pigs, the uh
maybe
thousands of rabbits. It's not just that
we're helping them, but we're building a
movement. We're educating people about
the way animals are treated. Um and
we're bringing closer the day when we
will finally be able to eliminate the
abuses alto together.
Yeah. And Henry Spear is a very
wellrespected
advocate and the animal rights movement.
And I think that there is a direct line
from Henry Spira to Proposition 12 that
is the most advanced animal welfare law
in the world that bans cages in
California and the sale of animal any
animal product that comes from uh an
animal in a cage and this has been
upheld by the Supreme Court of the
United States. I think there's a direct
line. I mean what can be more more more
effective uh than that? And you're also
considered the father of effective
altruism. Uh maybe you can talk to us
before I go into questions specifically.
What is for those of us or those of
people who don't know what is effective
altruism?
Okay. So you probably already know what
altruism is. Altruism is uh doing
something to assist others to be to be
uh good to others. Um not just to think
of yourself but to think of benefiting
others. And of course, others
often would mean other humans, but
there's no reason why it can't mean
other beings capable of feeling pain.
Can't mean all sentient creatures. Um,
that's not so new. Um but what is new is
the idea that when we act
altruistically,
we should do so on the basis of evidence
about
whether this is the best way to do good
because if we have you know we we all
have a limited
sort of budget of resources right if you
donate to animal organizations
I don't see Bill Gates or uh uh Jeff
Bezos or Elon Musk in the audience here.
So you have limited budgets in terms of
what you're actually able to donate. So
the effective altruist would say find
the organizations that will do the most
good with your donation and donate to
them. And if you don't have money to
donate but you want to volunteer for an
organization, that's great. Um, again,
find organizations that will use your
time as effectively as possible. And um,
you know, this this may sound pretty
obvious in some ways. After all, when we
go and make a new purchase nowadays, I
think everybody goes online
and they do the research, you know, oh,
I want a new phone. So, um, this is how
much I can afford to spend on a phone.
um can I get the best phone for the
money that I can spend? Uh that's that's
a normal thing to do. But when people
give to charities, most people don't do
any research on what is the best way of
um doing good on on they they give much
more impulsively, much more emotionally.
Um and so a lot of money is given to
organizations where it clearly is not
going to do the most good. Um and this
is true in a range of different fields.
It's true in helping humans um where
often uh typically I think we can do
more good by helping people in extreme
poverty in lowincome countries than we
can by helping people who are poor by
the standards of an affluent society but
um not nearly as poor as people in in
real poverty in low-income countries.
So, uh, that's one way of being more
effective, but it applies everywhere. It
applies in the animal movement as well.
Um, okay. So, that's what effective
altruism is. You can
Yeah, we'll talk more about it. And I
actually want to link it to Henry Spear
because Henry Spira spent the last years
of his life focused on animals that are
raised and killed for food. And now
there's a general consensus in the
farmed animal rights movement or in the
farmed animal movement that animal
equality is a part of that the resources
to help animals are best invested um in
focusing on on farmed animals. Um how
what are the arguments that you would
make to people in order to convince them
to become more effective with their with
their activism for animals? like why why
why farmed animals?
Well, why farmed animals? Because in
terms of the amount of suffering that we
inflict on animals, it's overwhelmingly
farmed animals that um we are harming.
Do you want
So, they're telling me the time.
Oh, they're telling you the time. Okay.
All right. Are we going on too long?
We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We
can stay here. We're fine.
Sorry. Um Okay. So, um,
for example, so I mean, if you look at
where money goes in the animal movement,
um, I don't have figures for Spain, but
I'm sure that it's similar. Certainly
true in the United States. Money goes
predominantly to shelters for stray or
abandoned dogs and cats. Um, now you
know it's not that Australian abandoned
dogs and cats don't need help, but
how many are there actually? So, you
know, the numbers
might be thousands, hundreds of
thousands, possibly in a large country
like the United States amount to some
millions. But again, if we just focus on
the United States, the number of farmed
animals,
let's just talk about
vertebrate land animals. So, basically,
we're talking about cows, pigs,
chickens, maybe some ducks and turkeys.
Um, that is around 10 billion animals.
So, it's just dwarfs the number of stray
dogs and cats. And it also is
dramatically more than the number of
animals used in research which actually
in the United States we don't even have
figures on. Um but uh it's roughly
estimated to be not more than 100
million. So compare 10 billion to 100
million. Um you've got um uh a lot more
animals being used for farm in in farms.
And I think actually on average they
they may suffer more than the animals in
experiments. The animals in in
experiments may suffer acute pain but
for a shorter period of time. And um the
animals in in factory farms have
miserable lives for their whole life and
then they also suffer acute pain when
they're taken out and trucked off to to
slaughter. So um yeah, I think you
definitely get the best value for your
donations with farm animals. And uh if
you look at uh there is one sort of
effective altruism website or actually
maybe there's a couple more but the one
that is best known is animal charity
evaluators. They evaluate organizations
for their effectiveness. And uh
virtually all the organizations that
they recommend are working on farmed
animals.
Yeah. And I think if you think about a
mother pig that spends her entire her
entire pregnancy four months in a cage
and it's basically moved from one cage
to another for years or a hen that
spends 14 months in a cage without being
able to to to practically move. I mean
this is chronic suffering that is
happening to millions of animals. So I
have so many questions uh not a lot of
time but I do want to ask about your new
book animal liberation now. So in 1975
um Peter published Animal Liberation uh
the book that changed the world and that
gave everyone a strong philosophical and
ethical background about why animals
should be cared for. So why animal
liberation now?
Well because animal liberation was
getting out of date really. Okay. Um I
did revise the 1975 book in 1990 so it
was reasonably up to date then but
that's 33 years ago now. Um and if you
want to talk about you know so animal
liberation is not just a philosophy
book. It does provide an ethical
framework for how we should treat
animals and it provides a critique of
speciesism. the ide ideology that um if
you're not a member of our species, you
don't have rights and basically you
don't count. But it also the two longest
chapters are descriptive chapters. One
on uh animals used in research and one
on animals used in in farming in factory
farming and those two chapters were 30
years out of date and if the book was to
remain relevant um then it needed to be
updated and I I want the book to remain
relevant. I think the message is still
relevant because unfortunately, you
know, in one sense, you were kind enough
to say, Sharon, that that animal
liberation changed the world. But you'd
also have to say that it failed, right?
Because people are still eating animals.
They're still eating factory farmed
animals. And it look looked at globally.
They're doing it on a larger scale than
ever. That's partly because countries
like China have become less poor and
people are eating more meat there. So,
so the problem hasn't gone away. We need
to have new generations of campaigners
fighting for animals, building on the
progress that that has been made, the
progress that you've made with animal
equality, for example, um needs to
continue and needs to continue to grow.
Um, and that's why a really updated
book, I I don't call it a new edition
because so much has changed that I think
of it as a a new version of the old
book, but essentially a new book and
that's why it's now called Animal
Liberation Now. Um and I think you know
that's necessary and I hope that that
will provide an extra boost for the
movement and we'll bring new people into
the movement um so that we can achieve
the victories ex build on what we have
achieved and and go further in reducing
the suffering of animals. We're out of
time and I'm afraid that there my team
is just kind go. Uh so they might send
security up to pull us down. But I can't
leave the stage without the most
important question that is does Peter
Singer think we will achieve animal
liberation?
Yes, Peter Singer does think we will
achieve animal liberation.
Yay. But
Oh, you haven't heard the fact.
There was a butt. There was a butt.
There was a butt. There was a butt. The
butt is I don't know when.
But I do think I another book that I
wrote a while ago. It's it's a somewhat
more academic book. It's called the
expanding circle. And in it I trace the
development of morality from a tribal
morality for small groups of people
expanding outwards to include larger
groups, nations. Um at one point maybe
the European morality included all
Europeans but did not include Africans.
Eventually we expanded so that in the
20th century we had the universal
declaration of human rights which was a
proclamation of all human beings having
rights.
So that circle has expanded a long way
over a long period of time but it has
not expanded enough because it's not
only human beings who we need to
consider. But I do think that in the end
that outward growth will be irresistible
and it will extend to all sentient
beings and that will be the achievement
of animal liberation. Um but it's you
know it's a long struggle. It's been a
long struggle to overcome racism and
sexism and those struggles are not
really completed yet though they've made
enormous progress. Um so uh it's going
to be a long struggle for this. We will
achieve.
We will we will achieve.
[Applause]
WELL,
PROFESSOR PETER SINGER,
the man, the activist, the philosopher,
the legend. Please joining me join me in
giving him a round of applause.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone.
HEAT.
[Applause]