I was excited to learn last month of a planned speaking engagement in Auckland this June by one of my few living heroes.
Peter Singer is a mild-mannered, Australian philosopher whose terrific 1975 book ‘Animal Liberation’ practically created a whole movement towards a cruelty-free world and ultimately led to the incredible plant-based revolution that’s going on right now.
While John Robbins’ Diet For A New America (1987) came to many of the same conclusions, its vegetarian message was based around the consequences of meat consumption for human and environmental health. Singer is a philosopher, ethicist and logician with a utilitarian perspective that those who don’t understand the discipline might think cold and dispassionate, but the genius of Animal Liberation was his ability to analyse modern industrial food methods with logic and science.
That book, and all that followed, are consistent in that they stand back from wallowing in sentiment. Instead, they look somewhat hypothetically at ethical issues. Looks at hypotheticals through deductive reasoning based on hard facts and logic – we need more of that, not less.
Singer – who is 73 and is currently Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne – ran into controversy in the late 1980s for publishing material which discussed the ethics of terminating an infant’s life when it’s so disabled that any quality of life would be minimal. What started out as a complex and interesting discussion, quickly saw Singer demonised as ‘evil’, with comparisons to Hitler’s Eugenics experiments quickly being made.
Despite numerous accolades and a lifetime full of doing good, it seems that SkyCity has decided in its infinite wisdom that Peter Singer is a dangerous man. More galling, however, than the termination of a contract by one venue affiliated with that wonderfully ethical modern entertainment – gambling.
Instead of outrage at this miscarriage of justice, New Zealand media weighed in with further condemnation of Singer. Newshub’s story was a typically weak, simple-minded attempt to appeal to its core audience of radio talkshow addicts by adding to the outrage over something Singer wrote more than 30 years ago. The Spinoff’s story played its usual trump card by making fun of old guys, and writing Singer off as an aged irrelevance.
As Peter Singer himself says in a statement: “I have been welcomed as a speaker in New Zealand on many occasions and spent an enjoyable month as an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury more than 20 years ago. If New Zealand has become less tolerant of controversial views since then, that’s a matter for deep regret.”
What’s most disturbing about this attempt to shut Singer down, is what appears to be a fundamental lack of knowledge about philosophy, which is defined as “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.”
Anyone who has come into contact with philosophers knows that there’s a methodology to it that eschews the usual emotive and highly charged considerations. I bet that not only don’t the ‘let’s shut Singer down’ brigade know anything about modern philosophy, but that none of them have even bothered to read Singer’s books to see whether they’re as offensive as the ‘sound-bites’ might suggest.
Meanwhile, I’m optimistic that Mr Singer’s engagement will be rescheduled at a more tolerant venue. I’ll certainly be in the audience. (GARY STEEL)
Gary Steel is an Auckland-based journalist who runs online vegetarian resource www.doctorfeelgood.co.nz. He can be contacted via beautmusic@gmail.com