Peter Singer
speaker
866 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2020
last heard 20 Apr
Peter Singer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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The bird has such a broad breast that the male actually cannot physically mate, cannot reproduce with a female unaided. So every one of these turkeys, all the turkeys that people are eating at Thanksgiving or other times, is the result of artificial insemination, which particularly the females appear to hate, just they're kind of flipped upside down. They're forced open.
Female turkeys in the wild are very selective about who they'll allow to mate with them. But of course, they're just compelled to have this male turkey semen injected into them. They squawk, they fight against it, but they have no ability to resist in the end.
Well, I think the first ethical problem we should think about is that animals are sentient beings, that they have interests in living a decent life, not suffering pain. And we violate that interest all the time. Every one of these factories found chickens and pigs and dairy cows and laying hens. And maybe to a somewhat lesser extent, the beef cows, their lives are really bad.
We are inflicting suffering on them. And we don't need to because, as I said, this is a waste of food. It's not nutritionally necessary for us to eat these products. I think the ethics of it is just that we should not be causing this harm and pain to sentient beings unless it were necessary for our survival. And it's clearly not.
There are two things that we can do. The first one is we can stop giving our support to these methods of industrial farming. And of course, whenever we buy the products, we are giving our support to them because that's all the incentive they need to continue to produce them and to make profits, which mean that they become a very powerful lobby.
And that's why the United States has no federal legislation at all governing the welfare of animals on farms. So for a lot of these industrial farms, people are basically free to do whatever they like that will be profitable, irrespective of how much suffering it causes the animals.
The other thing you can do, of course, is to support animal advocacy organizations, and particularly those advocating for farmed animals, because that is, as I said, just overwhelmingly where most of the suffering we inflict on animals is.
I know that a lot of people are fond of their dogs and cats and think about the problems of stray animals and want to give to those shelters, but those shelters already get, I think, a
a disproportionate amount of funds compared to the number of animals in need of assistance, the number of dogs and cats in need of assistance, as compared with the number of chickens, pigs, cows, and also fish in need of assistance.
I don't believe we should treat, I mean, I should say, of course, obviously they have different needs, but I think in terms of the amount of weight we give their interests and the extent to which we ignore or discount their interests, as we're clearly doing with turkeys to a vastly greater extent than we're doing with dogs, that just seems to me to be wrong.
And in Consider the Turkey, I actually describe the life of one turkey, Cornelius, who was lucky enough to be taken to a sanctuary for animals, where Cornelius marched into the house and the people running the sanctuary and said, you know, most of the animals were outside in various enclosures, and said, I'm going to live here.
There was a pig already living in the house, a pig called Esther, and Cornelius and Esther became firm friends. They would spend a lot of time cuddling up on the sofa together, and that was tolerated by the people running the sanctuary. When Esther had to go to the vet and stay overnight for a couple of days because of medical needs,
Cornelius went out to the gate where Esther had left from and would watch for Esther to return and when Esther eventually did come back they were basically sort of embracing and cuddling with each other because they were both so happy to be together again.
The first takeaway I would say is to examine what you're eating and think about what you're eating and what that is doing both to animals and to the planet. The second takeaway is to think what you're doing with your money, because if you're fortunate enough to have more than you need to meet your basic needs, there are many other good things you can do with them.
I've already mentioned donating to animal advocacy organizations, but you can also donate to organizations assisting people in extreme poverty. And one of the other things that I do, I founded a charity called The Life You Can Save, which is actually a charity that recommends other charities.
You can go to the website, you can find the most effective charities independently assessed that are helping people in extreme poverty. And you can donate directly to them and 100% of your donation will go to them. We don't charge any commission or take any fee for that. We just want to encourage people to donate more effectively.
And the third takeaway I would say is ask what you can do to make the world a better place and you will be rewarded yourself for doing it. I've known many people who are living purposeful lives and have the reward of knowing that they are making a difference, whether it's to other people in need or non-human animals in need.
It's a rewarding way to live and I can recommend it on the basis of my experience and that of many others I know.
You're very welcome. My pleasure.
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