:00:00. > :00:07.Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.
:00:08. > :00:13.When we talk of power, we think of tangible institutions,
:00:14. > :00:23.From Socrates to Marx, philosophers have challenged us
:00:24. > :00:28.to rethink the way we see the world and our place in it.
:00:29. > :00:32.So too my guest today, Australian philosopher Peter Singer.
:00:33. > :00:35.His writing on the relations between rich and poor,
:00:36. > :00:40.on medical ethics and animal rights have seen him variously described
:00:41. > :00:45.as the most influential and dangerous philosopher alive today.
:00:46. > :01:19.Does he believe ideas can change the world?
:01:20. > :01:29.Peter Singer, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. For five decades, you
:01:30. > :01:34.have been writing powerful pieces, books, looking at the way our world
:01:35. > :01:39.works, considering the philosophy of our world, and ethical issues. After
:01:40. > :01:45.five decades, do you believe in the power of philosophy, of thought, to
:01:46. > :01:49.change the world? Absolutely. I have seen it happen. I have seen it
:01:50. > :01:55.change individual lives, but through those lives changing, I have seen
:01:56. > :01:58.ideas changing the world. It is interesting because you have chosen
:01:59. > :02:02.to republish this little book, Famine, Affluence and Morality more
:02:03. > :02:08.than four decades after you first register. It now has a foreword by
:02:09. > :02:14.Bill and Melinda Gates, who say this is a book whose ideas, the time for
:02:15. > :02:17.these ideas, has finally arrived. I would put it to you that when you
:02:18. > :02:21.talk about relations between rich and poor, things are as difficult
:02:22. > :02:26.and challenging today as when you first rated. I don't agree with
:02:27. > :02:31.that. -- first wrote it. We are making definite progress. You can
:02:32. > :02:34.see before in the number of people who are in extreme poverty, the
:02:35. > :02:39.number of people going to bed hungry, the number of children dying
:02:40. > :02:43.before their fifth birthday. That figure is less than half now what it
:02:44. > :02:48.was in 1990, although the population of the world has increased. If I may
:02:49. > :02:54.interact, at the beginning, isn't that because the world is more
:02:55. > :02:59.prosperous? If you look at sub-Saharan Africa, there is a level
:03:00. > :03:04.of prosperity that is higher than was 40 years ago. It is not because
:03:05. > :03:09.of your proposition that the rich, all of us in the comfortable rich
:03:10. > :03:15.world, should as an individual obligation, if everything we can to
:03:16. > :03:20.those in want, the poor? That is not happening. That is not happening,
:03:21. > :03:25.but there are a number of wealthy people who are giving a lot, and
:03:26. > :03:28.Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are examples who are giving
:03:29. > :03:33.intelligently to have the biggest impact they can. There is also an
:03:34. > :03:36.emerging movement of effective altruism of younger people without
:03:37. > :03:40.that much money who are making sure they give effectively. That is
:03:41. > :03:44.contributing to the declines is a mention. I'm not denying that
:03:45. > :03:51.increasing prosperity has had a lot to do with it, but effective aid
:03:52. > :03:56.grams certainly saved lives, enabled more people to get an education,
:03:57. > :03:59.safety water, and they are happening in part because of aid programmes.
:04:00. > :04:05.If we go down to the foundations of your ideas, I think you will agree
:04:06. > :04:10.they are utilitarian, any basis of them is we as individuals in human
:04:11. > :04:16.societies only to ourselves and to the wider human collective to work
:04:17. > :04:21.towards and pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest number,
:04:22. > :04:26.and you say that means when it comes to relations between rich and poor,
:04:27. > :04:30.all of those in comfort should give everything to the point where they
:04:31. > :04:35.themselves risk impoverishment, give everything beyond that threshold, or
:04:36. > :04:38.above that threshold, to those in need in other parts of the world.
:04:39. > :04:45.You say that the rivers are utilitarian visible. -- delivers.
:04:46. > :04:49.That would deliver the greatest good and reduction of suffering, but it's
:04:50. > :04:53.true. Although that might be theoretically the starting point we
:04:54. > :04:56.ought to go to, I'm so every list and I know what the world is like
:04:57. > :05:03.and that people are not only moved by ideas -- I'm also a realist. They
:05:04. > :05:09.are also motivated by personal desires. At the same time as
:05:10. > :05:14.indicating that would be the logical combination of the argument I'm
:05:15. > :05:18.prepared to accept that people are going to go some distance in that
:05:19. > :05:22.direction, but not all the way. I have travelled all over the world as
:05:23. > :05:26.a journalist and foreign correspondent and I have come across
:05:27. > :05:31.arguments which suggest this idea of giving, of charity, of aid, as
:05:32. > :05:34.applied to some of the poorest countries and people on earth, often
:05:35. > :05:40.doesn't work in the way people would wish. Let's go through a few of the
:05:41. > :05:44.counterarguments. One of the most basic is that individuals who give,
:05:45. > :05:47.when they are faced with these massive problems in different parts
:05:48. > :05:53.of the world, can have no idea of the way the money they give is
:05:54. > :05:57.spent. Whom actually benefits, where it goes, how efficiently it is
:05:58. > :06:02.spent. These are big problems. That is what the effective altruism
:06:03. > :06:06.movement is changing. Now there are people doing full-time research,
:06:07. > :06:11.independent research, not working for charities, looking at the impact
:06:12. > :06:16.of particular charities. There are people doing randomised control
:06:17. > :06:26.trials, the same gold standard used by drug charities when they test new
:06:27. > :06:30.drugs -- drug companies. So we now have the data, which we didn't have
:06:31. > :06:35.as recently as ten years ago almost nobody doing this research, but we
:06:36. > :06:41.now have good data that shows that distributing in sectors, such as
:06:42. > :06:43.malaria, does reduce the number of people getting malaria and the
:06:44. > :06:48.number of children who die from malaria. That is a result they can
:06:49. > :06:52.no longer be doubted given the quality of the data. We have
:06:53. > :06:55.indications that giving cash handouts to people in poor villages
:06:56. > :07:00.in East Africa makes a tangible difference in the lives of those
:07:01. > :07:04.families. We have a lot of data that did not exist. But the president of
:07:05. > :07:13.Rwanda on this programme said to not give Africa, me and my country, aid.
:07:14. > :07:17.Aged just encourages dependency and allows corrupt regimes to continue
:07:18. > :07:21.with their corruption -- aid. It encourages poor governance to
:07:22. > :07:25.continue. That is what we have seen in some new parts of the world,
:07:26. > :07:29.especially Africa. We have seen that, but I'm not advising people to
:07:30. > :07:37.give money to governments, I'm advising them to give them to NGOs
:07:38. > :07:41.like the malaria foundation, that are giving it to people on the
:07:42. > :07:45.ground, in the village, and are independently assessing the
:07:46. > :07:49.follow-up. When I was walking in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, the
:07:50. > :07:55.country was in chaos. Many people were suffering from lack of medical
:07:56. > :07:59.care. We went to one hospital in one of the poorest parts of Baghdad and
:08:00. > :08:04.people were dying because the medical facilities were so poor. We
:08:05. > :08:08.provide a particulate young girl, a baby, who had a terrible heart
:08:09. > :08:12.condition. We knew without treatment, they could not be
:08:13. > :08:16.provided in hospital, she would die. The reaction to my story was
:08:17. > :08:21.phenomenal, and one of the two's bleeding heart surgery is lodged a
:08:22. > :08:27.massive rescue effort for this girl -- Britain's bleeding heart
:08:28. > :08:33.surgeons. She had a sophisticated heart operation and was sent back to
:08:34. > :08:40.Iraq. The story ends sadly. She was brain-damaged by the lack of oxygen
:08:41. > :08:43.and left in a neighbourhood in Baghdad with parents who had no
:08:44. > :08:47.money to care for her, and despite the passion and care, one could
:08:48. > :08:53.argue she would have been better left to die. Not only would that be
:08:54. > :08:55.possible, but the money spent on this expensive heart surgery could
:08:56. > :09:01.have saved 100 or perhaps a thousand lives. This is the thing I would
:09:02. > :09:05.argue against, taking one identifiable individual, hitting
:09:06. > :09:09.them on television, everybody relates and says they must give to
:09:10. > :09:14.that, and thousands of pounds go to that individual. What they don't do
:09:15. > :09:18.is give to people they can't see, where in fact for less money, they
:09:19. > :09:22.could save the lives of many who don't have any brain damage or
:09:23. > :09:26.convocations. So you are saying, however it is done, the human
:09:27. > :09:31.instinct to find stories we can relate to, usually involving the
:09:32. > :09:37.tribe or the community or the nationstate that you belong to, you
:09:38. > :09:42.say you have to try, however hard it is, to cut those feelings,
:09:43. > :09:45.sentiment, that emotion out? You can have the emotion that you want to
:09:46. > :09:50.save lives and people in extreme poverty, but you want to do good.
:09:51. > :09:54.But the emotion that says I've heard the story of this party to a child
:09:55. > :10:03.or person, and I want to help that person, that is distorting. -- this
:10:04. > :10:09.particular child. To make this real, I have to make this personal. If one
:10:10. > :10:13.should not be personal and focus on individuals and even on one's and
:10:14. > :10:19.family, in the spirit of being truly ethical, have you avoided thinking
:10:20. > :10:25.about your own children's financial security? Have you not set up any
:10:26. > :10:30.funds are then? Will you be determined not to leave any of your
:10:31. > :10:34.wealth to them? I haven't, and I'm not completely impartial in that
:10:35. > :10:38.respect. That is what I was saying earlier, but perhaps having your own
:10:39. > :10:43.children makes a difference in that way. I accept that I am not a saint.
:10:44. > :10:47.I'm not a perfectly ethical human being in that sense. I think I am
:10:48. > :10:50.pretty representative of most people. We have to accept that
:10:51. > :10:55.people will give preference to their own children, as I do, but there
:10:56. > :11:01.have to be limited to that. I don't big my children need every luxury I
:11:02. > :11:04.can afford to provide for them or every financial security I can
:11:05. > :11:09.divide for them given they are fortunate enough to be citizens of
:11:10. > :11:13.an affluent nation. We have to say yes, people will do more for their
:11:14. > :11:18.children, but it doesn't mean they can't also do a lot for sledgers. A
:11:19. > :11:22.final thought on this idea between rich and poor in dealing with want
:11:23. > :11:28.in the world -- do a lot for strangers. Bernard Williams
:11:29. > :11:33.responded to what you wrote and your sense of obligation to all humanity,
:11:34. > :11:37.not just those closest to you, and he responded by saying that the
:11:38. > :11:44.danger of your philosophy was that you reduce people to little more
:11:45. > :11:47.than devices for the efficient production of desirable outcomes,
:11:48. > :11:53.and your brand of utilitarianism it was the value of integrity and the
:11:54. > :11:56.notion of personal responsibility and personal goals. Although it
:11:57. > :12:02.appears to provide a guide for life, he said in fact it robs human action
:12:03. > :12:09.of its point. It wasn't in the end about the way humans think and
:12:10. > :12:13.operate, that was his point. I think that is a misleading use of the word
:12:14. > :12:17.integrity. I can't see why a person who says I want to do more to make
:12:18. > :12:24.the world a better place and help people, and I find that a fulfilling
:12:25. > :12:28.and worthwhile project, why such a person should like integrity. All
:12:29. > :12:32.I'm Chang to do is persuade more people to take that up as their
:12:33. > :12:37.project rather then take up various other projects they might have which
:12:38. > :12:44.will do less good for the world and be possibly less fulfilling --
:12:45. > :12:49.trying to do. Another area in which you have been writing and thinking
:12:50. > :12:54.is how to make sense of the value of human life, especially those human
:12:55. > :12:59.lives that are in one way or another severely disabled or impaired? It
:13:00. > :13:04.seems to many people you have decided there is a way of grading
:13:05. > :13:08.the value of human life, and those who are severely disabled have a
:13:09. > :13:16.much reduced value. I certainly would not put it like that. What I
:13:17. > :13:19.would say is there are cases where we have to make decisions about
:13:20. > :13:24.whether other people will live or die.
:13:25. > :13:29.making their own decisions. If they were, you should read them. For
:13:30. > :13:36.example, infants can't make their own decisions -- they should make
:13:37. > :13:42.them. People make decisions in hospitals in every major city in the
:13:43. > :13:51.world, typically by withdrawing the respirator keeping alive a premature
:13:52. > :13:54.newborn baby who has had a massive Brown Harwich where the prognosis is
:13:55. > :13:59.bad because of the extent of the bleeding that the child will ever
:14:00. > :14:05.lead an independent life -- own Harwich. You don't think it is right
:14:06. > :14:08.to refer to that child is a fully fledged human person with all fully
:14:09. > :14:15.fledged human rights. Undoubtably they are human beings. But the
:14:16. > :14:19.17th-century philosopher John Locke said a person with a sense of
:14:20. > :14:23.themselves as existing overtime, saying being existing overtime, on
:14:24. > :14:28.that philosophical account of what it is to be a person, which I think
:14:29. > :14:34.is consistent with the roots of the time in a gibbering, -- ancient
:14:35. > :14:35.Rome, you are not a person if you don't have some sense of self
:14:36. > :14:45.awareness. We are talking about the power of
:14:46. > :14:51.ideas to change the world. You wrote this in 9093. Do you still believe
:14:52. > :14:56.it? Killing a defective infant is not equivalent to killing a person.
:14:57. > :15:01.Sometimes it isn't wrong. I wouldn't use the word defective today. I
:15:02. > :15:08.would say severe intellectual disabilities. But I still stand by
:15:09. > :15:15.it. It is not a person as I am using the term. Sometimes it isn't wrong.
:15:16. > :15:18.To show that, doctors are doing that today and no one is affected. The
:15:19. > :15:24.only difference is that they are doing it by withdrawing life-support
:15:25. > :15:30.at a respirator, knowing that the premature infant will die without
:15:31. > :15:37.it. -- or a. I am saying, why is it critical if it is based on
:15:38. > :15:41.breathing. If it is a brain haemorrhage, then, if the infant
:15:42. > :15:45.does breathe after you withdraw the respirator because the lungs are
:15:46. > :15:50.more developed then you predicted, how does that changed the decision?
:15:51. > :15:54.It should still be possible if the parents wanted. -- change. The
:15:55. > :16:01.parents should decide this, not philosophers. No doubt, this is
:16:02. > :16:07.difficult staff. But your critics, I remember some of the protests when
:16:08. > :16:13.you got this award from Princeton, your critics in the Let them Live
:16:14. > :16:18.movement had the most graphic protest about your appointment. I
:16:19. > :16:23.wonder if those people, severely disabled themselves, telling them
:16:24. > :16:29.that you are devaluing them, and some of them accused you of dabbling
:16:30. > :16:39.close to eugenics, whether that had a personal impact on you. It didn't.
:16:40. > :16:44.Because, as I said, I stand by my views. They were misunderstanding
:16:45. > :16:48.what I was saying. These were people capable of understanding what I was
:16:49. > :16:54.saying and deciding whether they were satisfied with their life. Who
:16:55. > :16:57.knows, some of those people, at birth, they have been the sorts of
:16:58. > :17:03.babies whom doctors were saying to their parents, you might want to
:17:04. > :17:09.think about medical interventions. Your thought might have been,
:17:10. > :17:14.utilitarian philosophy says it isn't worth it. The parents should make
:17:15. > :17:24.that decision. Just like you and I would do that if an Abernant. -- an
:17:25. > :17:29.abnormality would make us reconsider. Many of these people
:17:30. > :17:32.would not have lived if their mother had known about the disability when
:17:33. > :17:39.she was pregnant. That is not an argument against abortion. The final
:17:40. > :17:45.point on this branch of medical ethics. You said on radio that
:17:46. > :17:48.Obamacare, his changes to the insurance system of healthcare in
:17:49. > :17:54.the United States, should be more overt about rationing, the country,
:17:55. > :18:01.the US, should acknowledge the necessary need to end the lives of
:18:02. > :18:07.severely disabled infants as an option. It is expected. You have a
:18:08. > :18:11.national institute for health excellence which recommends the
:18:12. > :18:15.healthcare authorities that some treatments are too expensive to
:18:16. > :18:19.provide on the NHS. They are open about saying we have to ration
:18:20. > :18:24.resources We don't have the resources to do everything.
:18:25. > :18:29.Therefore, some things are too expensive. In the US, they are too
:18:30. > :18:32.afraid, all the politicians and officials, they are too cowardly to
:18:33. > :18:38.say it. They pretend they don't ration. But they do. And they don't
:18:39. > :18:42.do it as sensibly as they do here because they don't have an open
:18:43. > :18:45.debate about its. When you hear people in the US talk about the
:18:46. > :18:51.sanctity of life, what is your response? The sanctity of life is a
:18:52. > :18:58.religious doctrine that has no defence outside particular religious
:18:59. > :19:03.views, for example, the idea that all humans are made in the image of
:19:04. > :19:07.God and have an immortal soul or that God has commanded us not to
:19:08. > :19:13.kill. That is not an idea that would otherwise be justified. It has no
:19:14. > :19:16.place in the public debate? I don't object to people mentioning it, but
:19:17. > :19:23.they should be challenged if they are in public. Why do you think that
:19:24. > :19:28.just because they are member of Homo sapiens, they have a right to life?
:19:29. > :19:32.That, for example, a nonhuman animal, like a gorilla shot in
:19:33. > :19:37.Cincinnati zoo last week does not. Even though the gorilla has far more
:19:38. > :19:42.self-awareness and ability to form relationships with others than a
:19:43. > :19:49.member of this piece is Homo sapiens with severe brain damage. -- the
:19:50. > :19:54.species. Interesting that you would go in that direction. I wanted to
:19:55. > :19:59.talk about animal rights. On this subject you have been most outspoken
:20:00. > :20:04.for many years. Let's stick with the gorilla example. Many people
:20:05. > :20:07.remember what happened. A three-year-old child ended up in a
:20:08. > :20:11.gorilla enclosure and the decision was taken to shoot the gorilla
:20:12. > :20:15.because of the danger faced by the child. In your view of animal
:20:16. > :20:22.rights, was that murder? Unnecessary murder? I won't call it murder. I
:20:23. > :20:25.won't second-guess their decision. They had a very difficult decision
:20:26. > :20:29.to make and does circumstances. Perhaps I would have rather tried
:20:30. > :20:33.the tranquiliser dart in the hopes that that would save the life of the
:20:34. > :20:37.gorilla and the child, but their argument was that that would take
:20:38. > :20:45.some time to have an effect and may be the gorilla would be agitated by
:20:46. > :20:52.it. -- maybe. I can understand their decision. But the real issue is that
:20:53. > :20:59.we treat animals like humans in so many ways, including in zoos, but
:21:00. > :21:02.also, of course, treating them as things to it, which is far less
:21:03. > :21:08.necessary and defensible than what the zoo did. Will promise when it
:21:09. > :21:12.comes to animal rights is that all the creatures that can feel and be
:21:13. > :21:16.aware of suffering, and also aware of contentment and happiness, your
:21:17. > :21:21.view is that that includes many creatures, and they have the same
:21:22. > :21:25.right to not experience suffering that we humans have. And therefore,
:21:26. > :21:34.many of the ways in which we treat animals, is in many ways racist to
:21:35. > :21:44.other species, just like racism is unacceptable in human culture. This
:21:45. > :21:48.is why, as I said, with the sanctity of life view, it seems a privileged
:21:49. > :21:58.to be a human above all other beings. -- privilege. I have a
:21:59. > :22:06.utilitarian view. I give similar weight to similar interests. If
:22:07. > :22:10.roughly the amount of pain and animal can feel is the same as a
:22:11. > :22:16.human, the same circumstances, then putting pain on that animal would be
:22:17. > :22:19.just as bad to any human. Are you not, in your approach to this
:22:20. > :22:21.question of relations between the human species and animals,
:22:22. > :22:29.challenging the very basic tenants of evolution and Darwinian theory?
:22:30. > :22:36.We are taught from the earliest age that evolution is based on struggle
:22:37. > :22:43.and the survival of the fittest. The line doesn't worry about the
:22:44. > :22:48.feelings of the wildebeest. -- lion. We humans, coming out of caves and
:22:49. > :22:52.eating animals, we have always survived by frankly being the
:22:53. > :22:56.fittest and surviving through being the cleverest, the fittest, the
:22:57. > :23:03.smartest. You are challenging that. I am not. I am interested to talk
:23:04. > :23:09.about that and that is how we got many of our quality. But I am
:23:10. > :23:16.challenging the ability to draw many conclusions from this very. That is
:23:17. > :23:21.the fallacy. I don't think we can say that because this is the way we
:23:22. > :23:24.evolved that this is the way we should continue. You seem to believe
:23:25. > :23:28.that we are making better choices today than when you started writing
:23:29. > :23:32.about them 50 years ago. I definitely do. I see that all the
:23:33. > :23:37.time in terms of the way people are living. We see that in regards to
:23:38. > :23:42.animals. Far more people are aware of the needs of animals and are
:23:43. > :23:47.vegetarian and vegan, I mean, we couldn't even have used that word
:23:48. > :23:54.vegan, 50 years ago, and understood it. And there is the emerging
:23:55. > :23:59.movement of altruism. I found that interesting. I wrote that essay more
:24:00. > :24:02.than 40 years ago. It was taught in philosophy classes for a while but
:24:03. > :24:07.people didn't take it as seriously as perhaps a guide to how they might
:24:08. > :24:11.live their life. Now we have people doing that and finding it a
:24:12. > :24:18.rewarding way to live. We have to end there. Thank you very much for
:24:19. > :24:35.coming on HARDtalk. Thank you very much, Stephen. THEME SONG PLAYS.
:24:36. > :24:38.Wednesday was a stormy day across the country with the Midlands
:24:39. > :24:44.seeing the best and the worst of the weather.
:24:45. > :24:48.But it was quite a humid day and that sparked off