#342 — Animal Minds & Moral Truths

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Peter Singer about important problems in ethics. They discuss his career as a philosopher, the moral status of non-human animals, the ethics of moral hierarchies, speciesism, the scale of animal suffering, conscientious omnivores, animal experimentation, the tragic case of Sam Bankman-Fried, concerns about Effective Altruism, the problems with focusing on existential risk, the comparative nature of human suffering, the work of Derek Parfit, objective morality, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast, this is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed,
0:15.0	and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
0:18.0	In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at Sam Harris.org.
0:24.0	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher,
0:28.0	along with other subscriber-only content.
0:30.0	We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our
0:34.8	subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Today I'm speaking with Peter Singer.
0:49.0	Peter is often called the father of the modern animal welfare movement and was named one of the most
0:55.2	influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is an Australian philosopher and
1:00.9	a professor of bioethics at Princeton.
1:04.0	He's contributed to more than 50 books in over 30 languages.
1:08.0	And he's the founder of the life you can save,
1:12.0	a nonprofit which you can find online that recommends various
1:16.3	effective charities, and his seminal book, Animal Liberation, has been revised and published under the title Animal Liberation Now, which is the main
1:26.5	topic of discussion today. We talk about the moral status of non-human animals, the ethics of moral hierarchies,
1:36.0	speciesism, the scale of animal suffering,
1:40.0	animal experimentation,
1:42.0	the tragic case of Sam Bankman Freed, some concerns about
1:46.4	effective altruism, the problems with focusing on existential risk, the comparative nature of human suffering, the important work of Derek
1:56.0	Parfit, whether their objective claims to make about right and wrong and good and evil,
2:01.7	and other topics. I should say on the topic of
2:04.8	effective altruism both Peter and I continue to support it just with various
	...

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