Find our second Sentientist conversation, focusing on Peter’s speaking tour of China and his book “Consider The Turkey” here on the Sentientism YouTube and here on the Sentientism Podcast.
Peter Singer is often referred to as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.” He was the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, naturalistic, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the books “Animal Liberation”, Why Vegan? and “Animal Liberation Now!” (launched on the same day as our first Sentientism episode together!), in which he argues against speciesism and for a shift to plant-based food systems and veganism. He also wrote the essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and the books “The Life You Can Save” & “The Most Good You Can Do” which argue for effective altruism – using evidence & reasoning to do the most good we can for all sentient beings both human and not.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better future?”
Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the YouTube and Spotify above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.
00:00 Clips!
01:12 Welcome
– Sentientist Education progress in UK classrooms
03:45 Touring China
– “If those of us in the animal movement can’t have some influence on China… what we’re doing in the West is a sideshow”
– “China has more farmed animals than any other country in the world and it has really no national animal welfare laws…”
– “China’s meat consumption has been growing enormously since the country became more prosperous… That’s something I felt I wanted to try and have an influence on”
– The difficulty of influencing China from an outside perspective
– “Try to plant some seeds there… animal ethics… raise some questions about what we’re eating…”
– “Encourage some of the professors… to teach more courses… practical ethics… animal ethics…”
– Boycotting vs. engaging with autocratic states?
– “I don’t think that [boycotting] is going to lead to any progress… harden attitudes… ‘If these westerners don’t want to speak to us… we can manage perfectly well on our own’… and they can… It’s really important to engage with them.”
– “It’s still possible to make a difference by influencing individuals… a lot has happened because some people have moved away from eating animals… helping to put some pressure on the meat industry and on supermarkets”
– “Professors who have quite a lot of autonomy in what they teach… not complete… but… to put on courses in practical ethics and animal ethics”
– How are epistemology and ethics different in Chinese culture?
– “I don’t think anybody made a statement that I would regard as faith-based… referring to god or some divine purpose” although Buddhism / daoism
– “Certainly open to the facts… science of animal sentience… nobody questioned that… nobody questioned evolution…”
– “Very much like talking to an audience in the west that was university educated where also you don’t get very many challenges to a science-based view”
– Religion and autocracy/authoritarianism as two different sources of dogmatism?
– “Universities in China now have a school of Marxism… I didn’t get the impression… that any of them took Marxism very seriously… it’s something that you have to do… learn about the thought of Xi Jinping…” but zero remarks about how that helps them understand the world better
– Tensions re: practical ethics themes of freedom, liberty and democracy?
– Visiting the terracotta warriors at Xian. A big sign with the 12 precepts of Communist China “they had democracy and liberty among those… but… if you said there can only be democracy when there’s freedom of expression and the government does not control all the media – maybe then you might have got into trouble”
– How a transition to plant-based agriculture might be different in China?
– “There’s plenty of potential for a reduction in the amount of animal products consumed”
– Common Q&A responses “… agree with my arguments… but it was impossible to be a vegetarian in China…”
– “Here was I in China… with this companion… who is also vegan… we had no trouble finding vegan food… vegetable dishes… tofu… gluten… you sometimes have to ask [e.g. minced pork mixed into Ma Po tofu]”
– Social influences “none of my friends are vegetarian…”
– “If you got a number of people moving… you would quite rapidly get restaurants realising”
– “Another highlight of the trip was the food… mostly the other professors agreed to be vegan for that meal too.”
– “China is famous for its cuisine… it actually has tremendous vegan variety too”
– “Don’t imagine that China is not a capitalist country… It’s certainly responsive to consumer demand… if the consumer demand changes then what they’re selling will change”
– “I don’t think the Chinese government itself would be averse to a reduction in meat consumption” It’s more likely they’d be driven by popular opinion re: product choices and prices
– China vs. France vs. the USA’s cultural focus on animal agriculture e.g. “bullets, bible, beef”
– How France used to be re: vegetarianism/veganism: “It was almost like we were insulting French culture…”
– China’s pride in their own specialities e.g. Peking Duck
– “There obviously aren’t political divisions… because there is only one major political party”
– “Nobody suggested to me that… ‘what you’re saying is contrary to the party line about meat’… if it were… I would not have got invited to speak at all of those universities”
– “I came back thinking… there is some hope… I was ready for my hopes to be completely dashed… I came away with some hope for a long-term change but I would certainly not underestimate how difficult that is going to be – how long it might take…”
25:52 Consider the Turkey
– “Consider the Turkey” book endorsements from both Ingrid Newkirk and Crystal Heath, previous Sentientism guests
– The contrasts between the happy life of Cornelius the turkey and the life of a factory farmed turkey
– 200 million turkeys reared and killed each year in the US. “Cornelius is one turkey who ended up in a sanctuary” alongside Esther the Wonderpig
– Cornelius and Esther deciding they were going to live in the house “became very close”
– Cornelius loved bananas
– “Just showed that Cornelius had a personality, had wishes, had intentions and desires and was reasonably skilled at working out how to get those desires satisfied”
– “… formed a very affectionate bond with Esther… Cornelius would go down to the gate… and wait for Esther to come back… when she did… there was a loving reunion”
– “There’s a myth that turkeys are really dumb birds… they’re not at all”
– Turkey sociality and communities
– “The standard American turkey has been bred to have such a large breast that there’s no question of any male mating with any female – they just physically can’t do it”
– “All of these 200 million plus turkeys… are the result of artificial insemination… an experience that the females obviously hate”
– Working with Jim Mason (forthcoming guest!) on “The Ethics of What We Eat”
– Jim taking a job as a turkey artificial inseminator as part of an investigation “he rapidly found that the females in particular hate the procedure”
– Employees masturbating male turkeys all day and others inseminating the females “the hardest, dirtiest, filthiest day’s work he’d ever done”
– “There’s just no notice taken of what turkeys are like… the relationship between the mothers and the chicks… the chicks never see an adult…”
– “Then they get trucked out and slaughtered”
– “I wanted to contrast the way we deal with these turkeys en masse… turned into commodities… with what they really are – as individuals with personalities that can have good lives”
– A typical 14-18 week lifespan for birds bred for meat “a very short life… before they’re sexually mature”
– The problems of rapid growth “they put on so much weight that their immature legs struggle to support the weight… you get a lot of foot and leg problems… in some cases the legs collapsing under the bird… unable to move or get food or water… no one is going to pay individual attention to those birds…”
– “The breeding birds… have to have mature adults… bred to have enormous appetites… if you allowed them to eat as much as they want they would quite likely be so obese that they would die before they are sexually mature… so the solution is that you have to half starve the breeding birds… these birds are therefore extremely hungry… the producers have to control the amount of water that they can take…”
– “It’s all just ‘we want to produce this product… produce it cheaply’… the industry disguises this…”
– “If you breed a bird that can’t mate and you don’t use artificial insemination you just don’t have any more birds”
– The risks of focusing on a fascination with animal capabilities/intelligence/sociability vs. the moral salience of even basic sentience
– “What is important is that they’re sentient, they’re capable of feeling pain, they’re capable of enjoying their lives”
– “The value of Cornelius is not that Cornelius is particularly intelligent… but it is that these are individuals with desires and wishes of their own who have been turned into simply a commodity – a machine for converting low cost grain or soy into high-priced turkey flesh”
– JW: “The default human is fascinated with animals but that fascination only inconsistently gets converted into moral consideration or compassion”
– The value of well-run animal sanctuaries? A positive vision of what it might be like to be a non-human animal living a long, happy life with family and x-species friends?
– “As an effective altruist I get asked ‘should you donate to a sanctuary?’… [vs. corporate welfare / policy / consumer change campaigns]… It’s not just a matter of saying how much does it cost to look after this many cows, pigs and chickens in the sanctuary… it’s also does the sanctuary have an educational role in letting more people know… what these animals can be like… there’s a better case for saying this is a good use of the funds.”
– Elan Abrell’s (previous Sentientism guest on ep 154) work on sanctuaries
– Does Peter leave too much wriggle room for people to continue non-human animal exploitation and product consumption? Vegan philosophy vs. vegetarian diet, allowing use of “humane” to describe some slaughter methods, suggesting “free-range” if someone can’t bring themselves to stop animal product consumption
– Heritage breed turkeys “you’re not just going to go to the supermarket and find a turkey with a different sticker… a tiny number of turkeys [are Heritage breed]… I found 2 producers who have 6-8000 turkeys each… a lot of people when they see the price of these turkeys… they’ll look for something cheaper and that could be plant-based”
– The risks of RSPCA and Red Tractor certifications and their ethics-washing
– “When I wrote Animal Liberation in 1975 I hoped the clarity of the moral argument would just spread virally… ‘it’s terrible… we’ve got to stop eating them’… there would be a large scale movement and that 50 years on there wouldn’t be factory farms any more… tragically… that hasn’t happened.”
– “While I think the moral argument is completely clear and overpowering… and a number of philosophers have said that… it seems to be that the majority of people are not seeing that… don’t tell me it might spoil my dinner”
– “The question is what can we do to try to reduce the reach of this absolutely appalling industry which is confining billions… you can’t really comprehend that kind of number”
– “I’ve now got to the point where I’ll say ‘look if you’re against that kind of factory farming… I’m going to count you as on my side… even if you still think it’s somehow justifiable to take animals and give them good lives – but short lives – and then kill them… in such a way that they don’t feel pain… you’re on my side against this enormous evil of industrial animal raising… for the moment that’s enough – let’s try to unite against this.’”
– “Maybe… if we do have people who still eat meat but are clearly opposed to factory farming – that might be more persuasive to some people… it’s not just a hard-line ideology about the moral status of animals but it’s… compassion perhaps against the suffering that factory farms inflict and a distinction between that and the way a small number of farmers raise their animals with concern and care for each individual animal even if then, to make a living, they end up killing them and selling their meat.”
– JW: Maybe it’s worse to kill an animal who is having a happy life than to kill one leading a terrible life? Is a “free range” farm killing a worse betrayal? “In a factory farm there is no relationship with the farmer… whereas in a free-range, heritage breeds set up there is actually a relationship to betray… might lead them to see the sanctuary as an end state rather than a free-range farm as an end state.”
– “When I first encountered the issue of animals and what we eat… I said I’m not going to eat factory farmed products. It took me about a month… to say ‘I’m not going to eat animals’… there’s some hope that people will move in that direction.”
– A quote from “Consider the Turkey”: “Try to remember Cornelius and keep in mind that each turkey is an individual with their own personality as well as the potential to have a life as long and rich as Cornelius had.”
Follow Peter
– PeterSinger.info (and you can chat to PeterSinger.AI there)
– Peter’s Bold Reasoning Substack
– Peter on BlueSky
– Peter’s Lives Well Lived podcast with Kasia de Lazari Radek
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info.
Join our “I’m a Sentientist” wall using this simple form (scroll down a little!)
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on Facebook.
Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella, Denise and Steven for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon. You can also help us via a Ko-Fi donation or by picking out some Sentientism merch on Redbubble.