A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Peter Singer

  • Singer and Cowen on poverty

    Interesting “diavlog” between Peter Singer and libertarian economist Tyler Cowen, focusing mostly on Singer’s new book The Life You Can Save. (I mentioned the book here; I still haven’t read it, though I do have a request in at the library.) more about "Singer Cowen", posted with vodpod I think at one point Cowen gets Read more

  • Singer on the lives we can save

    Beside his writings on animal liberation and bioethics, Peter Singer is probably best known for his views on the obligations people in the affluent parts of the world have to those living in absolute poverty. His article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” is a classic in applied ethics; in it, Singer argues that those of us Read more

  • Chew the right thing

    I’m surprised I never came across this before, but philosophers David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton have a terrific series of podcasts called Philosophy Bites, which consist of relatively short interviews with philosophers on various topics of interest. The site is here; it’s also available as a free download on iTunes. So far I’ve listened to Read more

  • Of liberals, libertarians, and utilitarians

    I don’t recall exactly how I came across it, but this is interesting: from a 1975 issue of the New York Review of Books, Peter Singer reviews philosopher Robert Nozick’s libertarian classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Surprisingly, Singer suggests that many of Nozick’s criticisms of John Rawls’ redistributionist liberalism hit their mark. In fact, Singer Read more

  • A dual-aspect political theory?

    I started reading Thomas Nagel’s Equality and Partiality, on the subject of moral and political philosophy. Those familiar with Nagel’s work will note a recurring theme concerning the different, and often apparently irreconcilable, views of ourselves that we’re compelled to take by personal experience and more reflective, impersonal stance. For instance, from my own first-person Read more

  • One world?

    I recently read Peter Singer’s One World: The Ethics of Globalization, which was originally delivered as a series of lectures in 2000. I had a longish post in the hopper about national loyalties and obligations to strangers, but it didn’t really go anywhere so I junked it. Suffice it to say, I don’t always agree Read more