The world, he writes in The Life You Can Save, “would be a much simpler place if one could bring about social change merely by making a logically consistent moral argument.” Have his views on the power of argument changed over the years? “Yeah, you could say that I’ve become more of a realist about that. When I published Animal Liberation, I thought – and I still think – that the argument was completely irrefutable, rationally, and that people should have just said, ‘Oh, yes, well, this is obviously true, we’ve got to become vegetarian or vegan and change many things.’ Well, some people have done that – I have no idea what the tally is, but it must be tens or hundreds of thousands of people. But, you know, it’s still a minority view.”
What scale of response to the new book would satisfy him? Singer laughs through his nose. “Look, I don’t really know in terms of figures.” If the number of pledges on his website reach five figures, “that would please me, but I don’t know about completely satisfy me. That would” – his voice rises in a way that’s humorous but also wistful – “have to be many millions, I think, to completely satisfy me.”
Peter Singer Profiled in The Guardian
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