News

Peter Singer researching the ethics of what we eat

Media Release, Thursday 27 January 2005

Controversial and high-profile academic, Peter Singer, has commenced a half-time appointment as Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, to research the ethics of what we eat.

Professor Singer is well-known for his work on animal liberation, bioethics and social justice, and has recently written books on international justice and the ethics of George W Bush’s presidency. Together with his wife, Renata Singer, he has edited an anthology of writings on ethics in literature that will appear next month under the title The Moral of the Story.

Although born in Melbourne, Professor Singer has for the last five years been based in the US where he is Ira W DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the Centre for Human Values at Princeton University. He has been offered an appointment as Laureate Professor under the University of Melbourne’s Eminent Scholars’ Program and will spend at least three months each year at Melbourne for the next five years, while continuing to hold his Princeton appointment.

Over the next three months, his main area of research will be the ethics of food, a topic which covers not only the ethics of eating animals, but also the environmental and global implications of the way we produce, distribute and market food.

The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) is an ARC-funded joint special research centre with divisions at the University of Melbourne, Charles Sturt University and the Australian National University. It delivers programs in bioethics, police, military, welfare, computer, business and professional ethics.

Contact Professor Singer at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics
Telephone: 8344 3854
Email: psinger@Princeton.EDU