If you ever find yourself wondering about the kind of life the being you are about to devour had while carving a piece of chicken, that doubt has an origin: Peter Singer. More than half a century ago, the Australian philosopher opened the door to our consideration for animals in Animal Liberation (1975). Singer has not stopped pointing out the atrocities to which we subject millions of animals and has been providing theoretical substance to animal rights activists. However, the number keeps increasing: about 70 billion land animals are born and die each year in industrial livestock farming. Singer is also tormented by other issues: the climate emergency that we brazenly ignore — as he addressed in One World Now: The Ethics of Globalization (Paidós, 2003), Ethics in the Real World (Antoni Bosch, 2018) — or the misery in which a large part of the world’s population lives — Famine, Affluence, and Morality (Katz, 2009) — which has led him to found an alliance that awards a seal to companies that donate part of their profits to good causes. Singer is, ultimately, a reference in ethics who defines himself as a consequentialist: he believes that actions should be judged by their consequences. He does not dream of utopias nor make revolutionary proposals. He starts from the system we live in and offers proposals that improve lives.
Now he returns to his star topic, animal rights, with a book — Let’s Talk About the Turkey (Endebate) — that makes it very difficult to look at a tray of this bird in the oven with the same eyes. The Australian thinker, who spent many Thanksgiving holidays while teaching at Princeton University (USA), details the gestation of these animals through the introduction of semen into the vagina — causing pain, he calls it “rape” — their overcrowding in closed spaces, mutilations without anesthesia… He answers the video call from Singapore, where he has been, he says, trying to convince a group of millionaires to donate their money to good causes. He attends from a nondescript hotel room with which — seeing his busy travel schedule ahead — he must be very familiar; it could be anywhere. Singer speaks kindly and with some distance. It is 9:00 p.m. in the large Asian city-state.
Question. I doubt anyone who reads your book can eat turkey again with a clear conscience. What were you aiming for with this essay?
Answer. Every year on Thanksgiving, most American families sit around the table and put a dead animal in the center. I’m not only concerned about turkeys; I’m concerned about the vast majority of animals we kill to eat in most countries, especially in the rich ones. They can never step on grass, never get sunlight, we don’t give them the option to live in a social group according to their nature. We treat them like machines that convert the cheapest grain or soy into meat, eggs, or milk. Maybe I can make some of these families feel disgusted by what they do. The number of animals we eat keeps increasing, which to me is a moral atrocity, and I want more people to be aware of it.
Q. Was it a Thanksgiving dinner that upset you?
A. You can’t avoid having this tradition in mind, especially because they still have this ridiculous ritual where the president pardons one or two turkeys, as if they had done something wrong.
Q. With Animal Liberation you opened our eyes to the cruelty behind our food. Don’t you think that the fact that we are more than 8 billion inhabitants is one of the causes of the problem?
A. No, I don’t think so. If we want to feed a growing population, planting grains and soy to feed animals is not the right way to do it; it’s a waste of food. If we feed on cows that graze grass, well, we can’t eat grass, but in that case, we do get a benefit in our food chain. But if we confine animals and to feed them we have to plant grains and soy — which must be transported for them to eat — we will never get more than a third of what we invest, although it depends on the species. We waste two-thirds of all the food we add to intensive agriculture.
Q. How do you see the state of concern for animal welfare in 2026?
A. It’s hard to gauge. I see there is more awareness, but it doesn’t seem to be having a big impact. People still imagine animals are outside, in the countryside, outdoors, although it depends on the country. In Singapore, where I’m speaking to you from, I don’t think there is much awareness, nor in Seoul or China, which produces more pork through intensive farming than any other country. There is much work to be done.
Q. You are possibly one of the reasons Kentucky Fried Chicken launched its vegan version. However, many vegans say they still consume meat. What is happening?
A. I think social conformity plays an essential role. We like being with friends and don’t want to have to tell them, hey, what you’re doing is wrong. Although people would prefer to be with people who don’t eat meat, they still maintain ties with their environment, we all do. We need to reach a critical mass of people who don’t eat meat. Like with tobacco. When I was young, everyone smoked at parties. Advertising about its negative effects gradually changed the perception completely. Now smokers are seen as the odd ones out; they have to go outside buildings to smoke… I think something like that is possible with meat; we just haven’t reached the necessary critical mass yet.
Q. But what do you think about the confusion that exists in part of veganism? The percentage of people who abandon this diet is high, some say they are vegan but admit to eating cheese…
A. I don’t think purity is what matters. It’s not like being religious and keeping halal or kosher. What we all must do is reduce the demand for animals from the meat industry. If someone is 90% vegan, and the remaining 10% eats meat, they will have achieved a 90% change. I’m not critical of people who are mostly vegan even if they don’t always succeed. I think they are doing their part to reduce their meat consumption, and that’s what counts. If you want to be completely pure, fine. But what we must do is reduce meat consumption as much as possible; that’s how we will get somewhere.
Q. Food that offers animal welfare is more expensive; many cannot afford it. The same happens with meat substitutes. What do we do about this?
A. Plant protein is not more expensive than animal protein. But animals with welfare are more expensive. That’s why the meat industry develops, to reduce prices. And this is a conflict. Of course, I don’t want people with fewer resources to be worse fed. I would like them to learn to make protein with lentils, beans… Historically, protein was obtained from these plant products; meat was a luxury. Now we can buy meat and consume less of the kind of plant protein we used to consume. I encourage eating mostly plants, and if someone wants to eat some meat, let it be from a non-industrial animal and occasionally.
Q. Let’s talk about your concern for misery. You encourage donating individually whatever is possible to help the poor people of the planet. We have seen the horror caused by the withdrawal of US aid. Don’t you think it would be more efficient to create a tax on great wealth rather than individual altruism, which today is far from sufficient?
A. That would be fantastic, but I do what I can; I’m a practical person. We don’t even have a global government; how could we raise taxes on millionaires? I think Trump made a disastrous decision. If one of the richest countries in the world can withdraw all its development aid, I don’t see how we could raise taxes on the richest. But I can encourage more people and more companies to donate what they can. I have founded Profit for Good, which encourages donating at least 10% of business profits to good causes. And companies benefit by showing the public that they have good values. It’s a win-win.
Q. You proposed some time ago a Darwinian left. What does it consist of?
A. Saying something is Darwinian means accepting Darwin’s postulates, particularly his theory of evolution. For years the left rejected it. Marx proposed that if we modified the economic base of society, human nature would also change; he did not believe in biological evolution. This suggests that if there were collective ownership of the means of production, people would be willing to distribute themselves according to their ability, etc. But if we look at the USSR, we know well that this was not the case. There was still inequality of power, wealth, and a generally not very high income. Why? Because, generation after generation, everyone thinks of themselves and their own children before everyone else. The left must take our human nature into account when implementing policies. It will only succeed when it accepts that Darwin was right and leaves behind many of its utopian ideas.
Q. And considering the planetary reversal we see, what kind of left gives you hope?
A. Social democratic parties that focus on social welfare. That defend a good safety net for the vulnerable in a capitalist society. I don’t believe in socialism with public ownership. It never worked, and China improved greatly when Xi Jinping left that stage behind. I think there are many lessons to learn from there. We can have a strong social welfare net, with strong community ties and responsibility towards the weakest. Left-wing parties are much better than right-wing ones, but if they forget the idea that they can transform society through magic.
Q. You don’t believe in completely open borders for immigration. Why?
A. I’m not in favor of opening them completely, no; when we do, we lose out. If left-wing parties adopt this policy, they don’t last in power. The result will not only be that borders close; it will have more negative effects: total failure to do anything against climate change, a real and major threat. And the right will go further: entering crazy wars, as we have seen in Iran. Opening borders has enormous political consequences. Unfortunately, there are elements in our nature that allow politicians to incite hostility towards people who arrive in the country and have different traits or religion. Far-right politicians have no trouble reaching them. The left would do much more for them, but when the working class votes for Trump, they are not voting for their own interests. That’s why I think the left has to be more strategic. We have to do what is necessary to curb the far right. And if that means restricting immigration, and I don’t mean completely closing the border, there will be some chance of coming to power and stopping it.
Q. Possibly you were previously in favor of open borders, as it allows more people to have a better life.
A. That’s right. But seeing how the right manipulates this whole issue… I saw it in Australia, people arriving in boats from Indonesia asking for asylum. At first, I supported them. They were needy people whom Australia could help; we could welcome more immigrants. But the right started generating hostility, and it began to grow. I saw the Labor Party, which is not perfect but is infinitely better, start losing elections. They became more pragmatic and today they are back in government.
Q. What do you think of this idea we hear more and more that the West we knew is dead?
A. I wouldn’t say it’s dead; Trump won’t last forever, although we don’t know who will replace him. His popularity is low for now, and it seems that in the midterm elections the Democrats will control at least the House of Representatives. We don’t know what will happen in 2028. NATO is not going through a good moment, but there is still hope it will recover, that the US will have more sensible leadership, and that American voters will realize the mistake they have made. It will revive with a future president who appreciates the value of the alliance. Let’s hope so.
Q. You lost three of your grandparents in Auschwitz. What do you think of Israel’s role and specifically Benjamin Netanyahu’s in the Middle East?
A. He is the worst prime minister Israel has had since its birth in 1948. The first governments, which also did reprehensible things, at least showed respect for others. Palestinians were still mistreated, but not to the same extent or with the same cruelty. Civilian casualties are terrible. It is an extremely selfish government that prioritizes Israeli lives over Palestinian ones.
Q. I don’t know if you are in contact with people who live there. Can they see that their behavior causes alarm and terror in the rest of the world?
A. Many Israelis oppose this, but they are not enough. And I think there is much concern about antisemitism that exists worldwide, even in Australia, where a massacre occurred a few months ago. People blame antisemitism, but it is evident that it is a reaction to what Netanyahu’s government is doing. It is the actions of this government that really inspire unbalanced people to commit these atrocities. It is not a coincidence. There is a cause-effect relationship.
Q. Allow me to end by clarifying a curiosity. You started surfing at over 50 years old. Do you still do it?
A. Yes, a couple of months ago I was surfing on some beaches near Melbourne. I don’t intend to be a great surfer; I probably started too late for that, but it is definitely something I still enjoy.
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