Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedPeter Singer: evaluation
7 Jun 2023 Conversations with Tyler Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
“As you said, there may be effects on other animals and plants in the area where we’re introducing them. But to do so just for its own sake, just because they were once here and were once part of the ecology, is not, to my view, a sufficient reason for introducing them if we know that is going to increase the suffering of some prey animals.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Peter Singer
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 7 Jun 2023
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…What is the margin at which you wish to police nature? I’ve argued, for instance, we should not subsidize carnivores per se. There may be some other reason to do so, but the idea, “Oh, we’re going to introduce wolves back into this national park,” should not be an especially desirable prospect. What’s your view on that, and where should we stop? That was an interesting, pioneering article that you wrote, I think, “Policing Nature.” I tend to agree with it. I think it’s reasonable to raise a question about why we should reintroduce predators. As you said, there may be effects on other animals and plants in the area where we’re introducing them. But to do so just for its own sake, just because they were once here and were once part of the ecology, is not, to my view, a sufficient reason for introducing them if we know that is going to increase the suffering of some prey animals. How much should we spend trying to thwart predators?…
Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.