Evidence receipt / uncertainty
Published · transcript-backedPeter Singer: uncertainty
7 Jun 2023 Conversations with Tyler Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas
“I don’t know, do you? Again, yes, there were some wonderful works of culture and art produced, but the working class had a very rough life, and maybe they would’ve had a better life if there’d been more utilitarian thinking.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Peter Singer
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- uncertainty
- Recorded
- 7 Jun 2023
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…But they knew enough. They knew Bentham and Hume, and they knew consequentialism in some form. They could have been. It wasn’t some mysterious idea they’d never heard of. Isn’t this like the driverless car problem, where you actually want a society of nonutilitarians? I don’t know, do you? Again, yes, there were some wonderful works of culture and art produced, but the working class had a very rough life, and maybe they would’ve had a better life if there’d been more utilitarian thinking. If I try to think, today, which government in the world is most utilitarian — not globally, not for animals, but just for its own citizens — I would tend to think that’s Singapore. Does that make sense to you?…
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