Peter Singer: weapons as a charity, emigration against the war and Elon Musk's scandal
Today's interview is with Peter Singer, an Australian moral philosopher, public figure, and professor of bioethics. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. How does Singer see the world now, during the threat of world war and nuclear catastrophe?
00:00 What are the similar tactics of Putin in Ukraine and Hitler in Czechoslovakia? Donbas as an excuse for an attack on Ukraine and real goals. How much can Western countries do to prevent the achievement of the goals, but at the same time not increase the risk of nuclear conflict?
02:09 New philosophy and ethics under the threat of nuclear blackmail. What to do with those who have a worldview from the past.
04:05 Animal rights in a global catastrophe. Animals should not suffer just because something very bad can happen, and some tyrant with the values of the century before last will appear on the world stage.
08:36 Scandal between Elon Musk and President Zelensky: Elon Musk suggests that Putin is the one who will adhere to the agreements that he can be trusted. As long as Putin is in office, agreements cannot be relied upon.
11:10 Sanctions against all citizens of the Russian Federation may be unfair to those Russians who are protesting against the war. With the announcement of the mobilization, people who protest risk going to jail or simply being beaten by the police. Part of the sanctions is designed specifically for supporters of the war. But to do this in practice is very difficult. I supported the Wimbledon ban. If the players were ready to voice their opposition to the war, I would be only too happy if they were able to play.
13:32 Altruism. The majority of Russian society is still not fighting the war. A parallel can be drawn with Nazi Germany, there are varying degrees of resistance or non-cooperation. There are heroic people in Russia who act decisively. There are others who resist not so actively. Emigration from Russia: 200,000 people left for Kazakhstan alone. If all these 200,000 people would come out and oppose the war, perhaps they would change something. But I guess none of them knew the others would come out. Or maybe they wouldn't come out. So non-participation in mobilization is a kind of action. Even if they do it to save their own skin, they show that they do not support the war.
18:36 But what can happen to a society that is so scared? There are many examples of people who have decided that it is safer to keep a low profile, live their lives, and remain unnoticed.
19:42 Effective altruism: The West should supply arms. President Biden supported the provision of modern weapons. I believe that people should do something to change the world for the better. We criticized Elon Musk, but he provided his systems to StarLink to help Ukraine communicate over the Internet. As for people who are critical of Ukraine or are undecided, or even more so if they express support for Russia, this is unethical. Anyone who is able to really look at the facts and the situation sees: it is clear that Russia attacked Ukraine. The West is not going to attack Russia. He did not represent an existential danger to Russia. He did not invade or attack Russia.
29:22 I hope that Putin will not be in power for so long and that he will be replaced by someone with different views. How Russia can change.
33:15 The war radically changes the lives of those who live in Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, but is it so important for other countries, for America, and for Australia? I am sure that if Putin were allowed to run Ukraine, Xi Jinping would want to annex Taiwan into China... And we would find that we live in a world where two authoritarian leaders wield a lot of power
35:14 Putin's phenomenon all over the world. The rise of populists is largely due to immigration and hostility towards a large number of immigrants. We see this in Italy in the recent elections. And the result of the elections in Sweden was especially shocking for me, although the right-wing party still received only 20% of the vote, now it will be part of the government. This factor was also behind the election of Donald Trump. The kind of instinctive nationalism and xenophobia, hostility to the arrival of different people is still strong. The problem of abortion in the United States is completely separate.
39:56 In terms of protecting human life, there has been a change. Because one of the ideas that I have been advocating for a long time, more than forty years, in fact, is the right to die.
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