Peter Singer

Position
Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values
Office Phone
Office
Green Hall, 3-S-11
Bio/Description

Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, he has, since 1999, been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.  He first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975.  His other books include: Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, Pushing Time Away, The Life You Can Save, The Point of View of the Universe (co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), Ethics in the Real WorldAnimal Liberation Now, and The Buddhist and the Ethicist (co-authored with Shih Chao-Hwei).  

In 2012 Singer was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honor.  He founded the charity The Life You Can Save and is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. In 2021, he was awarded the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, and in 2023, he shared, with Steven Pinker, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences.