Find it here. Not at all like my Bloggingheads with Robin ("but which Tyler will show up?").
There were two tough questions I didn't get to pose him but I had time for most of the rest.
The listed topics don't quite give the sense of it:
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Peter’s new book, “The Life You Can Save” (03:08)
What is the most effective way to end poverty? (06:45)
Genetically reprogramming humans to be more generous (05:35)
What charities does Peter give to? (06:27)
Advice for a young utilitarian (04:49)
How to achieve a higher happiness (03:17)
Read the comments on the site to get the flavor of the dialogue. Recommended viewing, definitely, and I don't just say that because of the participants.
Addendum: Buy Peter's book here.
and I don’t just say that because of the participants.
Better wording
You were tough on him! However, you asked very interesting questions. Singer is a lot more self-effacing than I imagined. Some of these over-exposed “save the world” types tend to be arrogant blow-hards, but he came off as thoroughly genuine and modest. In fact, I think he made some unecessary concessions to your hypotheticals, such as when he finally allowed that colonialism, rather than liberation, may have been preferable overall in some African countries. This answer doesn’t address the probability that lengthy periods of colonialism are likely the most significant root of the eventual chaos and violence, and that prolonging colonialism might may only have led to much greater (albeit delayed) bloodshed and anguish.
Interesting vlog.
Is zero-overhead giving scalable? Suppose many people started doing it. Would this change incentives in such a way that it would become difficult to keep giving money randomly?
As Singer says, not everyone can fly to India. So Westerners might naturally want to send money without travelling, using some resources (online, through friends, etc.) to find random people. But once you create the expectation that there is free money for random people, you will find people trying to rig the game to funnel money to themselves. “Oh sure, I’ll find you some random people! Right this way…”
Also, what is your sense of how much randomly given money is wasted (e.g. on beer or prostitutes)?
A radical preference utilitarian might say that this is not a waste. But we are trying to alleviate poverty, which is different from buying poor people beer.
I watched it last night and wondered why you didn’t ask him about AIG bonuses. Since you were trying to get him to say that cutting taxes for rich people would increase charitable giving.
“but he came off as thoroughly genuine and modest”
So, politicians “come off” as thoroughly genuine and modest, too.
Tyler,
As utilitarian and vegan, I think it would have been interesting to hear his view on Robin Hanson defense of eating meat from a sort of utilitarian animal welfare standpoint.
Tyler did a bit too much ‘baiting’ of The Great Peter Singer and little or no discussion of the book.
That was excellent Tyler…you took some of those “reasonable” positions that I expected…but then again the interview would have been overly contentious and gotten nowhere were you to have tried some of the hard-line Rothbard-esque arguments…overall though your interviewing style was great…intelligent, incisive, and witty…you managed to make him rethink some of his positions and think of some new ones…well done…
Now on to Prof.DeLong…again, of course, asking…which Tyler will show up?…
Thank you, it’s a very interesting vlog. May I suggest for the next vlog to invite an anthropologist (perhaps an Africanist) to talk about poverty and development intervention? In general anthropologists tend to have a more skeptical view on aid and the “save the world” attitude the westerners have, so I think it would make an interesting follow up to this conversation.
Why travel to India for “zero-overhead giving”? Why not hand out wads of cash to homeless people in your city instead? Now I understand why the beggars in India were relentlessly harassing me for money. Tyler had wandered by earlier and showered them with rupees.
Why travel to India for “zero-overhead giving”? Why not hand out wads of cash to homeless people in your city instead?
Ah, but those bums would be Americans, no?
And Tyler would like to replace Americans with some better people, see his views – if one can call them that – on immigration (unlimited) and borders (unnecessary).
So, starving local American bums would be a small step in right direction for Tyler.
One last thing. My guess for one of the questions you didn’t ask:
Do we have a moral obligation to have children?
BTW, the best part of the vlog:
Tyler: “Do you think we would have a moral obligation to genetically reprogram people to sell their babies for $1M to help Haitian children?”
Peter: [Yes.]
Tyler: “What do you think is the biggest problem area in utilitarian moral theory?”
It seems to me that the thinking you sketched about the 18 year-old entrepreneur is uncharacteristically immarginal. Isn’t the right thing to say that while the 18 year-old did more good than the slacker by creating value, he is doing more bad than the slacker by withholding surplus value?
I don’t see this exchange as showing a brain drain in philosophy (esp. since Singer has been in philosophy for over 30 years) or that Tyler is the better philosopher. Rather, it shows that Tyler is the better economist.
@David Wright
My impression was that he does recognize comparing different kinds of utilities and aggregating utilities across people as challenges for utilitarianism.
It would be remarkable if he didn’t. What made you think that this is so?
Peter Singer will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time Friday March 27.
Please go to my blog then at http://www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to join the chat to talk to him.
Thanks,
Gary
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