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Peter Singer

SINGER, PETER (1946– ), Australian-American philosopher of ethics. Born in Melbourne and educated there and at Oxford, Singer was one of the more controversial of recent philosphers. He was especially noted for pioneering the philosophy of "animal rights" in such books as Animal Liberation (1976) and for his controversial views on handicapped infants, described in Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (with Hega Kuhse, 1985). Because of his apparent reluctance to see a total divide between animals and humans, his views have aroused fierce debate. Singer taught at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, before becoming professor of philosophy at Princeton in 1999.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.