Peter Singer was born in 1946 in Melbourne, and went to Melbourne University, where he studied law, history, and philosophy, graduating in 1967. Having received an M.A. in 1969 (with a thesis on "Why should I be moral?"), he went on a scholarship to University College, Oxford to do the B.Phil., which he took in 1971. He was Radcliffe Lecturer at University College from 1971 to 1973, during which time he worked on a thesis under R.M. Hare on civil disobedience (published as his first book, Democracy and Disobedience, in 1973).
From Oxford he went to teach at New York University for sixteen months, during which time he researched and wrote his second book, Animal Liberation (1975). He then returned to Melbourne where, apart from numerous visiting appointments around the world, he's stayed . first as Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University, then from 1977 as professor of philosophy at Monash University. Since 1999 he's also been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Centre for Human Values, Princeton University.
Not only are Singer's philosophical interests confined largely to the fields of ethics and politics, but even within those fields he's almost solely interested in practical problems such as abortion, euthanasia, and our treatment of animals. Despite this (or, perhaps, because of it), he's one of the best-known of modern philosophers, and certainly the most controversial. His greatest influence has been in the field of animal ethics.
From Oxford he went to teach at New York University for sixteen months, during which time he researched and wrote his second book, Animal Liberation (1975). He then returned to Melbourne where, apart from numerous visiting appointments around the world, he's stayed . first as Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University, then from 1977 as professor of philosophy at Monash University. Since 1999 he's also been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Centre for Human Values, Princeton University.
Not only are Singer's philosophical interests confined largely to the fields of ethics and politics, but even within those fields he's almost solely interested in practical problems such as abortion, euthanasia, and our treatment of animals. Despite this (or, perhaps, because of it), he's one of the best-known of modern philosophers, and certainly the most controversial. His greatest influence has been in the field of animal ethics.
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