Happiness and Ultimate Good with Peter Singer

From UCTV (UC Berkeley), moral philosopher Peter Singer [author of Practical Ethics (3rd Edition), Writings on an Ethical Life, and One World: The Ethics of Globalization (The Terry Lectures), among many others] visits the Berkeley campus to speak about happiness and whether or not happiness is the ultimate good.

Singer is someone I admire. He ran for political office in Australia in 1996 as a Greens candidate (unsuccessfully). He believes performance enhancing drugs in elite sports should be legal as a way to level the genetic advantages some athletes have over others. He has argued that it is morally indefensible for some people to live in abundance while others starve.The list could go on, including his efforts on behalf of animal liberation (about which I am ambivalent).

Happiness and Ultimate Good with Peter Singer

There is widespread agreement that happiness is good, but is it the sole ultimate good? Princeton University Professor Peter Singer explores arguments for and against such a conclusion. He considers the implications for public policy that take happiness as one of the most important goods that individuals can achieve. Peter Singer specializes in applied ethics, approaching ethics from a secular preference utilitarian perspective.