Peter Singer - The Japan Times

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Peter Singer

For Peter Singer's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2012

Use law enforcement and fees to sink Net pirates

Last year, I told a colleague that I would include Internet ethics in a course that I was teaching. She suggested that I read a recently published anthology on computer ethics — and attached the entire volume to the email.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 19, 2012

Commitment hatched Europe's ethical eggs

Forty years ago, I stood with a few other students in a busy Oxford street handing out leaflets protesting the use of battery cages to hold hens. Most of those who took the leaflets did not know that their eggs came from hens kept in cages so small that even one bird — the cages normally housed four — would be unable to fully stretch and flap her wings. The hens could never walk around freely, or lay eggs in a nest.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 17, 2011

Time to ban world's deadliest recreational drug

U.S. President Barack Obama's doctor confirmed last month that the president no longer smokes. At the urging of his wife, Michelle Obama, the president first resolved to stop smoking in 2006, and has used nicotine replacement therapy to help him. If it took Obama, a man strong-willed enough to aspire to and achieve the U.S. presidency, five years to kick the habit, it is not surprising that hundreds of millions of smokers find themselves unable to quit.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 17, 2011

Unjustness of death penalty underlined again

Three significant events relating to the death penalty occurred in the United States during September. The one that gained the most publicity was the execution in Georgia of Troy Davis, who had been convicted of the 1989 murder of Mark McPhail, an off-duty police officer.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 13, 2011

Toward a planet safe for great apes

Two new movies released this month — one a science-fiction blockbuster, the other a revealing documentary — raise the issue of our relations with our closest nonhuman relatives, the great apes. Both dramatize insights and lessons that should not be ignored.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 20, 2011

Gauging moral progress by animal welfare

Mahatma Gandhi acutely observed that "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 20, 2011

Objective defense of why some things matter

Can moral judgments be true or false? Or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives?

COMMENTARY / World

May 16, 2011

When prevention is more effective than relief

When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, Brian Tucker was in Padang, Indonesia. Tucker was working with a colleague to design a refuge that could save thousands of lives if — or rather, when — a tsunami like the one in 1797 that came out of the Indian Ocean, some 1,000 km southeast of where the 2004 Asian tsunami originated, strikes again. Tucker is the founder and president of GeoHazards International, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to reduce death and suffering due to earthquakes in the world's most vulnerable communities.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 16, 2011

The enemies of a digital universal library

Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. Then, in 2004, Google announced that it would begin digitally scanning all the books held by five major research libraries. Suddenly, the library of utopia seemed within reach.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 4, 2011

Justifying an intervention in Libya for justice' sake

MELBOURNE — The world has watched in horror as Libya's Colonel Moammar Gadhafi uses his military to attack protesters opposed to his rule, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of unarmed civilians.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 16, 2011

The world needs more elephant mothers

MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 6, 2011

Penalties pay off for New Year's resolutions

MELBOURNE — Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New Year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know that it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep. That is why, by the end of January, most people have already abandoned their New Year's resolutions.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 16, 2010

Is open diplomacy possible or even desirable?

PRINCETON, New Jersey — When the furor erupted over WikiLeaks' recent release of a quarter-million diplomatic cables, I was reminded of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's 1918 speech in which he put forward "Fourteen Points" for a just peace to end World War I.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 16, 2010

Consumers should demand diamond clarity

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Diamonds have an image of purity and light. They are given as a pledge of love and worn as a symbol of commitment. Yet diamonds have led to gruesome murders, rapes and amputations.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 9, 2010

Leaders' broken promises are costing lives

PRINCETON, N.J. — In 2000, the world's leaders met in New York and issued a ringing Millennium Declaration, promising to halve the proportion of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 16, 2010

If wild fish could only scream

PRINCETON, N.J. — When I was a child, my father used to take me for walks, often along a river or by the sea. We would pass people fishing, perhaps reeling in their lines with struggling fish hooked at the end of them. Once I saw a man take a small fish out of a bucket and impale it, still wriggling, on an empty hook to use as bait.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 17, 2010

When does transparency start eating its tail?

PRINCETON, N.J. — Transparency seems to be the word of the day in a wide array of policy domains. But is greater transparency always good?

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 1, 2010

Why is it OK to cheat in professional soccer?

MELBOURNE — Shortly before half-time in the World Cup elimination match between England and Germany on Sunday, English midfielder Frank Lampard had a shot at goal that struck the crossbar and bounced down onto the ground, clearly over the goal line. German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer grabbed the ball and put it back into play. Neither the referee nor the linesman — both of whom were still coming down the field, and poorly positioned to judge — signaled a goal, and play continued.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 16, 2010

Synthetic biology's promise outweighs its risks

MELBOURNE — In the 16th century, the alchemist Paracelsus offered a recipe for creating a living being that began with putting sperm into putrefying "venter equinus." This is usually translated as "horse manure," but the Latin "venter" means abdomen or uterus.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 30, 2010

A cloud over airplane safety

PRINCETON, N.J. — When airports across Europe reopened after the closure caused by the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, it was not because the amount of ash in the atmosphere had dropped, but because the risk that the ash posed to airplane safety had been reassessed. Was it new scientific information that led to the lifting of the flight ban, or was it a reflection of the hardship, both personal and economic, that the ban was causing?

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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