The Lives of Animals

Peter Singer is a professor, author, editor, and the founder of an organization—The Life You Can Save—geared toward educating people about extreme poverty. He is a prominent activist for animal rights and against poverty, and he adopted a vegetarian diet in the 1970s. He has worked on more than 50 books, either as an author/co-author or editor/co-editor, and his notable works include Animal Liberation (1975), Rethinking Life and Death (1995), The Ethics of What We Eat (2007), and The Live You Can Save (2009). Singer is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

Singer’s background as an animal rights activist, a vegetarian, and an author is reflected in his response to The Lives of Animals. While he holds similar beliefs to Elizabeth, he does not appear to agree with all her ideas. However, it is difficult to determine Singer’s precise opinions, as he responds to the lectures with metafiction of his own.

Wendy Doniger holds the eminent title of Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the History of Religions, and she specializes in mythology and Hinduism. She has published more than 40 books in a variety of genres including academic scholarship, translations, fiction, and memoir.

Doniger responds to The Lives of Animals by focusing on her specializations in mythology and Hinduism. In doing so, she builds upon Elizabeth’s arguments by supporting her claim against O’Hearne that vegetarianism and compassion toward animals is not a new Western trend. Doniger’s response reveals O’Hearne’s Western bias as he completely ignores the historical vegetarian traditions in non-Western cultures.