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Have a controversial idea? Good. Here’s why you should share it. | Peter Singer

Big Think | October 25, 2025



Ideas that seem wildly controversial today may move humanity towards progress. Philosopher Peter Singer asks —how do we keep them from being stifled?

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Peter Singer explains why he helped create the “Journal of Controversial Ideas,” a platform for discussing and examining controversial topics without fear of backlash or censorship.

According to Singer, history is rife with examples of people challenging beliefs that were once considered certain but were later proven false. Persecuting those people who challenged those prevailing notions, Singer says, stifled progress.

Singer underscores the importance of protecting academic freedom and freedom of thought and expression as fundamental to societal progress and knowledge advancement.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/devils-advocate/controversial-ideas-peter-singer/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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About Peter Singer:

Peter Singer has been described as the world’s most influential philosopher. Born in Melbourne in 1946, he has been professor of bioethics at Princeton University since 1999. His many books include Animal Liberation – often credited with triggering the modern animal rights movement – Practical Ethics, The Life You Can Save, The Most Good You Can Do, and Ethics in the Real World. In 2023, he published Animal Liberation Now, a fully revised and updated version of the 1975 original.

Singer’s writings have also inspired the movement known as effective altruism, and he is the founder of the charity The Life You Can Save. In 2021 he was awarded the $1 million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, which he donated to nonprofit organizations working for the causes he supports. In 2023 he received the Frontiers of Knowledge Prize for the Humanities, from the Spanish BBVA Foundation.

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Comments

This post currently has 49 comments.

  1. @sebastianwrites

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    But Big Think you're doing the same thing here, and going with easy conventions instead of challenging people… the pictures you showed of gay couples kissing were "all" women, and no men, unless the last one was?
    Either way, society see women kissing as far more acceptable and titillating than men kissing!

  2. @sebastianwrites

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    I had a controversial idea, and challenged my MP's office, and I believe because I was a man, and my MP a woman… my gender was used against me, and I was imprisoned. This when I was trying to save lives I thought and help a family escape Afghanistan.
    Now my life is in ruins, my cat 'Wizard' is missing who I love and deserved none of this, and my flat has been robbed of stamp and coin collections amongst other things I spent 'years' putting together.
    And here is the hypocrisy, I speak of going to prison for what I believe in, and people most of the time ignore me, because there is 'risk' to them in challenging society, but then the same people will say they admire brave people such as Nelson Mandela?

  4. @fvang4751

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Greta a child used by leftist ideologues
    Yes have free speech free debate
    Stop canceling stop rioting stop violence..
    Can you restraint yourself? Is there any moral goodness in you to care for your "opponents" welfare??? If you can't, what are you even fighting for? To win?

  5. @PerseWilder

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    The fact that long established scientific facts about basic biology are considered political let alone controversial.., is INSANE. And ive been a life long leftist… disgusted with the so called Left for allowing itself to be hijacked by gender identity ideology…. to the detriment and deterioration of traditional Leftist values and ideals such as equal rights for all races, both sexes, etc & being anti-war, protecting the environment, advocating for workers rights, civil liberties, free speech, etc.

    A bitter and devestating irony.

  6. @LapinDebogues

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    A guy who never ran a business now tells a business how to run a business. Maybe he doesn’t understand the economies of scale that allows BMW to separate each aspect of car building into its most economical locations
    He’s an absolute joke

  7. @user-uj8ls4jc6g

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Medicinal and recreational cannabis use is the same thing. I do not need to prove what is self evident. Humans are unconsciously motivated. Intention cannot be known: not even your own. This is the science on medical and recreational cannabis. They are the same thing.

  9. @PlatoCave

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Ideas within the norms of religious and ethical confines as otherwise too much of Free Thinking would only lead to a total chaos. One of the greatest advantages of any religious philosophy is that it has Divine elements in it , leaving lesser chance to argue and debate just for sake of it. Human thoughts must be processed with some degree of regulation as otherwise who will validate what truth is if everyone will have his or her own version so conveniently. The advent of Satanic movements like LGBTQ are a direct result of too much freedom to too little minds and that give the Devil a chance to exploit to its fullest.

  10. @ely.lingss

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    so here's my controversial opinion. i possibly have the answer to the question of "where does gender dysphoria come from" and "until where can we stretch identifying to a certain group". It's simply dissociating your sex from your gender; your ethnicity from your culture. Both sex and ethnicity don't affect your brain, and don't affect your personality (which has been proved).

    That's the reason why people born in the west, even if they are poc, are more influenced by western culture. If a white person grew up in Congo, they would probably tend to "identify as black" if they don't make the difference between black skin and Congolese culture.

    In the same way, sex does not determine gender, because a physical attribute cannot influence which social norms you abide to. I believe that gender is determined by one's perception of the average percentage of "men" and "woman" traditional norms they abide to. So, a female man is just as much as a man as a male man would ever be, and a male woman is just as much of a woman as a female woman would ever be. The fact that society says woman=female and man=male is, i think, the primary cause of gender dysphoria. Trans spaces are feeding this idea by encouraging each other to do gender affirming care when almost all the long term studies (30 years and more) show that hormones and surgery doesn't reduce over time mental distress, as proven by the number of mental health (and unfortunately attempts) related hospitalizations. If trans people are three times more likely than cis people to attempt suicide, well study has proven that gender affirming care does not help on the long term! There's much much more i'd like to unwrap, including my sources, but this is a comment on youtube (lol). I am genuinely concerned because to me, this whole issue seems like people who are trying to detriment it are succeeding, and people who are trying to help it are going in the wrong direction.

    idk if it was clear but atp im probably not going in psychology or gender philosophy and am not qualified to make a paper either, so im just going to share it here. if anyone knows about an opportunity to share this then plzz tell me (im thinking about the journal they talked about in this vid but idk how to write a paper at all).

    oh yeah and the formula of "x is determined by one's perception of the average percentage of "y" and "z" traditional norms they abide to" can be applied to a variety of things, as long as they are social constructs.

  14. @bestwitch2931

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    I don’t think it’s right to shut dissenting ideas down at the same time it’s understandable that in some circumstances some peoples opinions are more hateful than helpful not saying the main example is that just my thoughts. I would say a big difference between gender identity and ethnicity is that gender is subjective sense of self in a similar way that your personality is expressed and a part of your identity but we don’t think of it entirely through the lens of someone’s biology. That doesn’t mean however that biology doesn’t play a part in shaping someone’s personality or gender identity because in all likelihood it does. So the thing about trans racial identity is that being of a certain ethnicity is not a subjective experience. Of course there are discussions of what is a woman really but regardless the experience of being a certain way remains the same whether you think of it through a different cultural lens or even as a third gender peoples experience of gender variance doesn’t change and has existed in some way throughout all societies. Science can and does go a long way in our understanding of trans people, and there are two things I’ll point out for trans racial identity and even trans ableism to my knowledge neither share the same sort of subjective value rooted in identity or sense of self neither have scientific research to back up the claim or give evidence and neither seem to have any historical precedent or cultural significance. Gender has all of those things. I don’t think the way to go about it is to shut down conversations we should try to cultivate understanding rather than censorship. Perhaps with time we may gain a new understanding of these things but as it stands right now it doesn’t seem that they have as much going for them as the validity of trans experience and expression.

  15. @donwold1622

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Opinions have been deemed "hate speech" and are no longer allowed to be discussed…. A giant leap BACKWARDS it would seem. However, shame and blame are not a discussion and never welcomed from a person that that cannot possibly even have had enough life-experience to understand how we got here and to judge others' actions.

  19. @framersmethod

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Using the popular vote in the United States would be a mistake. But so would using the current Electoral College. Only the Hamilton Method and an electors convention will solve America’s political problems.

  21. @gabrielrodriguez6333

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    My controversial idea is that we treat and manage cancer the wrong way. We need more preventive measures for top comorbidities, address top health and metabolic risk factors world wide across socioeconomic disparities, and use tumor sugar dependence against it!!!!

  22. @SudipBishwakarma

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    The concept of taxation has always confused me. When I grew up I had hardships. I received no help from government and my family had to struggle really hard to support the family and for my education. There were times when my family couldn't afford for my education and I had to take a break from degree program for more than a year and then continue again. I had no scholarships. I then worked hard to build up skills and finally got a job. Now I started to earn but then now I had to pay a portion of my salary to the government as tax. I just find it ridiculous as this government never cared for me and here I am compelled to abide with anything and give my hard earned money to them. What pisses me off is they take money from what I earned but then again on what I spend as well. I think we really need to reconsider TAX.

  24. @Mamall8171

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Well chew on this: ALL these arbitrary, delibrate, broken, biased, bigoted "systems in place" are riddled & infested with fraudulent, felonious, fabricated, fictional, falacies….🙄🤕🤐

  28. @RayGoSan

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Controversial ideas are acceptable only when they align to woke ideas. Otherwise, they would be ferociously cancelled by users, media and the government.
    Unfortunately, this is the world we're living in

  31. @sihr07

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    We’re living the escalation in hostilities in one of the most controversial wars these days… We need to advocate more for breaking silence.

  32. @jonathanspear850

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Thank you for giving me hope. I am a psychiatrist who learns from conversations with every patient rather than relying on expert guidelines. I would love to engage in discourse and have our observations disproved but that is not available within my profession. I assume that it has always been challenging to be controversial but perhaps dogma and ideology are even more prevalent nowadays thanks to social media.

  34. @invox_in_your_inbox

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    My controversial idea is that the mass media is using lgbtq+ agendas to pick fights among the poor against themselves, blindsiding us while the rich push us all down and steal out future.

  35. @pouetpouetdaddy5

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    really? Peter Singer?that lunatic? I'm vegetarian and I think he is the worst ambassador for it. Controversial idea are not always, actually most of the time, good idea. But it makes good tv, content, clickbait

  36. @Mikaeel84

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    My controversial idea is that there is only one God, his name is Allah. Also that Muhammad(may peace be upon him) is his last messanger. The Quran is the last book he has sent us as a guide and warning and the only one that is still in it's original form today.

  38. @lornenoland8098

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    There’s a difference between an idea that is controversial and an idea intended to create controversy. One is a new way of thinking about something. The other is just trolling.

  39. @КаринаТкач-б5ю

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Thanks for the video. Just a note, I'm not a native English speaker. As for me, there are some logical distortions in the idea of expressing controversial things. Maybe this is not wrong generally, but still seems to me a bit strange.

    1. The speaker doesn't give definitions for both the ridiculous nonsense and the controversial assumptions. I think we should take into account the difference.

    2. Humanity doesn't seem to be stucked into regress, there's just a natural way of development. Values are changing and still strongly depend on the culture. We can't identify any period as a stagnation or growth just because there is no goal to achieve the absolute human perfection. A human being theirself is the opposite to the perfect and rational creature. We just change under circumtances. I suppose the the scientist who tried to reveal gay relationship wasn't the smartest and progressive one. He represented the idea that coudn't be accepted and declined afterwards, but it worked out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sure that pedophilia should undergo the same way. I hope not. I decline the wild stuff to be source of progress.

    I guess a real progress booster is conducting study on the human's nature and accepting the reality. Many people perceive the opportunity to come up with any crazy idea as a good way of justifying terrible things. Since the nuclear weapon was constructed, there is a reason to second-guess the opinion on the progress. Stop playing Gods, we are not. I won't ever understang such a strong desire to change the race etc. I mean what the heck, guys, it doesn't redically change your biological nature. But of course it can be used as perfect solution to conceal the problems and take the advantages from the "suitable" race. Weird.

  40. @empiirik

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    This is also the way how nihilism goes awry. Why should one not identify himself or herself as an animal or a robot, a tool or a three, or a god?

  46. @alexanderbarannykov1167

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    I totally agree with concept that we should share controversial idea. Only one question is how far controversial is acceptable. If eugenicists is ok to discuss, or human genetic engineering. In way there is a lot's of topics that are now "banned" from discussion in modern world due to the shadow of previous misuse and bad actors.

  47. @JeffMooredotcom

    October 25, 2025 at 8:06 am

    Truly sad that you locked the full Brian Klaas video behind your pay wall. Kinda slimy offering it for free then locking it down. Would like to support these great long form and well produced types of content but not a fan of these methods. Perhaps consider writing off just a few articles and leaving them free. Especially ones such as Klaas's which would do the world good. The bait and switch method just doesn't feel right.

Comments are closed.

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