Text is delighted to announce that distinguished philosopher and author Peter Singer has been awarded the $1 million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. The prize, awarded annually to thinkers whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world, was established in 2016 by billionaire philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen. Past recipients include the late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Founder Nicolas Berggruen said, ‘Peter Singer has demonstrated the vital role of public philosophy in our world. His ideas have provided a robust intellectual framework that has inspired conscientious individual action, better organized and more effective philanthropy, and entire social movements, with the lives of millions improved as a result.’

Born in Melbourne and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford, Peter Singer has been at the forefront of ethical thought for almost half a century. His influential works include Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975), How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-interest (1995), The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (2009), The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas about Living Ethically (2015), Ethics in the Real World: 87 Brief Essays on Things that Matter (2016) and The Golden Ass (2021).

Singer will donate the $1 million prize money to charity.