“Nothing—he’s stupid,” one audience member interjected.

Bush-bashing continued throughout the question-and-answer session, and none of the audience members challenged Singer’s political views.

The famously-contrarian philosopher said he isn’t used to being so well-received.

“At last, I wanted to have a lot of people agree with me,” Singer quipped in explaining his motivation for writing his latest book.

Princeton’s appointment of Singer to the DeCamp chair of bioethics in 1999 sparked an uproar among the school’s alumni. Publisher Steve Forbes, the former Republican presidential candidate and major donor to Princeton, said he would withhold gifts to the school as long as Singer remained on the faculty.

Singer’s 1975 book Animal Liberation sold more than half a million copies and catapulted him to prominence within the animal rights movement.

In 1996, he was a Green Party candidate for senator in the Australian province of Victoria, garnering 2.6 percent of the vote.

After last night’s address, Lecturer on the Study of Religion Brian C. W. Palmer ’86 praised Singer for living by his philosophical principles.

“He is one of very few in our society to double-tithe, to give away 20 percent of his income [to charity] every year,” Palmer said.

“The consistency between Singer’s thought and action became clear to me and my students a year ago when, after being interviewed in the course [Religion 1528, ‘Globalization and Human Values’] he invited all who wished to join him at the Federal building in Boston to speak out against Bush’s plans to invade Iraq,” Palmer said.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.