Fellow, Academy of the Humanities in Australia (elected 1982)

Fellow, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (elected 1989)

Senior Scholar, Fulbright Program, 1978

Sissela Bok Lecturer, Program for Ethics in the Professions, J.F.K. School of Government, Harvard University, 1987

De Camp Lecturer, Princeton University, 1992

The Times/Demos Millennium Lecturer, London, May 1995

National Book Council of Australia, Banjo Award for Non-fiction, 1995 (for Rethinking Life and Death)

New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Lecturer, Sydney, 1995

Wesson Lecturer, Stanford University, May 2000

Terry Lecturer, Yale University, October/November 2000

Amnesty Lecture, Oxford University, February 2001

Sprague-Taylor Philosophy Lecture, Brooklyn College, 2001

World Technology Network Ethics Award, 2003

Shasha Seminar Keynote Lecturer, Wesleyan University, November 2003

Lewis B. Frumkes Lecture, New York University, November 2003

Australian Humanist of the Year, Australian Humanist Association, 2004

Humanist Laureate, International Academy of Humanism (elected 2004)

Emperor Has No Clothes Award, Freedom from Religion Foundation, 2004

Included in "The Time 100", Time Magazine's list of the world's most influential people, April 18, 2005

Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship, Political Science Graduate Student Organization, University of Pennsylvania, 2006

50th Anniversary Research Award, Monash University, 2008

Included in the  list of the twenty-five most influential Australians of the last half-century published by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, November 29, 2009

“Ethics Prize” of the Giordano Bruni Stiftung, Frankfurt, Germany (shared with Dr Paola Cavalieri)

Animal Liberation (1975) has been included in TIME Magazine’s recent list of 100 Best Nonfiction Books published since 1923.

Appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia, June 2012