Atheist Peter Singer's infanticide exception to the golden rule

[AnarchoHumanist]

It seems you are not very familiar with Singer's ethics. It's far more than the Golden Rule. He is a consequentialist (more specifically a preference-maximizing utilitarian). Also, he does not think that babies should be killed just because the parents change their mind; rather, he talks about severely handicapped babies who will not likely be adopted if they are not wanted. His book _Practical Ethics_ lays out these views very clearly. D'Souza's claims were outright slander (and Singer said so)

[niehautw]

@miggetymike1 I will have to agree with Guitron. You seem to have mischaracterized Singer in nearly all accounts. Most blatantly, Singer just flat-out does not promote the infanticide of 3-6 months old who are perfectly healthy. The example that Singer has raised time and time again is one in which a child is born severely disabled, with no prospect of having a healthy, fruitful life. He then says that early on, it is not morally egregious to euthanize the baby.

[niehautw]

@niehautw (continued).. You can see a legitimate synthesis of Singer's views from the man himself in the video to your right with Richard Dawkins.

Secondly, the 'golden rule' characterization of Singer's ethos is at best, a wildly simple-minded assessment, and at worst, a clear and glaring misreading of what is said in plain english to be of the Mill's lineage of utilitarianism. This being said, the basic rule Singer lives by is to 'maximize the most good for the most people'. Sorry, Mike

[Bloodlovefreak]

I'm not very informed on Singer's views, but I can point out why your sleeping analogy fails. When one says the toddler is unaware one does not mean it to be dormant in the senses (e.g. not using eyes when sleeping) but that it is intellectually unable to comprehend the thought of one human being ending the life of another.

[danwilliams3239]

You've made two quite critical mistakes here: firstly, that Singer thinks that it's morally ok to kill a healthy baby (something you definitely did not hear Singer say in the video you refer to), and 2.) that Singer's morality is based on the 'golden rule'. It's not: it's based on a theory of giving equal consideration to being's interests that stems from quite a complex theory of utilitarianism (preference utilitarianism). Singer's views on infanticide are incredibly complex and thought-out.

[iiNDiTC]

If you really want to learn a thing or two about notions of justice, morality, ethics, and rights, pick up Marx & Engels.

[iiNDiTC]

The doctrine of equality! But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal". Nietzsche

[1musicalspirit]

Peter Singer is a utilitarian which means he believes that morality comes from things that have the best results or consequences. His ethics isnt based on the golden rule.

I suspect he brought up the golden rule just to show the type of mind frame you should have when making utilitarian measurments, in other words you shouldn't give greater weight to your own interests just because they are your own interests.

[peteyadventures]

@miggetymike1 cont.. donate to those in need when not doing so is only in personal self interest. The juxtaposition here is Deontological ethics verses Utilitarianism. Singer is the later, and his views are entirely self consistent.

[peteyadventures]

@miggetymike1 ...of ending its life. The idea is that what things are only right or wrong if they affect things that are in themselves valuable. How can action be wrong if they do not affect anything that is valuable? And by this I mean - if it causes no harm and does not go against the interest of those that the action effects. Following the same logic, it is wrong to affect the lives of animals who have interests and a desire to live in a happy way. It is also wrong not to.. cont.

[peteyadventures]

@miggetymike1 or is not able to look after it, the most moral thing to do would be to discontinue the life of the baby. Because in life it will suffer immensely and cause the family to suffer along with it. His view is not that babies who are impaired should be killed, but that if a family cannot cope with maintaining the life of a baby does not itself have a will to live because of its disability then the least suffering and the least harm will be caused if families at least have the option...

[peteyadventures]

@miggetymike1

..cont. right or wrong solely on those types of things that we value that it affects. Such as how much suffering it inflicts, or whether it contradicts a persons desire to exist. Therefore, the 9/11 attacks are immoral for singer, because they inflict harm and suffering in sentient beings that want to live. Singer's position on infanticide is thus: If a baby who is significantly impaired and disabled in terms of mental capacity is born into a family that does not want to.. cont.

[peteyadventures]

@miggetymike1

Hey mike,

I can tell you how you misrepresent his views and how his views are consistent. Firstly, Singer is a consequentialist, not a deontologist. Deontologists, like Kant, believe that the morality of an action is determined by whether it is innately fair to all, before the consequences are considered, such as with the golden rule. However, singer believes that the morality of an action is based solely on its consequences. Ergo, Singer holds that an action is considered.. cont

[SarniaLute]

Actually you are making up the "trial peroid" notion. Singer has never said anything of the kind. Mike: are you doing anything to get universal public heath care in place in the U.S.?

[GayUnicorn666]

I have never in my life heard Peter Singer advocate a "trial period" for children. Stop making a fool of yourself.

A doctor/parent agreement that a baby has no prospects of a decent life, and then deciding to allow the child to die, is ENTIRELY different from this "trial period" that you discussed.

[qwertytalkszee]

Your understanding of what Singer believes is completely off the mark I am sorry to say. You claim you "cite" this source in your video, but I only heard you mention you lost it. I don't see how that is proper citation at all. It's laughable you think you can denounce the moral argumentation of one of the most influential and brilliant philosophical thinkers of all time. That is why he holds the prestigious position at an ivy league university. I don't see you teaching at Princeton.

[CarlMinez]

Seems like your criticism against Singer is more or less based on a misinterpretation of his ethical standpoints and statements, making your arguments into "straw-man arguments"

[ExSaint1379]

While you are sleeping you still want to survive. Momentary consciousness is not important. You don't want to be killed in your sleep, so you shouldn't be. Babies are incapable of the desire to live, and why killing is wrong is because you don't want to be killed. If you take away the you don't want to be killed, then killing isn't wrong. I disagree with Singer about this, but it's not inconsistent.

[Codex1Alimentarius]

df

[Codex1Alimentarius]

Firstly, Peter Singer is a utilitarian. Utilitarians don't believe that the golden rule is always morally right, that is Deontology. Utilitarians look at the consequences of each individual moral question and decide what outcome creates the most utility (happiness, pleasure etc.) for all, or at least the majority. To put it briefly

[rgeo4]

Sorry, but to imply that Singer's ethical view is based on the golden rule is a gross misrepresentation. It's based on the elimination of suffering. From this it follows that killing a child that would be subjected to an enormous amount of suffering is not an immoral act. And no, it's not a trial period.

[sam91004]

Also, how could you say that a baby ''don't want to die''? Babies do not know what death is and thus lacks any interests in the question of living or dying.

[sam91004]

Please post some source for your claim about Singer's view on infanticide, because that is what he believes in nor has he written such things.

[brassmonkey119]

Peter Singer actually addresses this issue, and many others, in a book titled Peter Singer Under Fire if you'd like to read up on it.

He doesn't advocate blanketing infanticide, but he does support it under certain circumstances. Such as when parents of a low birth weight infant might decide to cut the child's life support. He in no way talks about this "trial period" that you discuss.

[sbtg728]

Im studying peter singer and Kant in my ethic class. Peter singer definitely does hold this belief. Me and my classmates have argued this in class soooo many times.

[guitron]

@miggetymike1 Hey Mike thanks for responding. I just watched the debate (bought on itunes from FixedPoint). Not only does Singer say nothing about it being ok to kill 3/6 month olds but I was surprised to find (this being the topic of your above video) that he doesn't mention infanticide at all in this debate. Not even once. It's not hard to find out Singer's views on this topic, as he has written about it many times, but your summary of his views is far from correct. Where do you get your info?

[TheStracattack]

"Although we are unconscious when we are asleep, we are conscious before we fall asleep, and our desires can reason ably be regarded as persisting, in a latent form, during sleep or other periods of temporary unconsciousness. We do not want to be killed while temporarily unconscious, so we can assume the same of others; but not of an embryo that has never been conscious."

If you replace 'embryo' with 'infant' you have your answer. Therefore, his argument still holds true.

[ockraz]

hi. i'm here via your slate post.

you said that you'd lost your video of a debate - if you're still looking for it, it's a multipart video at the tothesource1 channel. The playlist is at AtheistMediaPlaylist.

it can easily be downloaded, edited & burned to VCD playable on many DVD players with freeware/shareware

[jrmd32]

Cool. You have a great mind and voice. And I like your topics of discussion very much...with this video and the others.

[curbyII]

Singer's morality is basically utilitarianism: everyone's preferences have equal weight. Most animals, some mentally retarded people, and young infants have no real concept of the future and have only preferences about the present. So as long as it's done painlessly it's not immoral to kill such beings because their preferences are not violated. Adults have preferences about the future even when they sleep; killing them would violate those preferences and so is morally wrong.

[curbyII]

It's important to note that a utilitarian would take into account the preferences of everybody involved, including grieving friends and family. So although in theory there could be cases where infanticide is not wrong, in practice it would almost always be wrong because of its effect on other people.

[miggetymike1]

@curbyII But that's not what Singer believes. If two parents decide that they will receive one more util by killing their child but the child's grandparents and siblings will all lose 2 utils if he is killed Singer still thinks the child should die, so that's not consistent with a utilitarianism.

[curbyII]

@miggetymike1 I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. In Practical Ethics, Singer clearly writes that everyone's preference should be equally weighed. If the death of the infant harmed more people (and to a greater extent) than it helped, then Singer would say that act was immoral.

[miggetymike1]

@curbyII ok, I mixed up what's moral with what Singer wants to be legally allowable. I doubt Singer's position is that you can legally kill your child only after a special government panel attempts to ballance the benefits to the parents of killing their child with the potential detriment to grandparents, siblings, neighbors, etc.

[miggetymike1]

@curbyII This has been very interesting. Are you in favor of allowing parents to legally kill their children? If not, why? 

[curbyII]

@miggetymike1 Euthanasia of very young infants (given the informed consent of all the family members involved) should be legal. In practice, the only time that both parents would agree to euthanize their infant is if it was suffering tremendously and there was no way to relieve this suffering.

[miggetymike1]

If you think the only time parents would ever agree to kill their child is if it is suffering than you are extremely naive of what humans are capable of. Watch one day of news or read one newspaper and then think about what you said.

So parents have the right to kill their child but this right can be taken away by a religious uncle? That's not much of a right then. Would make for interesting dinner conversation: "Suzie, after your chores sign this form to have your new brother killed."

[curbyII]

@miggetymike1 It's difficult for me to see how an action that harms no one can be immoral. If an unwanted 3 month old infant is killed, then who is harmed? Not the parents, who don't love it, and not the infant, who has no future goals it wants to satisfy. Being willing to kill your healthy 3 month old infant is strong indirect evidence of being evil/immoral/psychotic, but the action isn't evil in and of itself.

[miggetymike1]

There's really nothing left for me to say so I'll give you the last word. I'm glad you commented and that others will be able to see the conclusions you draw. The sad thing is that if pro choicers acknowledged the arbitrariness of birth to becoming a valuable person more of them would embrace the infanticide you promote. As I'm sure you would agree there's really not much developmental difference between a 6 month fetus (killable) and a 3 month infant (currently protected)

[thepickletrain]

@curbyII it hurts the infant who wants to live, who cries and squirms when you stab it. it harms other people who do care for the child.

[miggetymike1]

@curbyII I'm not sure sleeping people have preferences about the future. I have no idea what my preference for the future was at 3am last night. But either way, use ths example instead: Take a person in a coma who Dr's are confident will come out of the coma in a couple years. This person has "no real concept of the future" so according to the logic killing him would be morally acceptable.

[curbyII]

@miggetymike1 Just because a person is not consciously aware of their future preferences at the present time does not make them any less real. For example, a person under general anaesthesia wants to survive their operation even though they are unconscious at the time. Similarly, 3 hours ago I was deciding what to eat, and I wasn't consciously aware of my preference not to be killed; but that didn't make that preference any less real.

[miggetymike1]

@curbyII You make good points but to answer my coma hypothetical aren't you really just taking the preferences that the person had before the coma and superimposing them on him while in a coma? That's different then actually having those preferences. Say the person in the coma has less brain activity and awareness than a 3 month old how can you say he has perferences but the child does not? I can have burial preferences but when I die those "were" the preferences of my corpse, not "are."

[curbyII]

@miggetymike1 My goals and preferences are physically manifested as the state of connections between certain neurons in my brain. I don't think it's fair to insist that these neurons have to be firing (and for me to be conscious of them) in order for those preferences to carry moral weight. Being unconscious or simply not thinking about certain preferences only means those neurons aren't currently firing. On the other hand, after death, the neural structure of the brain quickly degrades.

[bravesirrobin8]

The difference between a 3-month-old and someone who is sleeping is that the sleeping person has had a chance to become self-aware. Even if they were asleep and didn't know they were being killed (same with instant death, such as lightning strike or explosives), they had been aware that they were alive at some point.

I'm not trying to argue for infanticide, just wanted to point out that your argument wasn't quite clear enough.