Peter Singer (I) Speciesism & Animal Rights

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, a position he has held since 1999. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford and has taught at the University of Oxford, La Trobe University and Monash University. Singer was the founding President of the International Association of Bioethics and, with Helga Kuhse, founding co-editor of the journal Bioethics. Singer first became internationally known after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. His other books include Practical Ethics, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, One World and The President of Good and Evil, and his next work, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter

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  Science & Technology

[SatoriWins]

- I'm assuming you would be more upset about the loss of your children than the loss of the stranger. But that doesn't mean universally your children are more important they are just more important to you. What people like Peter Singer try and do is look at the situation from a neutral perspective. You are not fit to make the correct ethical judgment about which being should die (your children or a stranger) because you are to emotionally attached to your children.

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

@pleasestopblockingme

I think I know why your username is what it is. Sorry, but "please" doesn't excuse you from suffering the consequences of being a speciesist bigot.

[Lean Alcantara]

It is time for all humans to realize that not all humans are persons and not all persons are humans (corporations, apes, highly intelligent beings from other planets). These two terms are not identical.

[Lean Alcantara]

"Considering our treatment of animals, we are all Nazis." "It is hard to show that non-human animals count for something. It is also difficult to show that humans count for something." Robert Nozick.

[Adam Arslan]

Lions are speciesists. Ants are speciesists. Elephants are speciesists. Mango trees are speciesists.

[liza hendrickson]

Domestic animals survive because we take care of them.It is in the best interest of domestic animals that we continue to care for them and not abuse or exploit them. Singer is not saying that humans and animals are equal or, even that all humans are equal, but rather they all have the capacity to suffer and should be given equal consideration

[atheist99969]

Holding the belief that animals and humans are equal is fine, I don't agree but fine. But one advocate of this belief I know also has pets. Yet he cannot see the problem. If both animals and humans are equal then the owning of animals should disgust him as much as owning a human.

[NotACapitalist]

Where exactly did I make "the presumption that all non-human animals are incapable" of anything? I was discussing the definition of 'person', esp. as regards the good prof. being an ethicist and not a linguist and seemingly pulling his own definition out of his ass such that it satisfies his hypothesis. Simply put, the good prof. engaged in a bit of casuistry.

[Seka Menacerecords]

Your comment makes no sense to me...The first part of it is the 'what is natural is good' fallacy. But then you conclude by saying that it doesn't mean it is right, which seemingly contradicts the first part of your comment.

To add, no the deer would not grow up eating meat, the deer would more likely die or obtain an alternative food source despite lack of instruction, as it has not evolved over millions of years to be able to digest and thus survive on a primarily carnivorous diet.

[Seka Menacerecords]

Go and tell the academic community that they are never to define any term other than as it appears in the Oxford Dictionary. See how many scientific publications would then need be retracted. Your argument is rubbish, Sir.

[Seka Menacerecords]

Yet philosophers and neuroscientists alike can't even agree as to whether free will exists in humans or not let alone in other animals. So again you're basing your conclusions on unsubstantiated premises and will as a result quite likely reach a false conclusion.

[Seka Menacerecords]

...Suffering or pleasure, but who is the philosopher to tell me what it feels like to experience what a bird may experience, for example, while effortlessly riding thermal currents along the foreshore as it searches for it's next delicious meal?

You have no measurable way of determining which is more valuable, other than what is based on your unsubstantiated presumptions.