Peter Singer: Animal Rights

http://socraticmama.com/ [Inspiration & Support for Secular Families]
OVERVIEW:
July 2007 "William Crawley meets..." Series in which William Crawley, BBC journalist and broadcaster, meets the people shaping the world we live in today

THIS EPISODE:
Are human beings superior to animals? Not according to the Peter Singer, one of the world's most influential philosophers who says it's time humans faced up to the suffering they have inflicted on animals.

SINGER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, preference utilitarian perspective.

He has served, on two occasions, as chair of philosophy at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he unsuccessfully stood as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. He has been voted one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.

Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. Not all members of the animal liberation movement share this view, and Singer himself has said the media overstates his status. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.

CRAWLEY:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crawley
http://www.specialistspeakers.com/?p=2407

Category:

Education

Tags:

• William Crawley
• BBC
• journalist
• broadcaster
• animals
• Peter Singer
• philosopher
• suffering
• Australian
• Professor
• Bioethics
• Princeton University
• Philosophy
• Ethics
• University of Melbourne
• ethical
• utilitarian
• Monash University
• Animal Liberation

[fjoo]

The problem is that people take what he say and think, "ok, we need to treat humans and children worse, to make things rational and coherent with the way we treat animals."

Obviously what he means is, if we can't treat animals better, then there is no reason to treat humans better, as it's hypocritical and incoherent. But his preferred solution is to improve the way we treat other animals and by that also treat humans better in every way.

[RANDYRodentFanClub]

Unfortunately, Peter signer was probably wrong again on the brainless babies. Person-hood of humans is not only about the brains. Brains was not developed in the embryos until a rather late stage. Hearts influence personality too. From a holistic perspective, all body parts matters. As a general rule, those important/fundamental body parts developed earlier in the embryo. There was a news story on Youtube, a baby who was born without a brain can actually tell he was holed by his mom and grandma.

[toyouiwill]

This was a very fascinating and educational interview, now excuse me as i fuck my dog. just joking but it was thought provoking.