Peter Albert David Singer
Speaking at MIT, photo by Joel Travis Sage (14 March 2009)
Born: 6 July 1946, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Biography from Wikipedia
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Peter Singer quotes:
Quotes found : 34 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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- All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals. permalink
Peter Singer - An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable. permalink
Peter Singer - Ancient recipients of instant news probably couldn't do very much about it, for instance. Xerxes would still need three months to get his army together, and he might not get home for years. permalink
Peter Singer - Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. permalink
Peter Singer - Animal liberationists do not minimize the obvious differences between most members of our species and members of other species. The rights to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of worship — none of these can apply to other animals. Similarly, what harms humans may cause much less harm, or even no harm at all, to some ani mals. If I were to confine a herd of cows within the boundaries of the county of, say, Devon, I do not think I would be doing them any harm at all; if, on the other hand, I were to take a group of people and restrict them to the same county, I am sure many would protest that I had harmed them considerably, even if they were allowed to bring their families and friends.... Hence to deny humans the right to travel outside Devon would be to restrict their rights significantly; it would not be a significant restriction of the rights of cows. permalink
Peter Singer - "Ethics and Animal Liberation" - In Defense of Animals (1985) - As we realize that more and more things have global impact, I think we're going to get people increasingly wanting to get away from a purely national interest. permalink
Peter Singer - Bush is morally a universalist. For instance, he says the freedom is good, the same thing is good, all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist. permalink
Peter Singer - Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse; this is not what Americans do, these are not our values. permalink
Peter Singer - Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.) permalink
Peter Singer - Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness. permalink
Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (2009) - Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet — for the sake of hamburgers. permalink
Peter Singer - Animal Liberation (1990) - Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life. permalink
Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (2009) - How far down the evolutionary scale shall we go? Shall we eat fish? What about shrimps? Oysters? To answer these questions we must bear in mind the central principle on which our concern for other beings is based ... the only legitimate boundary to our concern for the interests of other beings is the point at which it is no longer accurate to say that the other being has interests. To have interests, in a strict, nonmetaphorical sense, a being must be capable of suffering or experiencing pleasure. If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for disregarding that suffering, or for refusing to count it equally with the like suffering of any other being. But the converse of this is also true. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of enjoyment, there is nothing to take into account. permalink
Peter Singer - Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975) - I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real. permalink
Peter Singer - I don't think there's much point in bemoaning the state of the world unless there's some way you can think of to improve it. Otherwise, don't bother writing a book; go and find a tropical island and lie in the sun. permalink
Peter Singer
Quotes found : 34 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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