The world's best (and/or worst) ethicist, certainly its most controversial -- a vegetarian who radically opposes both meat-eating and animal-testing on ethical grounds; a radical who goes beyond supporting abortion rights to permitting the 'mercy killing' of incurably sick and disabled infants with the parents consent; a supporter of voluntary euthanasia who says Americans fail to fulfill their moral obligation to help the world's poor when they don't give away all their disposable income to overseas charity organizations -- Peter Singer's beliefs are a remarkable example of how far a single moral principle can take you.

In his case, it's a principle that seems on its surface to be non-controversial: Given a being that is capable of suffering and feeling pleasure, we have a moral obligation to prevent that being's suffering and increase its pleasure. You'd buy that, wouldn't you? But all the rest, both right-sounding and horrible-sounding, follows from that one premise.

Peter Singer Links, both For and Agin

Wikipedia.

To my mind, the most sound objection to the extremes of Singer's philosophy is the one contained in this piece, which ultimately argues:

Perhaps there is nothing special about humans, or infants, or innocence – but there is very probably a great deal of happiness in the world that is dependent upon the belief that there is.

To put it another way: if it is not the case that people quarrel with Singer the way they do because he is wrong, then, lucky for them, Singer is wrong because of the way people quarrel with him.

Of course, that argument leaves open the possibility that Singer's views will someday permeate society to the point where the "But A Lot Of People Will Be Unhappy Then" defense will fail. Then we're in for a world of Singer.

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 10:29 AM  |