Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer, ACis an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book, Animal Liberation, a canonical text in animal liberation theory, and his essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality, a key text...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 July 1946
CountryAustralia
broader ethics focused ideas less life looking perhaps principles questions
So I think ethics is the broader thing that's less focused on prohibitions and is more perhaps looking at principles and questions and ideas about how to live your life.
cannot human less life pay price spend willing
The price we are willing to pay for safety cannot be infinite. It is distasteful to put a price on human life, but the more we spend on safety, the less we will have for our other goals.
chicken conscious hard life recognize work
We recognize the chicken as another conscious being. It's different from us, but it has a life, and if something is really important for that chicken, if it would work hard to try to get it, and if we can give it without sacrificing something that's really important to us, then we should.
access disease far life people slowly universal
More people with HIV/Aids are getting inexpensive anti-retroviral drugs, and their life expectancy has increased, but universal access is still far off, and the disease is still spreading, if more slowly than before.
babies disabled lethal life miserable state taken worth
All I say about severely disabled babies is that when a life is so miserable it is not worth living, then it is permissible to give it a lethal injection. These are decisions that should be taken by parents - never the state - in consultation with their doctors.
dog pain good-life
Suppose I grant that pigs and dogs are self-aware to some degree, and do have thoughts about things in the future. That would provide some reason for thinking it intrinsically wrong to kill them - not absolutely wrong, but perhaps quite a serious wrong. Still, there are other animals - chickens maybe, or fish - who can feel pain but don't have any self-awareness or capacity for thinking about the future. For those animals, you haven't given me any reason why painless killing would be wrong, if other animals take their place and lead an equally good life.
good-life philosophy faces
That's a central part of philosophy, of ethics. What do I owe to strangers? What do I owe to my family? What is it to live a good life? Those are questions which we face as individuals.
life cheating pay
To turn the other cheek is to teach would-be cheats that cheating pays.
children good-life believe
Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving.
philosophy sacred life-is
The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.
loss happy-life views
When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.
allowed britain changing decide draining environment individual influence islam key poison radical success trying whether
Britain has to decide whether it's trying to influence the individual or influence the environment that has allowed this radicalism to exist. The key to success is changing the environment to make radical Islam completely unacceptable. . . . It's not just draining the swamp. You have to poison the sea.
australian-philosopher certain culture happening iraq lead promoting whether worry
I would just like to get him to think about these things; whether what's happening in Iraq is promoting the culture of life. The worry is that he is so certain that he know where he's going to lead the country.
australian-philosopher book might respects written
I might well have written a different book in some respects had I been writing it now. But I wouldn't really go back on things I had said.