Peter Singer blogs at the New York Times about a new book (Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, by David Benetar) that apparently advocates human extinction as a way of preventing human suffering. Singer doesn’t agree, but is clearly sympathetic. From Singer’s post:
I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings?
We have to “justify” continuing the species? Good grief. Under the influence of anti-human advocates like Peter Singer, we have gone in the West from seeking to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity,” to seriously questioning whether there should be any posterity at all. This is not healthy. But it is the natural consequence of rejecting human exceptionalism.
If you are interested, I have a more detailed analysis over at Secondhand Smoke.
June 7th, 2010 | 3:17 pm
In one sense, this is very, very bad news. In another sense, I think it just goes to show how vital God is to human existence. Human beings cast out God, and at first experience the thrill of being liberated, independent, like an adolescent who decides to leave home. But then the emptiness comes, and the world begins to look very dark indeed, and human life darker still. This is only the logical consequence, the reductio ad absurdum of the modern project. If it’s natural end is self-destruction, so be it. Not all of us will jump off the cliff.
June 7th, 2010 | 3:17 pm
Oddly enough, elements of Christianity embrace Death too though. St. Paul even suggested that “for me, to die is gain.”
June 7th, 2010 | 4:07 pm
Brettongarcia: But not in the same sense at all. St. Paul thought that for him to die would be his gain because he would be with Christ. But he didn’t seek death. He sought to continue living so he could continue serving.
The anti humanists seek human death to, take your pick, end suffering, save the planet, save the animals, etc. etc. St. Paul was pro human, these folk are the opposite.
June 7th, 2010 | 4:24 pm
This isn’t all bad. The question can at least be asked in terms of what gives value to survival, rather than things having survival value. To look at a creature and ask “can we justify such a thing existing” is in fact to acknowledge some sort of transcendent good by which all things that exist must be held to account. I vastly prefer this sort of atheism to the sort that has no metric but survival value.
June 7th, 2010 | 4:48 pm
Of course, acknowledging transcendent good is a step away from atheism as such, but then I digress…
June 7th, 2010 | 5:05 pm
I’m still trying to figure out what makes someone like Peter Singer an “ethicist”. I mean as an atheist, he’s just another guy with an opinion about how life (and death) should be played out. If Singer believes that Moses just made it up, well so does Singer just make it up.
Singer’s entitled to his opinion of course, but to me, it has as much authoritative value as that of the sozzled guy sitting one bar stool over…
June 7th, 2010 | 5:28 pm
I just read this column by Singer this morning after spending the weekend at the annual University Faculty for Life conference. What a juxtaposition of insanity and sanity, darkness and light, death and life.
Anyone who thinks talk of the “culture of death” is simply rhetoric should read this column. And then–if you want to be truly appalled–read the comments from readers, many of whom agree. For the most part, they are actually fearful of life for children.
June 7th, 2010 | 10:17 pm
Singer is not anti-human. I reckon that his “The Life You Can Save” resulted in more saved and improved human lives last year than my country’s (i.e. Canada) foreign aid budget.
Singer is an pre-eminent ethicist because he has persuasively shown that morality can prosper without being based on a house of cards of religious dogma.
The article featured in this post is simply another in a long line of provocative pieces by Singer in which he tackles sacred cow after sacred cow.
June 7th, 2010 | 11:12 pm
I have, with my own eyes, read an “medical ethicist” who declared that to the untrained eye a baby born alive after a botched abortion looks like a premature baby.
June 7th, 2010 | 11:53 pm
I will take Singer seriously when he volunteers to kick the human extinction project off. I will not be holding my breath.
June 8th, 2010 | 12:01 am
Wesley J. Smith: St. Paul thought that for him to die would be his gain because he would be with Christ. But he didn’t seek death. He sought to continue living so he could continue serving.
This still suggests a utilitarian view of life. Life is something more than inhaling oxygen, taking in water, and metabolizing food calories. Life has value because of what you do with it (e.g. continue serving) not simply by virtue of existing. That’s the point here. Bringing a child into a world say, as a Jew in Nazi Germany or as an impoverished villager in a rural and war-torn part of the Congo, is not an inherent good. The suffering and misery the child may face in his or her short life may not outweigh the value of existing.
Wonders for Oyarsa: I vastly prefer this sort of atheism to the sort that has no metric but survival value.
Yes, there is a word for this sort of thing: humanism. When you couple it with the idea that parents ought to be able to make their own decisions regarding how many children to have or whether to have children at all or that a terminally ill person might have the power to decide if or when to end his life, it gives rise to another set of words: freedom and autonomy.
June 8th, 2010 | 1:19 am
I will take Singer seriously when he volunteers to kick the human extinction project off. I will not be holding my breath.
Nor should you, because it is quite clear from the article that he regards it as silly. The point of the article is to address why it seems silly to us.
I think the answer is that Singer agrees that bringing a baby into the world who has a good chance of living the good life is probably a moral good.
June 8th, 2010 | 2:42 am
I think the answer is that Singer agrees that bringing a baby into the world who has a good chance of living the good life is probably a moral good.
The devil is in the details, since “the good life” is an infinitely movable goalpost. One person might argue that bringing a child into a poor family is a moral ill, somebody else might suggest that bringing a child into an unstable country is (and a case can be made for just about any nation there, I fear), and a third person might say that anyone who cannot guarantee reasonably healthy genetics for their offspring cannot be a purveyor of the “good life.”
God has said that, no matter what he may think of human behavior, he finds human life pleasing. That is an objective foundation for ethics, and Singer can’t compete with it.
June 8th, 2010 | 2:53 am
God has said that, no matter what he may think of human behavior, he finds human life pleasing. That is an objective foundation for ethics, and Singer can’t compete with it.
Most people, if placed in an impossible position of poverty, war and misery, would think “I don’t want to bring a baby into this world and have him suffer so much.”
This is a moral intuition rather than a rigorous conclusion. Still, I bet more people would take the Singer side than your side on this issue if it were put to a vote.
If secular philosophers simply could not compete with the claims of divine revelation, I doubt blogs like this would exist in the first place.
June 8th, 2010 | 8:44 am
God has said that, no matter what he may think of human behavior, he finds human life pleasing. That is an objective foundation for ethics, and Singer can’t compete with it.
In Genesis, there are stories of God being quite dissatisfied with human life and choosing to execute almost all of them (Noah) or all who were in a certain place (Sodom). I don’t see how that shows that God finds human life pleasing.
Some religions, basing their claims on the writings they call holy or inspired, assert that those writing reflect the will of God. Those claims are neither objective nor verifiable.
June 8th, 2010 | 8:49 am
“The article featured in this post is simply another in a long line of provocative pieces by Singer in which he tackles sacred cow after sacred cow.”
Given Singer’s writing supporting bestiality, I would re-phrase.
June 8th, 2010 | 9:20 am
“Most people, if placed in an impossible position of poverty, war and misery, would think “I don’t want to bring a baby into this world and have him suffer so much.”
Agreed.
“Still, I bet more people would take the Singer side than your side on this issue if it were put to a vote.”
If this were true the human race would be extinct by now. Poverty, war and misery have existed since the fall of man. While no parent truly wishes suffering on their children, most parents understand that suffering is a part of life and choose to bring children into the world anyways because they have hope that life for their child will better than their own or at least that the suffering will be balanced by much good.
“This still suggests a utilitarian view of life. Life is something more than inhaling oxygen, taking in water, and metabolizing food calories. Life has value because of what you do with it (e.g. continue serving) not simply by virtue of existing”
This is a chilling way of looking at life. No baby should be born under this viewpoint since the baby has no utilitarian value initially. A child pretty much just inhales, eats and existsfor many years until it can do something useful. At birth is it impossible to know if the child will have any value at all so what would be the justification for bringing that child into the world? And under this view, once you cannot “serve” in utilitarian way then what, off with your head? Once we are old and unable to do for the world, is it death by euthanasia?
Slippery slope indeed.
St. Paul’s service may have had utilitarian value but service has never been defined so narrowly by Christians as to suggest that life loses its value once a person can no longer “serve” in some fashion. The old, infirm, and disabled who cannot serve or have limited abilities to serve still have much value. We do have value by just existing because we never just breath and eat, we love and can be loved. But maybe you have to be a Christian to understand that it is a gift to care for someone who can no longer do for themselves or others. That it is in serving them that we are served. There are spiritual aspects to life that are present and have value whether we can serve in the conventional sense or not.
God bless.
June 8th, 2010 | 9:47 am
[...] here, here and here. Categorized under: Uncategorized. Tagged with: Human [...]
June 8th, 2010 | 10:40 am
Ann: Agreed… If this were true the human race would be extinct by now.
Wait a minute, which is it? Do you agree with my proposition that most people would rather not bring a child into a hopeless situation of poverty, war, and misery? Or do you disagree?
A child pretty much just inhales, eats and existsfor many years until it can do something useful.
First, I think it is pretty clear that one has to look at future potential and not just the present set of circumstances. Just as a hole in the ground with a foundation doesn’t have any use just yet, it’s still worthwhile to continue building because eventually a useful house will be there.
Second, a child’s life obviously has independent purpose from the moment the child becomes self-aware and starts learning and interacting with his or her environment. As you say, being loved and having the capacity to love also form part of the purpose of life.
And under this view, once you cannot “serve” in utilitarian way then what, off with your head?
That’s quite a distortion of anything that’s been said or implied here.
June 8th, 2010 | 3:39 pm
“Wait a minute, which is it? Do you agree with my proposition that most people would rather not bring a child into a hopeless situation of poverty, war, and misery? Or do you disagree?” I agree that most would rather not bring a child into such difficult circumstances but they do it anyway.
I took your comments to mean that because that because of suffering in the present, and because most people would not want to bring children into it, that those same people don’t have children. My point was that they have children even in difficult, awful circumstances because they have hope.
Hope this helps, sorry for the confusion.
“And under this view, once you cannot “serve” in utilitarian way then what, off with your head?”
“That’s quite a distortion of anything that’s been said or implied here”-
distortion was not intended, sorry for any offense. I probably should have asked more directly for clarification.
That is how I understood some of the comments or at least what I believe is implied. Note that I ended with a question mark. The question is sincere. I am sincere that I see in some of the comments the belief that once you are not useful, then you are better off dead. If that is not the belief, o.k. but that’s what it sounded like. And that may not be what you think but it may be what others think.
June 8th, 2010 | 6:06 pm
“Do you agree with my proposition that most people would rather not bring a child into a hopeless situation of poverty, war, and misery?”
Tell us: how we can know that any given situation is not merely bad but hopeless?
June 9th, 2010 | 12:17 pm
“Tell us: how we can know that any given situation is not merely bad but hopeless?”
To the culture of death, the current situation is hopeless. No matter what it is.
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