Comments on: The Wit and Wisdom of Peter Singer

By: Graham Combs

Graham Combs — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 03:19:43 +0000

It’s been a long time since I read GULLIVER’S TRAVELS as an undergraduate, but I recall the ending of the book as horrifying. Gulliver, after all his travels, has come to prefer the company of the intelligent race of horses, the hwynnyms (I’m sure this spelling is incorrect). That is Gulliver had become an intolerant crank who find animals of greater consideration and worth than human beings. No doubt about it, people are a lot more difficult to love, even like. And maybe that’s the heart of Singerism. The ultimate expression of consumer culture — convenient, hassle free, wholly-owned unconditional love and obedience from something that can’t argue, contradict, question, challenge, or prick the conscience.

By: David Nickol

David Nickol — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:23:58 +0000

Mary De Voe:

The Declaration of Independence says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It is not even clear that “all men” includes women, and it is definitely the case that the Jefferson and the other Founders did not intend to say personhood began at conception.

By: Mary De Voe

Mary De Voe — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:04:20 +0000

@Mary “Note that happiness doesn’t exist for the sake of the people to be happy; people exist for the sake of happiness.” In the Declaration of Independence, the founding principles of the United States of America, the “pursuit of Happiness” is the newly begotten sovereign person’s soul in the very first single human cell, living and growing into a human body. The soul cries out “I AM” and the person grows a heart. The soul cries out “I AM” and the human person grows a brain, arms and legs and the whole human body.

By: Introducing Dr. Peter Singer « thereformedmind

Introducing Dr. Peter Singer « thereformedmind — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:37:51 +0000

[...] Carter, over at First Things, introduces the casual reader to Bioethicist Peter Singer. I’ve had my students read articles by Peter Singer. They are alarmed, to say the [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:43:40 +0000

@Joe: Fair enough. I do still think he’s less deplorable (!) on those points than on others–I tend to think consumerist selfishness is pretty morally bad. But I see the point about the trivializing effect.

By: Joe Carter

Joe Carter — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:43:15 +0000

Matt It diminishes the seriousness of this piece to include the following items from Singer: “How Buying a New TV is Like Selling a Homeless Kid’s Kidney” The reason I included that is not to make a rhetorical point but to show what Singer really believes. He truly thinks there is no moral distinction between selling a child's organs and buying a TV. While he thinks he is making a point about consumerism, he is really trivializing the exploitation of a child.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:36:12 +0000

It diminishes the seriousness of this piece to include the following items from Singer: “How Buying a New TV is Like Selling a Homeless Kid’s Kidney” & “Why Personal Wealth Should be Capped a[t] $30,000 a Year.”

These may be extreme positions, but for religious people they’re hardly the moral equivalent of his positions on life, unless you’re one of those people who’s trying to reconcile Ayn Rand with religion–which I’m well aware Joe is not!

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:17:35 +0000

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 a happier life for the second.

Note that happiness doesn’t exist for the sake of the people to be happy; people exist for the sake of happiness.

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:16:19 +0000

let’s see if the logic holds up

In Chapter 4 we saw that the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Sleeping people lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings.

No sleeping person – disabled or not – has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time.

Yup — if logic is paramount

By: The World Wide (Religious) Web for Wednesday, June 22, 2011 « GeorgePWood.com

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:07:16 +0000

[...] case you’re wondering why Carter goes so hard after Singer, check out “The Wit and Wisdom of Peter Singer,” in which Carter reveals some of the Princeton ethicist’s very disturbing beliefs: To give a [...]