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What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.
Peter Singer
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Peter Singer
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: July 6
Philosopher
Politician
Professor
Writer
Melbourne
Australia
Peter Albert David Singer
Peter A. D. Singer
First
Ridiculous
Generation
Generations
Accepting
Shudders
Next
Accepts
Back
Finds
Firsts
Third
Looks
Thirds
More quotes by Peter Singer
If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.
Peter Singer
The core of ethics runs deep in our species and is common to human beings everywhere. It survives the most appalling hardships and the most ruthless attempts to deprive human beings of their humanity. Nevertheless, some people resist the idea that his core has a biological basis which we have inherited from our pre-human ancestors.
Peter Singer
Nineteen thousand children [are] dying every day. Does it really matter that we're not walking past them in the street? Does it really matter that they're far away? I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference.
Peter Singer
Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced with an individual rather than with a mass of people, or with people close to us rather than with those far away, but it does not justify those feelings.
Peter Singer
Every day we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements.
Peter Singer
I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I think it ought to be governed by the standards of how it affects the individual animals, just as we'd want to deal with institutions that deal with humans by how they affect individual humans.
Peter Singer
I don't see how anyone could really think that if you have a choice between saving the life of one person and saving the lives of a million people, to say - well, I've saved the one - can you really take that seriously? I can't.
Peter Singer
There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.
Peter Singer
It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place where animals wander around freely in idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image.
Peter Singer
If you're buying animal products and can go to the farm and actually see how the animals are looked after, yes, that's an important point. That's definitely the best way of assuring yourself that the animals are being well treated.
Peter Singer
We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.
Peter Singer
Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.
Peter Singer
Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong.
Peter Singer
So why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required - we could party our way into extinction!
Peter Singer
Why...is the hunter who shoots a deer for venison subject to more criticism than the person who buys a ham at the supermarket? Overall, it is probably the intensively reared pig who has suffered more.
Peter Singer
Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species.
Peter Singer
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.
Peter Singer
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.
Peter Singer
The problem is not with the athletes, but with us. No matter how blatant the drug use may be, we don't stop watching the Tour de France. Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes.
Peter Singer
Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.
Peter Singer
