Quote

To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race.

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
Race
Racists
Give
Preference
Giving
Member
Would
Racist
Life
Species
Members
Position
Simply

More quotes by Peter Singer

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Will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible?
Peter Singer
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What is there about the notion of a person, at law, that makes every living member of the species Homo sapiens a person, irrespective of their mental capacities, but excludes every nonhuman animal - again, irrespective of their mental capacities?
Peter Singer
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Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep.
Peter Singer
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There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.
Peter Singer
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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
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I do not believe that it could never be justifiable to experiment on a brain-damaged human.
Peter Singer
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Ethics is inescapable.
Peter Singer
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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
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I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.
Peter Singer
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More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency.
Peter Singer
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Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.
Peter Singer
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Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all.
Peter Singer
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If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library.
Peter Singer
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If they [animals] were really to get the equal consideration that I believe they should, we wouldn't have commercial animal production in this country.
Peter Singer
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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
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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
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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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We should give the same respect to the lives of animals as we do to the lives of humans.
Peter Singer
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Every profession will have its rogues, of course, no matter what oaths are sworn, but many health care professionals have a real commitment to serving the best interests of their clients.
Peter Singer
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The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.
Peter Singer