Quote

When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals.

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
Idea
Animals
Amusement
Learn
Training
Lions
Confining
Individual
Exist
Perform
Spectacle
Shows
Involved
Cruelty
Elephant
Ideas
Respect
Tricks
Humiliating
Whole
Quite
Apart
Circus
Children
Animal
Individuals
Elephants
Made
Enjoy
Lack
Lion

More quotes by Peter Singer

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Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.
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There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.
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I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature.
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Charitable giving is a huge sector in the United States. It amounts to $350 billion a year. And yet, I can't help feeling that a lot of that is wasted because people have not been thinking about how to do it as effectively as possible.
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Those who purchase meat, fur, and leather have no right to be shielded from the sights and sounds of the slaughterhouses from which these products were produced.
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According to classical utilitarianism, the only intrinsic good is happiness the only intrinsic bad is pain. That implies no intrinsic value in preserving nature, that preserving an endangered plant is valuable only if it benefits humans or other animals. Intuitively, that seems wrong but perhaps I shouldn't trust my intuition here.
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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.
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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.
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Ethics is inescapable.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.
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If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?
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In appropriate circumstances we are justified in using humans to achieve goals (or the goal of assisting animals).
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Knowing that we can control our own behaviour makes it more likely that we will.
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Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.
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Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong.
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Every day we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements.
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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.
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