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If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little.

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
Going
Ethical
Life
Thou
People
Follow
Share
Littles
Live
Little
Nots
Enough
Shalt

More quotes by Peter Singer

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Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.
Peter Singer
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Every day we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements.
Peter Singer
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We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex.
Peter Singer
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If you earn a lot of money, you can give away a lot of money.
Peter Singer
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We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box. This is the story of humans on every problem.
Peter Singer
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Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.
Peter Singer
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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.
Peter Singer
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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?
Peter Singer
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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
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Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion.
Peter Singer
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Ethics seems a morass which we have to cross, but get hopelessly bogged in when we make the attempt.
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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Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.
Peter Singer
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Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the slippery slope: once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die.
Peter Singer
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Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.
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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We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives.
Peter Singer
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I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou shalt nots - that is, the not harming others - and say we can help others and we should be helping others.
Peter Singer
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History is not going to look kindly on us if we just keep our head in the sand on armed autonomous robotics issue because it sounds too science fiction.
Peter Singer
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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.
Peter Singer