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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

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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
Humans
Courses
Selection
Course
Forces
Natural
Effect
Force
Institutions
Culture
Climate
Predators
Social
Evolution
Molded
Nature
Effects
Predator
Human
Food
Supply

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.
Peter Singer
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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
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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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Ethics is inescapable.
Peter Singer
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I think ethics is always there it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.
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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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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The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go.
Peter Singer
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The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world.
Peter Singer
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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.
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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The Pentagon said that these prisoners were kept in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and of course I was not reassured by that, but I couldn't prove that that was wrong so we're clearer about that.
Peter Singer
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No consideration at all is given to the interests of the pests - the very word pest seems to exclude any concern for the animals themselves. But the classification pest is our own, and a rabbit that is a pest is as capable of suffering, and as deserving of consideration, as a white rabbit who is a beloved companion animal.
Peter Singer
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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.
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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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