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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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Peter Singer
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: July 6
Philosopher
Politician
Professor
Writer
Melbourne
Australia
Peter Albert David Singer
Peter A. D. Singer
Values
Animals
Intrinsic
Pain
Benefits
Implies
Nature
Value
Classical
Seems
Perhaps
Intuition
Humans
Trust
According
Utilitarianism
Good
Animal
Shouldn
Intuitively
Wrong
Valuable
Endangered
Happiness
Plant
Preserving

More quotes by Peter Singer

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I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.
Peter Singer
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Today, if you have an Internet connection, you have at your fingertips an amount of information previously available only to those with access to the world's greatest libraries - indeed, in most respects what is available through the Internet dwarfs those libraries, and it is incomparably easier to find what you need.
Peter Singer
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So, basically, my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals, and within reason, I will do what I can to avoid it, but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I'm polluted if somehow some bit of milk or cheese or something passes my lips.
Peter Singer
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Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written.
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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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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An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.
Peter Singer
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Had Rumsfeld said at any time 'get me a report on what's going on', he could have had it. You're right, it depends on choices that we make, which parts of the world we want to be in immediate contact with.
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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Knowing that we can control our own behaviour makes it more likely that we will.
Peter Singer
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In the sense that you're not at the centre of power, like a president or prime minister of a major power, everyone is marginalised my position doesn't isn't unique in that respect. I think there are different sorts of relevance in different contexts.
Peter Singer
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Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse this is not what Americans do, these are not our values.
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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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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There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved harm to the animal... [even if] the animal were a human being.
Peter Singer
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If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end.
Peter Singer
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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
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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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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
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My fear is that that's what's going to happen with robotics and the military. Importantly, this discussion has to involve not just the scientists, but also the political scientists. It's got to be a multidisciplinary discussion. You can't have it be another repeat of what happened with the people working on the atomic bomb.
Peter Singer