Top Peter Singer Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Peter Singer Biography

Peter Albert David Singer, AC (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues in favour of vegetarianism, and his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he argues in favour of donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he announced in The Point of View of the Universe (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.

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Peter Singer Quotes

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.

Distance, Independent, Leads, Sight

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.

Convention, Conventions, Course, Pentagon, Prove, Said

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?

Altruism, Challenges, Ending, Genuine, Rebel, Terrorists

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.

Animal, Duration, Pain, Sex, Suffering

. . . chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?

Animal, Emotional, Life, Orangutans, Species, Thinking

If penicillin had been judged by its toxicity to guinea pigs, it might never have been used by man.

Animal, Guinea, Men, Pigs, Used

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.

Basic, Believe, Philosophy, Thinking, Worthwhile

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.

Care, Clients, Commitment, Health, Real, Rogues

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.

Able, Allow, Doctors, Euthanasia, Kill, Want

Remember that not everyone is as strong as you are. Be mindful of human weakness, and of the fact that it may be more important, in the long run, to get many people taking steps in the right direction than to have fewer achieving the ideal.

Running, Strong, Long, Remember, Fact

In a situation where many national leaders do the same thing and look out for national interests, and with an issue like global warming, you're likely to get no solution, so I think you have to have some kind of ethical trump on some of those issues.

Interests, Issue, Issues, Leader, Think, Thinking

Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.

Courses, Long, School, Schools, Serve, Social Values

It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality.

Mistake, Law, Morality, Assume, Enforce

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.

Ethical, Follow, Littles, Live, People, Share

Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper.

Bear, Bears, Cheating, Cheats, Grudge, Grudges

The most callous, stupid things were done just because regulations required them. . . It was not until 1983, for example, that U. S. federal agencies stated that substances known to be caustic irritants such as lye, ammonia, and oven cleaners, did not need to be tested on the eyes of conscious rabbits.

Animal, Done, Eye, Federal, Regulations, Stupid

Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.

Animal, Ethics, Sign, Vegetarian

Putting the AR movement directly in opposition to the environmental movement, which should be our natural allies in fighting human arrogance and domination of the planet.

Allies, Arrogance, Directly, Environmental, Fighting

In the past 20 years alone, it adds up to more death than were caused by all the civil and international wars adn government repression of the entire twentieth century, the century of Hitler and Stalin. How much would we give to prevent those horrors? Yet how little are we doing to prevent today's even larger toll and all the misery that it involves? I believe that if you read this book to the end, and look honestly and carefully at our situation, assessing both the facts and the ethical arguments, you will agree that we must act.

Believe, Book, Government, Horrors, Look, War

Ethics seems a morass which we have to cross, but get hopelessly bogged in when we make the attempt.

Bogged, Crosses, Ethics, Hopelessly, Seems

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