Peter Singer

Prof. Peter Singer

Peter Albert David Singer (born 1946 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Australian philosopher. As of 2005, he holds two part-time positions: the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne.

Singer's parents were Viennese Jews who escaped to Australia before World War II in 1938. His father imported tea and coffee, while his mother practiced medicine. Singer studied law, history and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, gaining his degree in 1967. He then received an MA for a thesis entitled Why should I be moral? in 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at University College, Oxford, achieving a BPhil in 1971. From then till 1972 he was a Radcliffe lecturer at University College and worked on a thesis on civil disobedience, supervised by R. M. Hare. This resulted in his first book (Democracy and Disobedience, 1973).

After Oxford, Singer taught at New York University for 16 months. During this time he produced his second book (Animal Liberation, 1975). He returned to Melbourne where he has spent most of his career, apart from many visiting positions internationally. Initially he was a senior lecturer at La Trobe University. Then, since 1977, he has served as chair of philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, and founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he ran unsuccessfully as a Green candidate for the Australian Senate.

Singer specializes in practical ethics, approaching ethical issues from a utilitarian, and specifically a preference utilitarian, perspective. However, he distinguishes preferences that express interests from those that don't. For instance, one has an interest in food, but not in the pleasures of the palate that might distinguish eating steak from eating tofu, assuming no health benefits are at stake. His version of the principle of utility aims at maximizing the satsifaction of preferences that express interests. He has wavered about whether the precise aim is the total amount of satisfied interests, or instead the most satisfied interests among those who already exist prior to the decision one is making. Both have liabilities. The total view for instance seems to lead to Derek Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion, and the prior-existence view seems questionably indifferent to the harm or benefit one can do to those who are brought into existence by one's decisions. The second edition of Practical Ethics disavows the first edition's suggestion that the total and prior-existence views should be combined, applying the total view to sentient beings who are not self-conscious and the prior-existence view to those who are. This would mean that rats and human infants are replaceable -- their painless death is permissible as long as they are replaced; whereas human adults and other persons in Singer's expanded sense, including great apes, are not replaceable. The second edition asserts that one version of utilitarianism applies to all sentient beings, but the details are fuzzy and Singer admits that he is "not entirely satisfied" with his treatment of choices that involve bringing beings into existence.

Outside academic circles, he is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the bible of the animal liberation movement. He is a founding member of the Great Ape Project, which seeks to persuade the United Nations to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes awarding personhood to non-human great apes.

Animal liberation

Template:Animal liberation movement Animal Liberation (originally published in 1975, second edition 1990, third edition 2002) was a major formative influence on the modern animal rights movement. Although Singer rejects rights as a moral ideal independent from his utilitarianism based on interests, he accepts rights as derived from utilitarian principles, particularly the principle of minimizing suffering. (Compare his fellow utilitarian John Stuart Mill, whose stirring defense of the rights of the individual in On Liberty is introduced with the qualification, "It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right as a thing independent of utility.") Singer allows that animal rights are not coextensive with human rights, writing in Animal Liberation that "[T]here are obviously important differences between human and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have." But he is no more skeptical of animal rights than of the rights of women, beginning Animal Liberation by defending just such a comparison against Mary Wollstonecraft's eighteenth-century critic Thomas Taylor, who argued that if Wollstonecraft's reasoning in defense of women's rights were correct, then "brutes" would have rights too. Taylor thought he had revealed a reductio ad absurdum of Wollstonecraft's view; Singer regards it as a sound logical implication. Taylor's modus tollens is Singer's modus ponens.

In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against speciesism: the discrimination against certain beings based only on their belonging to a non-human species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and concludes that the use of animals for food is unjustifiable because it creates unnecessary suffering. He therefore considers veganism the most fully justifiable diet. Whether it is the only justifiable diet is somewhat moot, especially because the second edition of Practical Ethics endorses his Oxford tutor R. M. Hare's distinction between critical and intuitive levels of moral thinking. A critical thinker might justify solely by reference to Singer's utilitarianism of interests, but at the intuitive level such thought could sanction many habits and social institutions running counter to a straightforward utilitarian reckoning. This is thought that would take into account human weaknesses and a society's circumstances and level of advancement, anticipating unexpected consequences of aiming too single-mindedly at the best consequences; in particular, it might justify non-vegan diets, depending on individual temperament and social circumstance. Singer's Animal Liberation is more about preaching than theorizing, so his commitment to Hare's two-level analysis isn't given much play in that book. But the theoretical implement is in place with the second edition of Practical Ethics, so it would probably be overstatement to hold that veganism for Singer is the only ethically justifiable diet. At least he now has the self-imposed burden of proof to show that Hare-style two-levels thinking would not accommodate non-vegan diets when local conditions or entrenched habits render pursuit of veganism counter-productive. The question about diet becomes even more problematic in the light of scientific evidence confirming the appearance that oysters (etc.) lack the capacity to experience pain. This evidence is untainted by dubious reasoning, drawn from sources as disparate as Descartes and Wittgenstein, that animals without language cannot suffer. (Singer gives such reasoning short shrift.) The scientific evidence draws rather on studies on the neurophysiological basis of pain, a basis which is evidently absent in animals such as oysters.

Singer also condemns most vivisection, though he believes a few animal experiments may be acceptable if the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc.) outweighs the harm done to the animals used. Due to the subjectivity of the term "benefit", controversy exists about this and other utilitarian views. But he is clear enough that humans of comparable sentience should also be candidates for any animal experimentation that passes the benefit test. So a monkey and a human infant would be equally available for the experiment, from a moral point of view, other things being equal. Or else the benefit really isn't great enough, and alternative should be found such as computer simulations, etc., to pursue the research goals for whatever value they may have. Acceptable vivisection would be weakly "speciesist" insofar as it passes over human candidates for non-human subjects, but arguably species membership in such cases would be a legitimate tie-breaking consideration.

Applied ethics

His most comprehensive work, Practical Ethics (1979, second edition 1993), analyses in detail why and how beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equality encompasses all beings with interests, and it requires equal consideration of those interests, whatever the species. The principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor, favoring (say) a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only mildly peckish.

Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others." The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness"; mice as well as human beings have this interest, but stones and trees do not. He states that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties, and not according to its belonging to some abstract group such as a species, or a set of possible beings, or an early stage of something with an as yet unactualized potential.

Ethical conduct is justifiable by reasons that go beyond prudence to "something bigger than the individual," addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies moral reasons as "somehow universal," specifically in the injunction to 'love thy neighbor as thyself', interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one gives to one's own interests. This universalizing step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him apart from moral theorists from Hobbes to David Gauthier, who regard that step as flatly irrational. Universalization leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that my own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others. Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that is most likely to maximize the interests of those affected; utilitarianism has been arrived at.

Abortion, euthanasia and infanticide

Consistent with his general ethical theory, Singer holds that the right to physical integrity is grounded in a being's ability to suffer, and the right to life is grounded in the ability to plan and anticipate one's future. Since the unborn, infants and severely disabled people lack the latter (but not the former) ability, he states that abortion, painless infanticide and euthanasia can be justified in certain special circumstances, for instance in the case of severely disabled infants whose life would cause suffering both to themselves and to their parents.

World poverty

In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", one of Singer's most well known philosophical essays, he states that the injustice of some people living in abundance while others starve is morally indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate at least 10% of their income to aid poverty and similar efforts. Singer reasons that, when one is already living comfortably, a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life. Singer himself donates 20% of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF.

Other views

Zoophilia: in a 2001 review of Midas Dekkers' Dearest Pet: On Bestiality[1], Singer stated that humans and animals might be able to have "mutually satisfying" sexual relationships. Zoophilia should remain illegal if it involves cruelty, but otherwise is no cause for shock or horror, wrote Singer. Religious groups and others have condemned this view, while animal rights organisation PETA has supported them [2].

Immigration: Singer holds that affluent nations have a duty to greatly increase their refugee intake. He suggests that such nations begin a yearly doubling of refugee quotas until immigration has reached a level where it is clear that further immigration will, on the whole, do more harm than good.

The environment: As the natural world is not sentient, Singer claims it has no intrinsic value. However, he says that the value to present and future sentient beings of maintaining the environment is so high that people and their governments should make drastic changes to their way of life to ensure the world's preservation.

Criticism

Singer's positions have been attacked by many different groups concerned with what they see as an attack upon human dignity, from advocates for disabled people to religious groups, including right-to-life supporters.

Critics argue that Singer is in no position to judge the quality of life of disabled people. In Germany, his position has been compared to the Nazi practice of murdering "unworthy life", and his lectures have been repeatedly disrupted. Some claim that Singer's utilitarian ideas lead to eugenics. His conclusions in controversial areas such as abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and his refusal to hide his conclusions behind euphemisms, may help explain why his works have attracted particular attention.

Proponents of other ethical systems like deontology or virtue ethics have found in Singer's work ammunition against utilitarianism and its consequentialism (the morality of an act is evaluated after its consequences). They claim that his conclusions show by themselves that utilitarism may lead to eugenism, infanticide, or even justification of torture in certain circumstances.

Singer has replied that many people judge him based on secondhand summaries and short quotations taken out of context, not his books or articles. (To make his writings more accessible, Singer has collated the most important into a single book, Writings on an Ethical Life.) For example, when people hear that Singer thinks that a dog has the same moral importance as a new born baby, they might interpret the statement as dehumanising. It is contextually important that Singer places considerable value on both the dog and the baby.

Singer experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. Singer's mother had Alzheimer's disease, which rendered her, in Singer's system, a "nonperson". He did not euthanise her, saying, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult." In an interview with Ronald Bailey he explained that he is not the only person who is involved in making decisions about his mother (he has a sister). He did say that if he were solely responsible, his mother might not be alive today. This incident has led to accusations of hypocrisy. However, Singer has never argued that a non-person who is not suffering has to be euthanised- only that it could be morally acceptable to euthanise.

Meta-ethics and foundational issues

Though Singer focuses more than many philosophers on applied ethical questions, he has also written in depth on foundational issues in meta-ethics, including why one ethical system should be chosen over others. In The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, he argues that that the evolution of human society provides support for the utilitarian point of view. On his account, ethical reasoning has existed from the time primitive foraging bands had to cooperate, compromise, and make group decisions to survive. He elaborates: "In a dispute between members of a cohesive group of reasoning beings, the demand for a reason is a demand for a justification that can be accepted by the group as a whole." Thus, consideration of others' interests has long been a necessary part of the human experience. Singer believes that contemplative analysis may now guide one to accept a broader utilitarianism:

If I have seen that from an ethical point of view I am just one person among the many in my society, and my interests are no more important, from the point of view of the whole, than the similar interests of others within my society, I am ready to see that, from a still larger point of view, my society is just one among other societies, and the interests of members of my society are no more important, from that larger perspective, than the similar interests of members of other societies… Taking the impartial element in ethical reasoning to its logical conclusion means, first, accepting that we ought to have equal concern for all human beings.

Singer elaborates that viewing oneself as equal to others in one's society and at the same time viewing one's society as fundamentally superior to other societies may cause an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. This is the sense in which he means that reason may push people to accept a broader utilitarian stance. Critics (e.g. Binmore 2005) point out that this cognitive dissonance is apparently not very strong, since people often knowingly ignore the interests of faraway socities quite similar to their own. They also note that the "ought" of the quoted paragraph applies only to someone who has already accepted the premise that all socities are equally important. Singer has responded that his argument in Expanding the Circle wasn't intended to provide a complete philosophical justification for a utilitarian categorical imperative, but merely to provide a plausible explanation for how some people come to accept utilitarianism.

An alternative line taken by Singer about the need for ethics (for example in the last chapter of Practical Ethics) is that living the ethical life may be, on the whole, more satisfying than seeking only material gain. He invokes the hedonistic paradox, noting that those who pursue material gain seldom find the happiness they seek. Having a broader purpose in life may lead to more long-term happiness. On this account, impartial (self-sacrificing) behavior in particular matters may be motivated by self-interested considerations from a broader perspective. This argument does not justify utilitarianism in particular as opposed to other ethical philosophies; instead, it defends the need for ethics in general.

Singer has also implicitly argued that a watertight defense of utilitarianism is not crucial to his work. In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", he begins by saying that he would like to see how far a seemingly innocuous and widely endorsed principle can take us; the principle is that one is morally required to forego a small pleasure to relieve someone else's immense pain. He then argues that this principle entails radical conclusions – for example, that most Americans are extremely immoral for not giving up some luxury goods in order to donate the money for famine relief. If his reasoning is valid, either it is not immoral to value small luxuries over saving many lives, or many Americans are very immoral. From this perspective, regardless of the soundness of Singer's fundamental defense of utilitarianism, his work has value in that it exposes conflicts between many people's stated beliefs and their actions.

Publications

His other publications include:

How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest, 1995
One World: The Ethics of Globalization, 2002
Pushing Time Away : My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna, 2003
Rethinking Life and Death : The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, 1996
The President of Good & Evil, the Ethics of George W. Bush
Interview, Penthouse Magazine, July 2003
Should the Baby Live?, 1985

References

Ken Binmore, Natural Justice, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005. [ISBN 0195178114]
Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1981. [ISBN 0374151121]
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edition, New York: Avon, 1990. [ISBN 0060011572]
Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. [ISBN 052143971X]
Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. [ISBN 0300083238]
Peter Singer, Writings on an Ethical Life, New York: Ecco, 2000. [ISBN 0060007443]
Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George Bush, New York: Granta, 2004. [ISBN 0525948139]

External links

Peter Singer's website.
Peter Singer. Resources on Singer, including book excerpts, articles, interviews, reviews and writings about him.
Peter Singer biography

Links to anti-Singer sites