Peter Singer

From Philosopedia

Singer, Peter (30 January 1946- )

An Australian philosopher, Singeer was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of a tea and coffee importer and a mother who practiced meicine. His parents were Viennese Jews who escaped to Australia in 1938.

Singer's MA thesis in 1969 was"Why Should I Be Moral" and in 1971 he obtained a B. Philosophy, his thesis being on civil disobedience. He then taught at Oxford's University College and at New York University before returning to Australia.

Singer is known for Animal Liberation, a work that helped spark the animal liberation movement. He is a founding member of the Great Ape Project, one that is trying to get the United Nations to adopt a Declaration on Great Apese personhood to non-human great apes.

Singer has taken the stand that abortion, painless infanticide, and euthanasia are justified in certain special circumstances, for example in the case of severely disabled infants whose life would cause suffering not only to themselves but also their parents. His stands have been negatively criticized by many.

In Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics (1995), Singer finds the Judeo-Christian teaching - that life is “sacred” - has lost its validity, that decisions concerning euthanasia are better decided on the basis of the patients’ “ethically relevant characteristics.” For example, is life of any value to those who are handicapped with Downs disease, or are permanently comatose, or are enduring intense pain because of cancer? If judged case by case, it is possible that abortion, choosing not to treat handicapped children, and voluntary euthanasia are morally acceptable. Adults not constrained by past conventions have every right, he holds, to hasten a painful death. As for children, he suggests an arbitrary twenty-eight days of life before decisions are made by parents as to whether or not to allow hopeless cases to have their life mercifully terminated. This skirts the problem others have as to when a fetus can be aborted, and Singer recommends the same for fellow animals, such as a farmer’s cattle or others’ pets. Specifically, he would not feed Downs syndrome infants, arguing that they do not have “genuine” consciousness. He includes examples of “commandments,” the Old Commandments (OC) and what he terms the New Commandments (NC); e.g.,

OC 1: Treat all human life as of equal worth.

NC 1: Recognise that the worth of human life varies.

OC 2: Never intentionally take innocent human life.

NC 2: Take responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

OC 3: Never take your own life and always try to prevent others taking theirs.

NC 3: Respect a person’s desire to live or die.

OC 4: Be fruitful and multiply.

NC 4: Bring children into the world only if they are wanted.

OC 5: Treat all human life as always more precious than any non-human life.

NC 5: Do not discriminate on the basis of species.

As might be expected, his views have been hotly challenged. When he was announced as joining the Princeton University faculty’s bioethics department, The New York Times (10 April 1999) headlined the story, “Princeton’s Choice of a Euthanasia Backer Causes a Stir.”

Interviewed in Sweden by Staffan Gunnarson, Singer when asked if he considers himself a humanist, responded, “Well, not in any limited and traditional ‘Jewish’ or ‘Christian’ sense of the word, that’s for sure. From that point of view I am not a humanist. I would rather consider myself to be a utilitarian, so far.”

He said he is an atheist, a person who thinks parents have the right to end the life of newborn children who are really and ill and will only endure a life of pain and despair, and favors self-determined euthanasia. He has supported the proposed new laws on euthanasia in Northern Australia.

In a letter to the editor of The New York Times (8 November 2004), he wrote,

Paul Krugman says Democrats need to make it clear they value faith. Is everyone caving in to this religious nonsense? What is faith but believing in something without any evidence? Why should Democrats value that? Formidable as the task may seem at present, the long-term need is to persuade Americans that having evidence for your beliefs is a good idea.

(See entry for Harriet McBryde Johnson. Dr. Thomas Nagel of New York University has reviewed in the 25 March 2010 New York Review of Books Singer's The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty and Peter Singer Under Fire: The Moral Iconoclast Faces His Critics.)