Tuesday, March 24, 2009
In his interview with Stephen Colbert, Singer compared charitable giving to getting an expensive business suit wet in order to save a drowning child. Basically, as he said in his New York Times interview, "If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so." Thus, in his view, when citizens of wealthy nations do not give large parts of our income to charities like his favorite UN-supported leftist NGOs, UNICEF and Oxfam, we are letting his theoretical child drown.
Singer is consistent in his efforts to guilt-trip Americans during a time of crisis. Immediately after 9/11 Singer made a similar effort to convince us to give huge sums of money to leftist NGOs and the United Nations when he said, "How can we justify giving such huge sums to the families of the firefighters and police when we do so little for people in other countries whose needs are much more desperate?"
Although many fans of wealth redistribution reviewed The Life You Can Save enthusiastically -- Oxfam loved it and the New York Times critiqued it with the investigative insight of a two-month-old puppy -- most noted in passing that Singer is "controversial." Before covering Singer in wet puppy licks, the Times mentioned that Singer "has made a career out of making people feel uncomfortable."
What on earth could this man who is so generous with other people's money have to say that would make people uncomfortable? Well, quite a lot. From his book Practical Ethics, here are some examples of Professor Singer's "controversial" views:
The fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. ... No infant -- disabled or not -- has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time. ...
Parents may, with good reason, regret that a disabled child was ever born. In that event the effect that the death of the child will have on its parents can be a reason for, rather than against, killing it.
These statements aren't just "controversial"; they're morally reprehensible and the fact that this ethicist holds these views should be a part of every interview with Singer....
Peter Singer is representative of that common phenonmenon - in academe and among professional bioethicists notably, and elsewhere - wherein rarefied intellections and moral/ethical casuistries are floated as substitutes for intellectual coherence and moral/ethical gravitas. Then again, such descriptions themselves are advanced upon a moral/ethical substrate and a world view that is itself, from those rarefied vantagepoints, viewed with utter contempt. Genuine engagement rarely ensues and that reflects but one of the secondary problems with Singer's forays and the phenomenon in general.
Isn't this the same line of reasoning that permitted Nazis to "morally" enslave and kill "subhumans"? I refer to his comment about killing babies or disabled people or those who are "unreasonable".
Wow.
Surely he doesn't mean that literally -
You know, I don't have a problem with people trying to help the hungry regardless of who or where they are, in fact I think that's a moral duty - but making value judgements about life - whether a life is worthy or not - eeeeeekkkkkkk.
Indeed I don't eat animals on this basis - surprisingly, people who are quite warlike get upset at vegetarians.
Go figure.
Maybe this has something to do with certain religious principles regarding "soul" - or maybe just expediency. People don't like to change, they are used to doing certain things like eating hamburgers unthinkingly.
I'll you what though - any person who has spent time with animals realizes they have feelings, they are sentient beings too and people should extend their awareness to include them, even if this "only" takes the form of treating farm animals with humanity and respect.
Surely he doesn't mean that literally -
I think he means everything he says.
As a gourmand and an omnivore, I avoid any voluntary dietary restrictions. If meat-eating is natural enough for bears, fish and tigers, it's good enough for me. But factory farming is cruel and probably unhealthy in the long run, so I try to buy free range or organic meats.
I know a couple in NY State who have a small farm with a few cows & chickens. They keep the chickens in a heated, clean barn, let them walk around the backyard, and play classical music for them every night. These chickens don't cluck, they coo. They're the happiest chickens I've ever seen. And they make an excellent stew.
Then again, such descriptions themselves are advanced upon a moral/ethical substrate and a world view that is itself, from those rarefied vantagepoints, viewed with utter contempt
Some academics and leftists do object to Singer's 'ethics'. I first heard about him in the '80's, when I was at Penn State. A group of leftist academics were protesting the fact that the University was thinking of hiring Singer. I think all people who believe that human life has value object to his opinions.
"I think all people who believe that human life has value object to his opinions."
I won't indulge extensive commentary applied to this issue, but if you were aware of the quality of work that is done, for example, in the bioethics field, you might be more hesitant in forwarding that type of statement. I'm not an insider and have simply read four or five indepth papers on the subject (most recently here - pdf), but the quality of work often reflects more sentiment than coherence and gravitas. And to be clear, I'm less concerned with any particular point of view than I am with a lack of coherence and transparency and a lack of professionalism in general.
Not to be glib in the least, but I'm sure "all people" who believe in sound, responsible, well reasoned forms of pedagogy in general would be appalled by many things that occur within academe, but "all" those people aren't changing a thing.
I won't indulge extensive commentary applied to this issue, but if you were aware of the quality of work that is done, for example, in the bioethics field, you might be more hesitant in forwarding that type of statement
I am aware of the quality of work that is done in the fields of bioethics and you're right, there are some nasty things going on. Singer is just the tip of the iceberg. There may be a real interest in using biotechnology to create a more 'moral' human being, without any real understanding of morality, psychology, chaotic social/political systems and brain function. This is a recipe for disaster.
Singer and his ilk are also joined by the opponents of "overpopulation", like Dr. Erik Pianka, a respected biologist at the University of Texas at Austin who "enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola,".
Someone like Pianka has the ability to make his wishes come true, which is why it's a good idea to keep an eye on people like this.
For the most part, the scientific community is making some truly awesome advances that will help millions of people. But with awesome power comes awesome responsibility, and people like Singer and Pianka have shown that they are profoundly irresponsible. There needs to be a push to ban people like this from the academic/scientific community.
Thanks for the Oderberg link!