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Until we boycott meat, and all other products of animal factories, we are, each one of us, contributing to the continued existence, prosperity, and growth of factory farming and all the other cruel practices used in rearing animals for food. -- Peter Singer
Several countries - among them Austria, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, India, Israel and Sweden - ban or severely restrict the use of wild animals in circuses. In Brazil, a movement to ban wild animals from circuses started after hungry lions managed to grab and devour a small boy. -- Peter Singer
Ben West points out that even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that people believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfillment that comes from knowing you are helping to make the world a better place. -- Peter Singer
Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced with an individual rather than with a mass of people, or with people close to us rather than with those far away, but it does not justify those feelings. -- Peter Singer
To turn the other cheek is to teach would-be cheats that cheating pays. -- Peter Singer
There's a difference between early and late abortions. If you have a late abortion, where the fetus might feel pain, then I think you should have a good reason. Because then you're inflicting pain. As you go through the third trimester, you need to have more serious reasons to end a pregnancy. -- Peter Singer
Nineteen thousand children [are] dying every day. Does it really matter that we're not walking past them in the street? Does it really matter that they're far away? I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference. -- Peter Singer
Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving. -- Peter Singer
If you're buying animal products and can go to the farm and actually see how the animals are looked after, yes, that's an important point. That's definitely the best way of assuring yourself that the animals are being well treated. -- Peter Singer
There are plenty of violent people, but for any randomly selected person today the chances of meeting a violent death at the hands of his or her fellow humans is lower now than it has ever been in human history. -- Peter Singer
In the absence of any general inference from 'A is a potential X' to 'A has the rights of an X', we should not accept that a potential person should have the rights of a person, unless we can be given some specific reason why this should hold in this particular case. -- Peter Singer
In my world of the people who study war and defense issues, we simply did not talk about robotics. We do not talk about it because it's seen as mere science fiction. It's cold, hard, metallic reality. -- Peter Singer
For a long time, rich countries have promised to reduce poverty but have failed to match their words with adequate action. Of course, some important progress has been made and millions of lives have been saved, but millions more could be saved. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and the poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, we are not the left. -- Peter Singer
Effective altruists, as we have seen, need not be utilitarians, but they share a number of moral judgments with utilitarians. In particular, they agree with utilitarians that, other things being equal, we ought to do the most good we can. -- Peter Singer
If a flock of chickens is without water on a hot day, and all you have to do to prevent them from dying slowly and painfully is turn on a tap, you ought to turn it on. If to do so you have to walk a few extra steps in shoes that pinch your little toe, you ought to walk those few extra steps. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet- for the sake of hamburgers -- Peter Singer
We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. -- Peter Singer
Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning. -- Peter Singer
Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human. -- Peter Singer
The traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological and demographic developments. -- Peter Singer
Even with censorship, the Internet is a force for change. -- Peter Singer
Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the founders of The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, believes that singularity will lead to an "intelligence explosion" as super-intelligent machines design even more intelligent machines, with each generation repeating this process. -- Peter Singer
It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to distance ourselves from our own beliefs so that we can dispassionately search for prejudices among them. -- Peter Singer
There are some circumstances, for example, where the newborn baby is severely disabled and where the parents think that it's better that child should not live, when killing the newborn baby is not at all wrong ... not like killing the chimpanzee would be. -- Peter Singer
We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment. -- Peter Singer
When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain, they behave in ways suggestive of pain, and the change in behaviour may last several hours. -- Peter Singer
I think I get angry when people cause serious suffering or don't alleviate suffering when they could. -- Peter Singer
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
More people with HIV/Aids are getting inexpensive anti-retroviral drugs, and their life expectancy has increased, but universal access is still far off, and the disease is still spreading, if more slowly than before. -- Peter Singer
Of those who die from avoidable, poverty-related causes, nearly 10 million, according to UNICEF, are children under five. They die from diseases such as measles, diarrhoea, and malaria that are easy and inexpensive to treat or prevent. -- Peter Singer
If you agree that bringing someone into existence can be bad for that person and if you also accept the argument that bringing someone into existence can't be good for that person, then this leads to a strange conclusion: being born could harm you but it couldn't help you. -- Peter Singer
Ethics is inescapable. -- Peter Singer
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
To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected. -- Peter Singer
Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life. -- Peter Singer
In the Talmud (a record of discussions of Jewish law and ethics by ancient rabbis) it is said that charity is equal in importance to all the other commandments combined, and that Jews should give at least 10 percent of their income as tzedakah. -- Peter Singer
Sci-fi is often a metaphor. I think it's more the themes and questions that science fiction raises rather than the exact predictions that should guide us. -- Peter Singer
Why should people be dying from an invariably fatal disease while a potential cure is tested on animals who do not normally develop AIDS anyway? The -- Peter Singer
The newspapers do little better. Their coverage of nonhuman animals is dominated by "human interest" events like the birth of a baby gorilla at the zoo, or by threats to endangered species; but developments in farming techniques that deprive millions of animals of freedom of movement go unreported. -- Peter Singer
There is no humane slaughter requirement for wild fish caught and killed at sea, nor, in most places, for farmed fish. -- Peter Singer
In appropriate circumstances we are justified in using humans to achieve goals (or the goal of assisting animals). -- Peter Singer
If extreme poverty is allowed to increase, it will give rise to new problems, including new diseases that will spread from countries that cannot provide adequate healthcare to those that can. Poverty will lead to more migrants seeking to move, whether legally or not, to rich nations. -- Peter Singer
Robots already perform many functions, from making cars to defusing bombs - or, more menacingly, firing missiles. Children and adults play with toy robots, while vacuum-cleaning robots are sucking up dirt in a growing number of homes and - as evidenced by YouTube videos - entertaining cats. -- Peter Singer
If it is so easy to help people in real need through no fault of their own, and yet we fail to do so, aren't we doing something wrong? At a minimum, I hope this book will persuade you that there is something deeply askew with our widely accepted views about what it is to live a good life. -- Peter Singer
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
So it is worse to slap a baby than a horse, if both slaps are administered with equal force. -- Peter Singer
When diamonds' role in fuelling violent conflict in Africa gained worldwide attention, the diamond industry established the Kimberley process in order to keep "blood diamonds" out of international trade. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
There are a lot of weapons that we've developed which we've pulled back from - biological weapons, chemical weapons, etc. This may be the case with armed autonomous robotics, where we ultimately pull back from them. -- Peter Singer
We think of lions and wolves as savage because they kill; but they must kill, or starve. Humans kill other animals for sport, to satisfy their curiosity, to beautify their bodies, and to please their palates. -- Peter Singer
The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go. -- Peter Singer
Almost any established decision procedure is better than a resort to force; for when force is used, people get hurt and the desire for retaliation is likely to lead to more violence. Moreover, most decision procedures produce results at least as beneficial and just as a resort to force. -- Peter Singer
My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues. -- Peter Singer
Some discoveries would probably have been delayed, or perhaps not made at all; but many false leads would also not have been pursued, and it is possible that medicine would have developed in a very different and more efficacious direction, emphasizing healthy living rather than cure. In -- Peter Singer
I don't think there's much point in bemoaning the state of the world unless there's some way you can think of to improve it. Otherwise, don't bother writing a book; go and find a tropical island and lie in the sun. -- Peter Singer
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? -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race. -- Peter Singer
But I think the majority of cows, and even more so chickens and pigs, are leading pretty miserable lives. -- Peter Singer
It takes twenty-one pounds of protein fed to a calf to produce a single pound of animal protein for humans. We get back less than 5 percent of what we put in. -- Peter Singer
I have never really been fond of animals. I certainly wasn't an 'animal lover' when I became involved in the movement. I just came to be persuaded that animals should be treated as independent sentient beings, not as means to human ends. -- Peter Singer
For example, one way of giving yourself a strong incentive to reach your goal is to commit to pay money to someone if you fail. Better yet, you can specify that you will have to pay a certain sum to a cause that you detest. -- Peter Singer
Grain that is used to feed animals that end up on our tables as turkeys and hams could have gone to feed starving people. -- Peter Singer
It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality. -- Peter Singer
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
It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world; and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States. -- Peter Singer
There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head. -- Peter Singer
In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. -- Peter Singer
We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals. -- Peter Singer
Bush is morally a universalist. For instance, he says the freedom is good, the same thing is good, all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist. -- Peter Singer
If somebody has an extreme amount of wealth and is not using it for some good purpose, only for their own enjoyment or satisfaction, then clearly there's a moral failing in the world in which we live. -- Peter Singer
What is there about the notion of a person, at law, that makes every living member of the species Homo sapiens a person, irrespective of their mental capacities, but excludes every nonhuman animal - again, irrespective of their mental capacities? -- Peter Singer
I do not believe that it could never be justifiable to experiment on a brain-damaged human. -- Peter Singer
The world would be a much simpler place if one could bring about social change merely by making a logically consistent moral argument. -- Peter Singer
We have examined a number of ethical issues. We have seen that many accepted practices are open to serious objections. What ought we to do about it? This, too, is an ethical issue. -- Peter Singer
I just don't think that the differences you make by donating to a museum or an art gallery really compare to the differences you make by donating to the charities that fight global poverty. -- Peter Singer
Living a minimally acceptable ethical life involves using a substantial part of our spare resources to make the world a better place. Living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good we can. -- Peter Singer
If we avoid junk foods that are high in sugar or fats and nothing else, about the only way we can fail to get enough protein is if we are on a diet that is insufficient in calories.36 Protein -- Peter Singer
Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all. -- Peter Singer
If we use goods made from raw materials that are obtained from a poor country without the proceeds being used to benefit the people of that country, we become complicit in a particularly iniquitous form of grand larceny. -- Peter Singer
That's a central part of philosophy, of ethics. What do I owe to strangers? What do I owe to my family? What is it to live a good life? Those are questions which we face as individuals. -- Peter Singer
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
If penicillin had been judged by its toxicity to guinea pigs, it might never have been used by man. -- Peter Singer
The unchallenged assumption is that humans may use animals for their own purposes, and they may raise and kill them to satisfy their preference for a diet containing animal flesh. -- Peter Singer
The future of the world depends on how well we meet it. -- Peter Singer
Reason is inherently expansionist. It seeks universal application. -- Peter Singer
The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world. -- Peter Singer
Well the real concept of basic needs if you cut it right down are simply the physical needs that are unavoidable for all of us. So to have enough calories to keep our bodies going. Have shelter from extreme elements. To have water that is safe to drink, So I think that's the core of it. -- Peter Singer
Christian magazine Sojourners, likes to point out that the Bible contains more than three thousand references to alleviating poverty - enough reason, he thinks, for making this a central moral issue for Christians. -- Peter Singer
If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate. -- Peter Singer
Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. -- Peter Singer
The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true. -- Peter Singer
There is no doubt that there is a huge difference between human and nonhuman animals. But what we are overlooking is the fact that nonhuman animals are conscious beings, that they can suffer. -- Peter Singer
We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would probably reverse our order of preference. Are we turning persons into bacon? -- Peter Singer
In the real world, 90% of the money spent on medical research is focused on conditions that are responsible for just 10% of the deaths and disability caused by diseases globally. -- Peter Singer
Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species. -- Peter Singer
To make sustainable progress in reducing extreme poverty will require improvements in both the quantity and quality of aid. -- Peter Singer
Somebody who eats twice as much factory-farmed products as he or she needs to is clearly doing twice as much damage to the planet. From a utilitarian point of view, that's twice as bad. -- Peter Singer
My own view is that being a vegetarian or vegan is not an end in itself, but a means towards reducing both human and animal suffering and leaving a habitable planet to future generations. -- Peter Singer
If you are paying for something to drink when safe drinking water comes out of the tap, you have money to spend on things you don't really need. -- Peter Singer
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
If you earn a lot of money, you can give away a lot of money. -- Peter Singer
I don't think there's anything in the compromise that means that there's a clash of ethics. -- Peter Singer
If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own? -- Peter Singer
If doing the most you can for others means that you are also flourishing, then that is the best possible outcome for everyone. -- Peter Singer
Knowing that we can control our own behaviour makes it more likely that we will. -- Peter Singer
We should give the same respect to the lives of animals as we do to the lives of humans. -- Peter Singer
Target groups you care about that other people mostly don't, and take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using. -- Peter Singer
As this chapter has shown, we are in the midst of an emergency in which appalling suffering is being inflicted on millions of animals for purposes that on any impartial view are obviously inadequate to justify the suffering. -- Peter Singer
When you look at food as an ethical issue in the Christian tradition, you don't find very much about it. You don't find, as you do in the Jewish or Islamic or Hindu traditions, a lot of restrictions saying you can eat this but you can't eat that. -- Peter Singer
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
Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views. -- Peter Singer
I am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims. -- Peter Singer
Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that. -- Peter Singer
In an ideal world, the amount of money we spend on medical research to prevent or cure a disease would be proportional to its seriousness and the number of people who suffer from it. -- Peter Singer
When we eat plants, food takes on a different quality. We take from the earth food that is ready for us and does not fight against us as we take it. -- Peter Singer
The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. -- Peter Singer
There is no sense of loss in this transcendence of the quest to satisfy desires that previously seemed so important or of the pleasures that came from their satisfaction, for enlightenment involves detachment from one's desires. -- Peter Singer
What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did. -- Peter Singer
I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise. -- Peter Singer
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
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
The price we are willing to pay for safety cannot be infinite. It is distasteful to put a price on human life, but the more we spend on safety, the less we will have for our other goals. -- Peter Singer
Why ... is the hunter who shoots a deer for venison subject to more criticism than the person who buys a ham at the supermarket? Overall, it is probably the intensively reared pig who has suffered more. -- Peter Singer
Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness. -- Peter Singer
We recognize the chicken as another conscious being. It's different from us, but it has a life, and if something is really important for that chicken, if it would work hard to try to get it, and if we can give it without sacrificing something that's really important to us, then we should. -- Peter Singer
If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness itself still eludes us. -- Peter Singer
... those who have enough to spend on luxuries, yet fail to share even a tiny fraction of their income with the poor, must bear some responsibility for the deaths they could have prevented. -- Peter Singer
Everyday we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements. -- Peter Singer
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals. -- Peter Singer
Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel. -- Peter Singer
There is a view in some philosophical circles that anything that can be understood by people who have not studied philosophy is not profound enough to be worth saying. To the contrary, I suspect that whatever cannot be said clearly is probably not being thought clearly either. -- Peter Singer
I couldn't care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas. -- Peter Singer
Marx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realized. -- Peter Singer
We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them. -- Peter Singer
Putting yourself in the place of others ... is what thinking ethically is all about. -- Peter Singer
All I say about severely disabled babies is that when a life is so miserable it is not worth living, then it is permissible to give it a lethal injection. These are decisions that should be taken by parents - never the state - in consultation with their doctors. -- Peter Singer
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
I honestly don't know, but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, I see a bleak future not only for American society, but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away, and the United States is an obstacle to solving it. -- Peter Singer
Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture. -- Peter Singer
By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
Voluntary euthanasia occurs only when, to the best of medical knowledge, a person is suffering from an incurable and painful or extremely distressing condition. In these circumstances one cannot say that to choose to die quickly is obviously irrational. -- Peter Singer
Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family - that's impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don't empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love. -- Peter Singer
probably the best-known tenet of modern moral philosophy: the doctrine that there is an unbridgeable gulf between facts and values, between descriptions of what is and prescriptions of what ought to be. -- Peter Singer
They tend to be pretty abstract ones then, like doing what will have the best consequences; obviously you wouldn't specify what consequences are best, they may be different in some circumstances, so at a lower, more specific level, you may well get differences. -- Peter Singer
I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real. -- Peter Singer
So I think ethics is the broader thing that's less focused on prohibitions and is more perhaps looking at principles and questions and ideas about how to live your life. -- Peter Singer
I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy. -- Peter Singer
We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex. -- Peter Singer
If our holding certain values had no effect at all on what we chose to do, values would lose all their importance. Now -- Peter Singer
I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. -- Peter Singer
Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing. -- Peter Singer
Even in non-democratic countries, people have a legitimate interest in knowing about actions taken by the government. -- Peter Singer
Whether particular people with the capacity to take an objective point of view actually do take this objective viewpoint into account when they act will depend on the strength of their desire to avoid inconsistency between the way they reason publicly and the way they act. -- Peter Singer
Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion. -- Peter Singer
The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings. -- Peter Singer
Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating. -- Peter Singer
If we reject, as we must, the doctrine that the majority is always right, to submit moral issues to the vote is to gamble that what we believe to be right will come out of the ballot with more votes behind it than what we believe to be wrong; and that is a gamble we will often lose. -- Peter Singer
If we think that democracy is a good thing, then we must believe that the public should know as much as possible about what the government it elects is doing. Snowden has said that he made the disclosures because "the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong. -- Peter Singer
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
For nomadic societies, there was no point in owning anything that one could not carry, but once humans settled down and developed a system of money, that limit to acquisition disappeared. -- Peter Singer
You shouldn't say 'animals' to distinguish between humans and non-humans. We are all animals. -- Peter Singer
Probability is the guide of life, and of death, too. -- Peter Singer
Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute. -- Peter Singer
Worldwide, the poor leave a very small carbon footprint, but they will suffer the most from climate change. -- Peter Singer
Ethics seems a morass which we have to cross, but get hopelessly bogged in when we make the attempt. -- Peter Singer
It means that, in fact, it's - whether fascist is the right word I don't know - more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite. -- Peter Singer
It's because I work in ethics, and, more specifically, applied ethics, that I think it's important that if you have things to say that you think are right and you think could make the world a better place, it's important that many people read about them. -- Peter Singer
What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it. -- Peter Singer
For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form of contact with nonhuman animals is at meal time: we eat them ... The use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment. -- Peter Singer
Those who purchase meat, fur, and leather have no right to be shielded from the sights and sounds of the slaughterhouses from which these products were produced. -- Peter Singer
If we can prevent something bad, without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it. -- Peter Singer
The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage. -- Peter Singer
Google has withdrawn from China, arguing that it is no longer willing to design its search engine to block information that the Chinese government does not wish its citizens to have. In liberal democracies around the world, this decision has generally been greeted with enthusiasm. -- Peter Singer
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
Diamonds have an image of purity and light. They are given as a pledge of love and worn as a symbol of commitment. -- Peter Singer
I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things. -- Peter Singer
Science does not stand still, and neither does philosophy, although the latter has a tendency to walk in circles. -- Peter Singer
Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper. -- Peter Singer
One might also ask why we should develop energy-intensive robots to work in one of the few areas - care for children or elderly people - in which people with little education can find employment. -- Peter Singer
I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou shalt nots - that is, the not harming others - and say we can help others and we should be helping others. -- Peter Singer
Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all. -- Peter Singer
Why [..] should the boundary of sacrosanct life match the boundary of our species? -- Peter Singer
Open government is, within limits, an ideal that we all share. U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed it when he took office in January 2009. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better. -- Peter Singer
Being a bystander to suffering is not an option. -- Peter Singer
Paradoxically, resource-rich developing countries are often worse off than comparable countries that lack those resources. One reason for this is that large resource endowments provide a huge financial incentive for attempts to overthrow the government and seize power. -- Peter Singer
More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government, -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years. -- Peter Singer
What you could say, and what I do argue in the book, is that he doesn't have as much concern for the lives of Iraqis as he does for the lives of Americans, or even frozen American embryos. -- Peter Singer
Egoism ... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste. -- Peter Singer
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals. -- Peter Singer
At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn't mean that you can't think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of places. -- Peter Singer
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. -- Peter Singer
In explaining the importance of understanding our biology, Dawkins writes; Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something which no other species has ever aspired to. -- Peter Singer
Bush doesn't present himself as a realpolitik politician. -- Peter Singer
Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong, and hence whaling is unethical. -- Peter Singer
Becoming a vegan is a sure way of completely avoiding participation in the abuse of farmed animals. Vegans are a living demonstration of the fact that we do not need to exploit animals for food. -- Peter Singer
In thinking about ethics, we should not hesitate to question ethical views that are almost universally accepted if we have reasons for thinking that they may not be as securely grounded as they appear to be. -- Peter Singer
We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves. -- Peter Singer
We do not have to make self-sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests. -- Peter Singer
Since 1988, Iran has had a government-funded, regulated system for purchasing kidneys. -- Peter Singer
Their reliance on biblical quotations does not augur well for their for their openness to moral reasoning ... -- Peter Singer
Most of the robots being developed for home use are functional in design - Gecko's homecare robot looks rather like the Star Wars robot R2-D2. Honda and Sony are designing robots that look more like the same movie's 'android' C-3PO. -- Peter Singer
The new freedom of expression brought by the Internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways, posing questions about how we should respond to people when all that we know about them is what we have learned through a medium that permits all kinds of anonymity and deception. -- Peter Singer
The hope of Internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the Internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information, or restrict Internet access to the ruling elite and turn your back on the 21st century, as North Korea has done. -- Peter Singer
People may hope that the meat they buy came from an animal who died without pain, but they do not really want to know about it. Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy. -- Peter Singer
If you go back in time you'll find tribes that were essentially only concerned with their own tribal members. If you were a member of another tribe, you could be killed with impunity. -- Peter Singer
There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine. -- Peter Singer
I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life. -- Peter Singer
Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives. But against the Japanese charge of cultural bias, Western nations will have little defense until they do much more about the needless animal suffering in their own countries. -- Peter Singer
You might hold an ethical position that it's wrong to lie, but if you have plans for a war in Iraq, and you want to keep them secret for practical reasons - to reduce casualties, perhaps - and someone asks you about those plans, you may need to lie for a 'good' outcome. -- Peter Singer
Moral relativism, a position many find attractive only until they are faced with someone who is doing something really, really wrong. -- Peter Singer
If the foundations of an ideological position are knocked out from under it, new foundations will be found, or else the ideological position will just hang there, defying the logical equivalent of the laws of gravity. -- Peter Singer
As the United States lagged behind the civilized world in outlawing human slavery, so the United States now lags behind in softening the unrestrained brutalities of animal slavery. -- Peter Singer
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
What we must do is bring nonhuman animals within our sphere of moral concern and cease to treat their lives as expendable for whatever trivial purposes we may have. -- Peter Singer
The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval. -- Peter Singer
I think ethics is always there; it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics. -- Peter Singer
We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives. -- Peter Singer
In a democracy, citizens pass judgment on their government, and if they are kept in the dark about what their government is doing, they cannot be in a position to make well-grounded decisions. -- Peter Singer
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
Just as we will spend large sums to preserve cities like Venice, even though future generations conceivably may not be interested in such architectural treasures, so we should preserve wilderness even though it is possible that future generations will care little for it. -- Peter Singer
What she really wants is a place with more tolerance for differences, less emphasis on materialism, where people value creativity and are interested in working on issues relating to peace and justice. -- Peter Singer
Some vegetarians and vegans may object to in vitro meat, because they don't see the need for meat at all. That's fine for them, and of course they are free to remain vegetarians and vegans and choose not to eat in vitro meat. -- Peter Singer
Then I think the sense of it being one community breaks down; but if you know instantly and respond within twenty-four hours, it's a very different sort of situation. -- Peter Singer
So why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required - we could party our way into extinction! -- Peter Singer
Ancient recipients of instant news probably couldn't do very much about it, for instance. Xerxes would still need three months to get his army together, and he might not get home for years. -- Peter Singer
We may feel the pain of falling back from a level of affluence to which we have grown accustomed, but most people in developed countries are still, by historical standards, extraordinarily well off. -- Peter Singer
Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong. -- Peter Singer
Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. -- Peter Singer
Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example. -- Peter Singer
I suppose what's happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture. -- Peter Singer
To say that life is meaningless is to express an attitude, not to state a fact -- Peter Singer
Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans. -- Peter Singer
If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. -- Peter Singer
If people are prepared to eat locally and seasonally, then they probably do pretty well in terms of environmental impact. -- Peter Singer
The problem is not with the athletes, but with us. No matter how blatant the drug use may be, we don't stop watching the Tour de France. Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes. -- Peter Singer
There is no doubt that the world economy is in trouble. But if governments or individuals use this as an excuse to reduce assistance to the world's poorest people, they will only multiply the seriousness of the problem for the world as a whole. -- Peter Singer
In most of the world, it is accepted that if animals are to be killed for food, they should be killed without suffering. -- Peter Singer
If we could see our lives objectively, we could see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone. -- Peter Singer
If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans? -- Peter Singer
According to the Dominant Western tradition, the natural world exists for the benefit of human beings ... -- Peter Singer
The big corporations and those who must compete with them are not concerned with a sense of harmony among plants, animals, and nature. -- Peter Singer
We tend to think that people are more to blame for their acts than for their omissions. -- Peter Singer
Dolphins are social mammals, capable of enjoying their lives. They form close bonds with other members of their group. -- Peter Singer
At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using. -- Peter Singer
All the particular moral judgments we intuitively make are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past. -- Peter Singer
I find it extraordinary that anyone would have an intellectual conversion to Roman Catholicism. -- Peter Singer
Knowledge is generally considered a good thing; so, presumably, knowing more about how the U.S. thinks and operates around the world is also good. -- Peter Singer
Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. -- Peter Singer
Faith cannot tell us who is right and who is wrong, because each will simply assert that his or her faith is the true one. -- Peter Singer
Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market? -- Peter Singer
But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being -- Peter Singer
Animals, or at least those who are conscious and capable of suffering or enjoying their lives, are not things for us to use in whatever way we find convenient. -- Peter Singer
Words do have consequences, and what one generation says but does not really believe, the next generation may believe, and even act upon. -- Peter Singer
It is in the rightness of our cause, and not the fear of our bombs, that our prospects of victory lie. -- Peter Singer