Peter Singer Quotes - Page 8

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• 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

  Real, Cutting, Thinking

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• 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

  Book, Doe, Frozen

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• To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada, while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apertheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.

  Peter Singer

  Mother, Dog, Baby

  "Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals". Book by Peter Singer, 1975.

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• 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

  Pain, Animal, People

  Peter Singer (2015). “Animal Liberation”, p.146, Random House

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• I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes; but when nonvegetarians say that "human problems come first" I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Giving, Support

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• The animal liberation movement is saying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding physical pain as an example, for it is an interest that humans clearly share with other animals - those interests are to be counted equally, with no automatic discount just because one of the beings is not human.

  Peter Singer

  Pain, Animal, Example

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• 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

  Animal, Suffering, Would Be

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• 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

  Pain, Animal, Suffering

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• 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

  Home, Army, Years

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• One thing is certain: you will find plenty of worthwhile things to do. You will not be bored, or lack fulfillment in your life. Most important of all, you will know that you have not lived and died for nothing, because you will have become part of the great tradition of those who have responded to the amount of pain and suffering in the universe by trying to make the world a better place.

  Peter Singer

  Pain, Worthwhile Things, Bored

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

  Peter Singer

  Cheating, Bears, Grudge

  Peter Singer (1982). “The expanding circle: ethics and sociobiology”, Plume

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• 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.

  Peter Singer

  War, Believe, Book

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• 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

  Conventions, Pentagon, Said

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• 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

  Distance, Independent, Sight

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.88, Princeton University Press

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• The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

  Peter Singer

  Principles, Ethics, Social

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.149, Princeton University Press

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• There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

  Peter Singer

  Struggle, Indulge In, Luxury

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.119, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  Taken, Goal, May

  Peter Singer (1982). “The expanding circle: ethics and sociobiology”, Plume

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• Herbert Spencer is little read now. Philosophers do not regard him as a major thinker. Social Darwinism has long been in disrepute.

  Peter Singer

  Long, Littles, Philosopher

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.61, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  Struggle, Survival, Cost

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.5, Princeton University Press

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• Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Social, Humans

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.3, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  Commitment, Self, Leader

  "Putting ethics before profits" by Peter Singer, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2009.

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• It is now generally accepted that the roots of our ethics lie in patterns of behavior that evolved among our pre-human ancestors, the social mammals and that we retain within our biological nature elements of these evolved responses. We have learned considerably more about this responses, and we are beginning to to understand how they interact with our capacity to reason.

  Peter Singer

  Lying, Roots, Mammals

  Peter Singer (2011). “The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress”, p.11, Princeton University Press

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

  Peter Singer

  Ethics, Crosses, Seems

  Peter Singer (1982). “The expanding circle: ethics and sociobiology”, Plume

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• 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

  Philosophy, Views, Triumph

  "'Last Generation': A Response". opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. June 16, 2010.

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• 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

  Respect, Unique, Thinking

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