Quotes from Peter Singer

instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact.

In the former, Kant pictured man as a being capable of following a rational moral law, but also liable to be swayed from it by the non-rational desires which have their origin in our physical nature. To act morally is thus always a struggle. Victory is to be won by the suppression of all desires except the feeling of reverence for the moral law, which leads us to do our duty for its own sake.

In other words, the interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken into account and given the same weight as the like interests of any other being.

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.

Their reliance on biblical quotations does not augur well for their for their openness to moral reasoning....

Our own happiness, therefore, is a by-product of aiming at something else and is not to be obtained by setting our sights on happiness alone.

It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern for others and our readiness to consider their interests ought not to depend on what they are like or on what abilities they may possess.

The central argument against abortion, put as a formal argument, would go something like this: First premise: It is wrong to kill an innocent human being. Second premise: A human fetus is an innocent human being. Conclusion: Therefore, it is wrong to kill a human fetus. The usual liberal response is to deny the second premise of this argument.

Is it true that there is no morally significant dividing line between fertilized egg and child? Those commonly suggested are: birth, viability, quickening and the onset of consciousness.

the deaths of children in poor countries from diarrhea, measles, and malaria have become part of the background of the world we live in, and if we know about it at all, we are likely to believe that it is a problem that will always be with us. But that isn't so. In the last two years, we have saved a million children. In the coming years, if we all give substantially more, we can save the entire 8.8 million.

Population growth is not a reason against giving aid but a reason for reconsidering the kind of aid to give.

There is no rule that says that a potential X has the same value as an X or has all the rights of an X. There are many examples that show just the contrary. To pull out a sprouting acorn is not the same as cutting down a venerable oak. To drop a fertile egg into a pot of boiling water is very different from doing the same to a live chicken. Prince Charles is (at the time of writing) a potential King of England, but he does not now have the rights of a king.

discriminate against beings solely on account of their species is a form of prejudice, immoral and indefensible in the same way that discrimination on the basis of race is immoral and indefensible.

Target groups you care about that other people mostly don't, and take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using.

Precisely what our concern or consideration requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of those affected by what we do: concern for the well-being of children growing up in America would require that we teach them to read; concern for the well-being of pigs may require no more than that we leave them with other pigs in a place where there is adequate food and room to run freely.

In the Netherlands, a nationwide government-commissioned study found that 'many patients want an assurance that their doctor will assist them to die should suffering become unbearable'. Often, having received this assurance, no request for euthanasia eventuated. The availability of euthanasia brought comfort without euthanasia having to be provided.

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.

But the basic element—the taking into account of the interests of the being, whatever those interests may be—must, according to the principle of equality, be extended to all beings, black or white, masculine or feminine, human or nonhuman.

The world does produce enough to feed its inhabitants Ã¢â'¬â€œ in fact we waste vast quantities of grain and soybeans by feeding them to animals, getting back from the animals only a small fraction of the nutritional value of the plant foods we put into them.

Alexander singles out the Nazis' so-called euthanasia program as the root of all the horrendous crimes the Nazis later committed, because that program implied 'that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived'.

but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights.

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.

La creencia de que existen los animales porque Dios los creó - y que los creó para que podamos responder mejor a nuestras necesidades - es contraria a nuestra comprensión científica de la evolución y, por supuesto, a los registros fósiles, que demuestran la existencia de primates no-humanos y otros animales millones de años antes de que hubiera seres humanos en absoluto».

If our holding certain values had no effect at all on what we chose to do, values would lose all their importance. Now