Quotes from 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

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.

Science does not stand still, and neither does philosophy, although the latter has a tendency to walk in circles.

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

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.

As Brigid Brophy has put it, it remains true that it is cruel to break people's legs, even if the statement is made by someone in the habit of breaking people's arms.

A week-old baby is not a rational and self-aware being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-awareness, capacity to feel and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week or a month old. If, for the reasons I have given, the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dairy farmers routinely remove calves from their mothers at an early age so that the milk will be available for humans; anyone who has lived on a dairy farm will know that, for days after the calves have gone, their mothers keep calling for them.

Asking people to give more than almost anyone else gives risks turning them off. It might cause some to question the point of striving to live an ethical life at all. Daunted by what it takes to do the right thing, they may ask themselves why they are bothering to try. To avoid that danger, we should advocate a level of giving that will lead to the greatest possible positive response.

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 travelled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.

They then blocked the passage between the compartments with a piece of plate glass and tested the dog again. The dog "jumped forward and smashed his head against the glass." The dogs began by showing symptoms such as "defecation, urination, yelping and shrieking, trembling, attacking the apparatus, and so on; but after ten or twelve days of trials dogs who were prevented from escaping shock ceased to resist.

Communism… is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man; it is the true resolution of the conflict between existence and essence, objectification and self-affirmation, freedom and necessity, individual and species. It is the riddle of history solved and knows itself as this solution.

A society that decides its controversial issues by ballots does better than one that uses bullets Ã¢â'¬â€œ which, after all, is no more likely to lead to the right conclusion than voting.

Unfortunately, brilliance in science is no guarantee of a sound grasp of ethics.

The real ethical issue about factory farming's treatment of animals isn't whether the producers are good or bad guys, but that the system seems to recognize animal suffering only when it interferes with profitability.

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.

Just as a rat can be conditioned to press a lever in return for a reward of food, so a human being can be conditioned by professional rewards to ignore the ethical issues raised by animal experiments.

El principio de la igualdad de los seres humanos no es una descripción de una supuesta igualdad real entre ellos: es una norma relativa a cómo deberíamos tratar a los seres humanos

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.

First premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it. Second premise: Extreme poverty is bad. Third premise: There is some extreme poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. Conclusion: We ought to prevent some extreme poverty.