Peter Singer Quotes

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

Strong, Human, May

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

Politics, Freedom, Through

But I think the majority of cows, and even more so chickens and pigs, are leading pretty miserable lives.
Peter Singer

Pretty, Lives, Miserable

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.
Peter Singer

Hard, Cannot, Suffering

The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.
Peter Singer

Life, Human, Sacred

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

Important, Human, Cannot

The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Peter Singer

God, Human, Before

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, Together, Three

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

Mean, Different, Expect

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

Life, Good, Children

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

Saying, Ignore, Same

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

Book, Writing, Lie

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

Rather, Fact, Ethics

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

Money, Democracy, Small

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

Best, Yourself, Important

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

Business, Before, Making

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

Life, Family, Good

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

Money, Live, Rich

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

Faith, Believing, Seems

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

Change, Experience, Pain

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

Find, Suffering, Whatever

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

Away, Realize, Interest

Bush doesn't present himself as a realpolitik politician.
Peter Singer

Himself, Present, Politician

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

Good, Freedom, Same

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

Freedom, Hate, Evil

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Biography

Nationality: Australian

Type: Philosopher

Born: July 6, 1946

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