Wesley J. Smith:
Peter Singer is something of a house ethicist for the New York Times and especially beloved of the weak liberal thinker, Nicolas Kristof.
While I think he should be treated the same as if he were a racist for his anti-human equality views, the media here mostly ooh and aah.
That is why I was pleased to see Singer pushed in an interview by a Swiss newspaper to claim that the lives of 200 (or some other number of) pigs should be saved from a fire over that of a single human baby. From the interview (Google translation):
Q: A newborn do not deem worthy of protection than an embryo. On the other hand you do not speak people per se a higher status than to animals.
Singer: Not belonging to the human species makes it morally wrong to kill a living being. Why should all members of the species Homo sapiens have a right to life and other species not? This idea arises only our religious heritage. We have been taught for centuries that man was created in the image of God that God has given us dominion over the animals and that we have immortal souls.
Why? Because if we are not all deemed morally equal–regardless of our capacities, age, or capabilities–there is no way to philosophically sustain universal human rights. Indeed, if our moral value depends on the outcome of our utilitarian-measured characteristics moment, to moment, to moment, no one is safe.
Then, Singer reveals his inner anti-humanism:
Singer is an uninsightful idiot who denigrates the concept of the Soul as something we’ve just been ‘taught’. He is clueless. Any opinions from his mouth become suspect, but not, Apparently, for the enlightened bunch at the NYT.
The lives of animals should never matter more or less than humans.
Singer is not anti-humanism He is anti speciesism.
From George Orwell’s Animal Farm:
…Obama…
…Obama…
…wealth and power…
…wealth and power…
(Just as they claim global warming and climate change has, And,)
…wealth and power…
…of the wealth and power…
So much enlightenment in Animal Farm towards the methods of totalitarianism, and the Obama White House is paralleled in Orwell’s farmhouse of pigs, that it is both uncanny and spooky.
Calling Peter Singer an “ethicist” is the epitome of the non-sequitor. Anyone who says that infants should be allowed to be legally terminated up to 30 days of life at the parents’ discretion – justifying such a monstrous position with the claim that the infant at 30 days is not “self-aware” and therefore should not be entitled to human rights – is in no way capable of comprehending real ethics. He is nothing but an excuse factory for those who wish to paper-over their immorality with a deceptive veneer of false justification.
Once mankind is no more valuable than a pig, cow or snail darter smelt, then there is no limit to the inhumanity the collective can impose upon individuals.
@rich wheeler:
Would you say that again? Do you really believe that? No More OR No Less? Really?
@Pete:
Did you read that Rich?
@Redteam:Pete You read me correctly–RT take note.
Semper Fi
@rich wheeler:
Yes, Pete did, but you did not. His statement damn sure doesn’t agree with your statement.
Say it in plain English Rich. If a human baby and a dog were both drowning, and you could only save one, you think it would be an equal choice to save the dog? Give me a yes or a no on that.
@Redteam: An equal choice might save neither or both–I’ll go for both.
@Pete: Pete The greatness of a country can be judged by the way it ttreats it’s animals. Gandhi
A country that can slaughter animals can move easily to the slaughter of humans.
@rich wheeler: So you’ve become a complete idiot.
@rich wheeler:
Not if it’s idiots doing the judging. I hope God didn’t punish any baby by making you it’s father.
@Redteam: tsk tsk You’re reactionary anger is showing rt Better keep your weapons under lock. Don’t wanna read about you in the papers.