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cd35cfa 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 apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks. compassion science bullfighting seals canada apartheid south-africa south-korea spain Peter Singer
147cc98 If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans? Peter Singer
d868519 We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet- for the sake of hamburgers vegan vegetarian Peter Singer
1db104c Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life." poor hebrew language justice Peter Singer
111f42c We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. animal-rights vegan animals Peter Singer
71047e5 Were we incapable of empathy - of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own - then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is blind, then reason without emotion is impotent. suffering reason philosophy Peter Singer
709f64f Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet - for the sake of hamburgers sustainability animal-welfare animal-rights Peter Singer
27b012f To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race. racism ethics Peter Singer
a80e851 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
13082e4 As far as food is concerned, the great extravagance is not caviar or truffles, but beef, pork and poultry. Some 38 percent of the world's grain crop is now fed to animals, as well as large quantities of soybeans. There are three times as many domestic animals on this planet as there are human beings. The combined weight of the world's 1.28 billion cattle alone exceeds that of the human population. While we look darkly at the number of babie.. factory-farming Peter Singer
1f745ac Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. philosophy Peter Singer
a622dae 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
7de8cdc Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness. Peter Singer
d2041cc The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. equality Peter Singer
e19531d By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too. Peter Singer
f22a69d Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are "merely aesthetic". That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilisations. It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How shoul.. nature Peter Singer
ca5b98b Helping is not, as conventionally thought, a charitable act that is praiseworthy to do but not wrong to omit. It is something that everyone ought to do. global-warming ethics Peter Singer
9a6fb85 It is easy to take a stand about a remote issue, but speciesists, like racists, reveal their true nature when the issue comes nearer home. 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, or the freedom to lie .. vegan vegetarian Peter Singer
708f173 Personal purity isn't really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse - and persuading others not to support it - is. Peter Singer
c1fe76a As for the cages themselves, an ordinary citizen who kept dogs in similar conditions for their entire lives would risk prosecution for cruelty. A pig producer who keeps an animal of comparable intelligence in this manner, however, is more likely to be rewarded with a tax concession or, in some countries, a direct government subsidy. Peter Singer
59e6be2 It takes twenty-one pounds of protein fed to a calf to produce a single pound of animal protein for humans. We get back less than 5 percent of what we put in. Peter Singer
c811ffa The plucked and dressed bodies of the chickens will then be sold to millions of families who will gnaw on their bones without pausing for an instant to think that they are eating the dead body of a once living creature, or to ask what was done to that creature in order to enable them to buy and eat its body. Peter Singer
cfe1e0a Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper. evolution philosophy ethics Peter Singer
bc28023 If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end. Peter Singer
b5ed79e The unchallenged assumption is that humans may use animals for their own purposes, and they may raise and kill them to satisfy their preference for a diet containing animal flesh. Peter Singer
aac0038 We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would probably reverse our order of preference. Are we turning persons into bacon? vegetarianism personhood ethics Peter Singer
81a689d 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 sit.. Peter Singer
9d0dddb Putting yourself in the place of others...is what thinking ethically is all about. moral-philosophy ethics Peter Singer
bbe1cdb If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness itself still eludes us. happiness fulfillment Peter Singer
7b60235 Why [..] should the boundary of sacrosanct life match the boundary of our species? applied-ethics speciesism euthanasia Peter Singer
bf3295c it is in the rightness of our cause, and not the fear of our bombs, that our prospects of victory lie. Peter Singer
8d93509 Until we boycott meat, and all other products of animal factories, we are, each one of us, contributing to the continued existence, prosperity, and growth of factory farming and all the other cruel practices used in rearing animals for food. Peter Singer
d6afc38 It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality. Peter Singer
791dea5 Words do have consequences, and what one generation says but does not really believe, the next generation may believe, and even act upon. Peter Singer
bc7d986 Living a minimally acceptable ethical life involves using a substantial part of our spare resources to make the world a better place. Living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good we can. Peter Singer
cae8193 Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced with an individual rather than with a mass of people, or with people close to us rather than with those far away, but it does not justify those feelings. evolution morality evolutionary-psychology Peter Singer
b1ec470 But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being Peter Singer
48d690e We think of lions and wolves as savage because they kill; but they must kill, or starve. Humans kill other animals for sport, to satisfy their curiosity, to beautify their bodies, and to please their palates. Peter Singer
3cca65e It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to distance ourselves from our own beliefs so that we can dispassionately search for prejudices among them. self-awareness Peter Singer
0649573 Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years. Peter Singer
e8d61e5 say that people are "humane" is to say that they are kind; to say that they are "beastly," "brutal," or simply that they behave "like animals" is to suggest that they are cruel and nasty. We rarely stop to consider that the animal who kills with the least reason to do so is the human animal. We think of lions and wolves as savage because they kill; but they must kill, or starve. Humans kill other animals for sport, to satisfy their curiosit.. Peter Singer
8b8b1f8 If our best-educated citizens have no idea how to answer these basic questions, we will struggle to build a democracy that can solve the problems we face, whether they are what to do about climate change, the world's poor, the problems of Australia's Indigenous people, or the prospect of a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring. An education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato's time. education humanities Peter singer
f5f71e7 What we must do is bring nonhuman animals within our sphere of moral concern and cease to treat their lives as expendable for whatever trivial purposes we may have. Peter Singer
c198a91 Effective altruists do things like the following: *Living modestly and donating a large part of their income--often much more than the traditional tenth, or tithe--to the most effective charities; *Researching and discussing with others which charities are the most effective or drawing on research done by other independent evaluators; *Choosing the career in which they can earn most, not in order to be able to live affluently but so that th.. Peter Singer
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