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a7457ec
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Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives. But against the Japanese charge of cultural bias, Western nations will have little defense until they do much more about the needless animal suffering in their own countries.
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Peter Singer |
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99c99bf
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hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue,
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Peter Singer |
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9b11e00
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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.
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utilitarianism
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Peter Singer |
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5a48681
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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.
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violence
ethics
decisions
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Peter Singer |
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15a0f0c
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The point of this, as Marx explains, is to show that according to classical economics the worker becomes a commodity, the production of which is subject to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. If the supply of workers exceeds the demand for labour, wages fall and some workers starve. Wages therefore tend to the lowest possible level compatible with keeping an adequate supply of workers alive.
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Peter Singer |
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1c9fa21
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A society that decides its controversial issues by ballots does better than one that uses bullets - which, after all, is no more likely to lead to the right conclusion than voting.
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violence
ethics
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Peter Singer |
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142dd53
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In a democracy, we should be reluctant to take any action that amounts to an attempt to coerce the majority, for such attempts imply the rejection of majority rule, to which there is no acceptable alternative. There may, of course, be cases where the majority decision is so appalling that coercion is justified, whatever the risk. The obligation to obey a genuine majority decision is not absolute. We show our respect for the principle, not b..
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majority
law
ethics
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Peter Singer |
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d1cbb7c
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If we think that democracy is a good thing, then we must believe that the public should know as much as possible about what the government it elects is doing. Snowden has said that he made the disclosures because "the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong."
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Peter Singer |
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f65b10a
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It is interesting, in this context, to think again of our earlier argument that membership of the species Homo sapiens does not entitle a being to better treatment than a being at a similar mental level who is a member of a different species. We could also have said - except that it seemed too obvious to need saying - that membership of the species Homo sapiens is not a reason for giving a being worse treatment than a member of a different ..
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euthanasia
utilitarianism
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Peter Singer |
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4427f46
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Now that we have understood the nature of speciesism and seen the consequences it has for nonhuman animals it is time to ask: What can we do about it? There are many things that we can and should do about speciesism. We should, for instance, write to our political representatives about the issues discussed in this book; we should make our friends aware of these issues; we should educate our children to be concerned about the welfare of all ..
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Peter Singer |
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c55d34f
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No doubt we instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us. Few could stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore the avoidable deaths of children in Africa or India. The question, however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations.
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poverty
utilitarianism
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Peter Singer |
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75d1307
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In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, for example, a group of fishing families had lived since 1914 on islands in the Sirinhaem River estuary. In 1998 the Usina Trapiche sugar refinery petitioned the state to take over the land. The islanders say that the refinery then followed up its petition by destroying their homes and small farms, threatening further violence to those who did not leave. When the fishing families rebuilt th..
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Peter Singer |
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4181e4a
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Just as we will spend large sums to preserve cities like Venice, even though future generations conceivably may not be interested in such architectural treasures, so we should preserve wilderness even though it is possible that future generations will care little for it.
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environmentalism
moral-philosophy
ethics
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Peter Singer |
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66265d0
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Some of the conclusions that I draw are very different from the ethical views most people hold today. That, however, is not a ground for dismissing them. If every proposal for reform in ethics that differed from accepted moral views had been rejected for that reason alone, we would still be torturing heretics, enslaving members of conquered races, and treating women as the property of their husbands.
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progress
moral-philosophy
reform
ethics
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Peter Singer |
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0af165f
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Reflecting this difference is the Indian state of Kerala. Although it is one of the poorer parts of the country, it has higher literacy and greater gender equality than much of the rest of India. Without resorting to a coercive approach such as a "one-child policy" Kerala has achieved a rate of population growth lower than China's and also lower than that in some developed countries, including"
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Peter Singer |
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afc6ece
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One common strategy on which we should all be able to agree is to take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today's factory ..
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Peter Singer |
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022bc4c
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Their reliance on biblical quotations does not augur well for their for their openness to moral reasoning....
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religion
moral-philosophy
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Peter Singer |
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b6af042
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I guess basically one wants to feel that one's life has amounted to more than just consuming products and generating garbage. I think that one likes to look back and say that one's done the best one can to make this a better place for others. You can look at it from this point of view: What greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering?
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Peter Singer |
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707daa6
|
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.
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Peter Singer |
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8cb5179
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When we use animals to convert crops into meat, eggs, or milk, the animals use most of the food value to keep warm and develop bones and other parts we can't eat. Most of the food value of the crops we have grown is wasted--in the case of cattle, we get back only 1 pound of beef for every 13 pounds of grain we feed them. With pigs the ratio is 6 pounds of grain to 1 pound of pork. And even these figures underestimate the waste, because meat..
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Peter Singer |
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986f7a1
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she was asked why she was sending convoys to distant countries when there were Poles so poor that they had to rummage through the garbage to find something to eat. Ochojska's reply was to reject the idea that caring for people far away is in conflict with caring for people nearby; she believes that making people aware of the needs of others anywhere in the world will make them more aware of the needs of local people as well.
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Peter Singer |
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4bae117
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Dharma Master Cheng Yen is a Buddhist nun living in Hualien County, a mountainous region on the east coast of Taiwan. Because the mountains formed barriers to travel, the area has a high proportion of indigenous people, and in the 1960s many people in the area, especially indigenous people, were living in poverty. Although Buddhism is sometimes regarded as promoting a retreat from the world to focus on the inner life, Cheng Yen took the opp..
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Peter Singer |
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f5085e8
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I couldn't care less about politics, the culture wars. My only interest is to get people to care about Darfurs and Rwandas.
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Peter Singer |
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fe4fa17
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From the perspective of an effective altruist, Tzu Chi does some surprising things. After the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, Tzu Chi raised funds to distribute hot meals to survivors, and in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which battered New York and New Jersey in 2012, Tzu Chi distributed $10 million dollars worth of Visa debit cards, with $600 on each card, to victims of the storm.7 When I visited the Tzu Chi hospital in Hual..
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Peter Singer |
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79cfca9
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What is it to make a moral judgement, or to argue about an ethical issue, or to live according to ethical standards? How do moral judgements differ from other practical judgements? Why do we regard a woman's decision to have an abortion as raising an ethical issue, but not her decision to change her job? What is the difference between a person who lives by ethical standards and one who doesn't?
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Peter Singer |
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d98608f
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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.
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Peter Singer |
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46034d8
|
They are not describing the number of animals killed for food. They are talking about animals who don't even get the "benefit" of supposedly humane slaughter laws because they are so badly treated that they die before they ever get to slaughter. The numbers include caged hens pecked to death because they are unable to get away from their stressed, aggressive fellow prisoners; broiler chickens bred to grow so fast that their immature legs co..
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Peter Singer |
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3cf2d46
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Ben West, one of the effective altruists mentioned in chapter 4, has shown that even if your goal were solely to slow down climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, you could do that more effectively by donating to organizations that are encouraging people to go vegetarian or vegan than by donating to leading carbon-offsetting organizations.
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Peter Singer |
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cadbdb7
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Sidgwick thinks these judgments give rise to a "dictate of reason," by which he means that if we were purely rational beings, it would motivate us to action. Human beings are not purely rational beings, so although accepting the dictate of reason will give us a motive to act in the way the maxim of benevolence prescribes, we are likely to have other motives, some of which will support it and some that may conflict with it. Among the support..
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Peter Singer |
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5f844e9
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If we can prevent something bad, without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.
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Peter Singer |
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d7bd0c3
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La creencia de que existen los animales porque Dios los creo - y que los creo para que podamos responder mejor a nuestras necesidades - es contraria a nuestra comprension cientifica de la evolucion y, por supuesto, a los registros fosiles, que demuestran la existencia de primates no-humanos y otros animales millones de anos antes de que hubiera seres humanos en absoluto>>.
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Peter Singer |
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72d9743
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As this chapter has shown, we are in the midst of an emergency in which appalling suffering is being inflicted on millions of animals for purposes that on any impartial view are obviously inadequate to justify the suffering.
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Peter Singer |
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8221831
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Or consider how we citizens of rich countries obtain our oil and minerals. Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of tiny Equatorial Guinea, sells most of his country's oil to American corporations, among them Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his official salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler of a country of 550,000 people is richer than Queen Elizabeth II. He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in Malibu, as well as other houses ..
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Peter Singer |
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ce5e52f
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The United States government continues to pour billions of dollars into research on cancer, while it also subsidizes the tobacco industry. Much of the research money goes toward animal experiments, many of them only remotely connected with fighting cancer--experimenters have been known to relabel their work "cancer research" when they found they could get more money for it that way than under some other label."
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Peter Singer |
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581e179
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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
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Peter Singer |
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b1b482e
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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
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Peter Singer |
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ef68cc1
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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.
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Peter Singer |
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208c038
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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.
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Peter Singer |
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4c13d4d
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Perhaps it is not love that motivates effective altruists but empathy, the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identify with their feelings or emotions. Writers like de Waal and Jeremy Rifkin have seized on the idea of empathy as, to use de Waal's words, "the grand theme of our time."4 Rifkin believes that civilization has spread the reach of empathy beyond the family and the community so that it covers all of humankind."
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Peter Singer |
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6567364
|
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.
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Peter Singer |
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2e4dc4a
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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.
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Peter Singer |
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04c5bde
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So it is worse to slap a baby than a horse, if both slaps are administered with equal force.
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Peter Singer |
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222ffc3
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Is the fact that other people are not doing their fair share a sufficient reason for allowing a child to die when you could easily rescue that child? I think the answer is clear: No. The others have, by refusing to help with the rescue, made themselves irrelevant. They might as well be so many rocks. According to the fair-share view, in fact, it would be better for the children if they were rocks, because then you would be obliged to wade b..
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Peter Singer |
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a1b7708
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I argued against the view that the only obligation we have to strangers is to avoid harming them; but even if we were to take that view, the facts of climate change would demonstrate clearly that we are harming hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of the world's poor.
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global-warming
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Peter Singer |