Even people who are aware that the traditional family farm has been taken over by big business interests, and that some questionable experiments go on in laboratories, cling to a vague belief that conditions cannot be too bad, or else the government or the animal welfare societies would have done something about it.
Peter SingerEvolution 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.
Peter Singer...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have a rich social and emotional life. The great apes are therefore an ideal case for showing the arbitrariness of the species boundary. If we think that all human beings, irrespective of age or mental capacity, have some basic rights, how can we deny that the great apes, who surpass some humans in their capacities, also have these rights?
Peter SingerPersonal purity isnโt really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse โ and persuading others not to support it โ is.
Peter SingerI can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.
Peter SingerMarx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realized.
Peter SingerEach of us spends money on things that we do not really need. You could take the money you're spending on those unnecessary things and give it to this organization the Against Malaria Foundation which would take the money you had given and use it to buy nets to protect children. And we know reliably that if we provide nets, they're used, and they reduce the number of children dying from malaria. Fortunately more and more people are understanding this idea, and the result is a growing movement effective altruism.
Peter Singer