I'd much rather be part of a society which greatly honors and respects people who are altruists and who are effective in their altruism, than one that either admires people because they're, you know, celebrity movie stars or because they're super wealthy just no matter what they do with their wealth because I think we ought to try to encourage more people to act in that way.
Peter SingerSomebody who eats twice as much factory-farmed products as he or she needs to is clearly doing twice as much damage to the planet. From a utilitarian point of view, that's twice as bad.
Peter SingerIt would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road...A stone has no interests because it cannot suffer. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests - at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road because it will suffer if it is.
Peter SingerIf we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library.
Peter SingerPersonal purity isnโt really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse โ and persuading others not to support it โ is.
Peter Singer