Peter Singer Quotes

The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world.

We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, "Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box." This is the story of humans on every problem.

Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper.

It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place where animals wander around freely in idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image.

If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.

Will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible?

Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.

Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste.

When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.

...the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the pain behavior of humans. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects of survival...it is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.

So, basically, my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals, and within reason, I will do what I can to avoid it, but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I'm polluted if somehow some bit of milk or cheese or something passes my lips.

There has been opposition to experimenting on animals for a long time. This opposition has made little headway because experimenters, backed by commercial firms that profit by supplying laboratory animals and equipment, have been able to convince legislators and the public that opposition comes from uninformed fanatics who consider the interests of animals more important than the interests of human beings.

The traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological and demographic developments.

I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things.

No consideration at all is given to the interests of the "pests" - the very word "pest" seems to exclude any concern for the animals themselves. But the classification "pest" is our own, and a rabbit that is a pest is as capable of suffering, and as deserving of consideration, as a white rabbit who is a beloved companion animal.

There are a lot of weapons that we've developed which we've pulled back from - biological weapons, chemical weapons, etc. This may be the case with armed autonomous robotics, where we ultimately pull back from them.

To turn the other cheek is to teach would-be cheats that cheating pays.

Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion.

If animals are no longer quite outside the moral sphere, they are still in a special section near the outer rim. Their interests are allowed to count only when they do not clash with human interests. If there is a clash - even a clash between a lifetime of suffering for a nonhuman animal and the gastronomic preference of a human being - the interests of the nonhuman are disregarded. The moral attitudes of the past are too deeply embedded in our thought and our practices to be upset by a mere change in our knowledge of ourselves and of other animals.

We may feel the pain of falling back from a level of affluence to which we have grown accustomed, but most people in developed countries are still, by historical standards, extraordinarily well off.

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 views, so that we can dispassionately search for prejudices among the beliefs and values we hold

If you earn a lot of money, you can give away a lot of money.

When you look at food as an ethical issue in the Christian tradition, you don't find very much about it. You don't find, as you do in the Jewish or Islamic or Hindu traditions, a lot of restrictions saying you can eat this but you can't eat that. But what you do find is the idea that gluttony is a sin and that it's something that we ought to be ashamed of.

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.

I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature.

Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep.

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.

But I think the majority of cows, and even more so chickens and pigs, are leading pretty miserable lives.

Why...is the hunter who shoots a deer for venison subject to more criticism than the person who buys a ham at the supermarket? Overall, it is probably the intensively reared pig who has suffered more.

Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all.

Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse; this is not what Americans do, these are not our values.

Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species.

I know of a number of people who are successfully earning to give. That isn't for everyone but for those with the ability to earn a lot of money and the character to resist the temptation to spend it on themselves, it can be a great way to do good.

All the particular moral judgments we intuitively make are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past.

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.

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.

There is no humane slaughter requirement for wild fish caught and killed at sea, nor, in most places, for farmed fish.

Ancient recipients of instant news probably couldn't do very much about it, for instance. Xerxes would still need three months to get his army together, and he might not get home for years.

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.

We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.

We ought to consider the interests of animals because they have interests and it is unjustifiable to exclude them from the sphere of moral concern; to make this consideration depend on beneficial consequences for human beings is to accept the implication that the interests of animals do not warrant consideration for their own sakes.

Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.

When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals.

For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form of contact with nonhuman animals is at meal time: we eat them.... The use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment.

There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.

Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning.

Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.