Singer: Lunatic or Luminary? What is behind America’s most controversial ethicist?
by Maximilian A. Pakaluk, Managing Editor
Before I begin, I would like to warn
you that Peter Singer is not crazy.
He is both logical and articulate.
While his views might at first glance appear
quite radical, if not downright ridiculous,
he believes that his arguments articulate
the logic underlying the ethical assumptions
of most Americans. In other words,
he thinks that, based on your beliefs, you
should agree with him.
According to Peter Singer, “Killing a
disabled infant is not morally equivalent
to killing a person.
Very often it
is not wrong at
all.” In some
cases, he would
argue that it is
ethically required
to do so.
This particular
quote is from his
book Practical
Ethics, and you
need not search
hard in his works
to find out why
Peter Singer is so
controversial.
Among other things, he advocates the infanticide
of disabled infants for up to a few
weeks after birth and considers some disabled
humans to be of less worth than animals.
He also considers the current practice
of eating meat to be comparable to the
Holocaust. But don’t dismiss Singer; all of
his conclusions are predicated on arguments
meticulously reasoned from his first
principles.
Ethical arguments stand upon principles,
which then lead to conclusions.
Peter Singer makes good arguments, if
only one accepts his principles. The real
concern is whether he is correct in arguing
that, based on their ethical beliefs, most
people should agree with his conclusions.
In doing this, it is helpful to examine applications
of these
principles.
The first step toward
agreeing with
Peter Singer is to concede
that human life
does not have an intrinsic
worth — a principle
to which Singer
claims most people
are logically committed.
That is, many
people support abortion
while admitting
that, biologically, the
fetus aborted is undeniably
a life. Even the
President of NARAL:
Pro-Choice America
(National Abortion
Rights Action
League), Kate
Michelman, an ardent
pro-choicer, when she
spoke at Harvard Law
School last year, did
not try to make the argument
that fetuses are either non-human,
or not alive: “We all know that abortion ends
a human life.”
Singer, along with those who oppose
abortion, argues that before considering the
questions of a woman’s control over her
body and the principles of choice, it is first
necessary to determine whether or not a
fetus is in fact a human being. Singer concludes
that if you support abortion, you
must agree that not every human life has
an intrinsic worth, but that there is instead
some other consideration that determines
whether a human life is considered a human
being, and therefore valuable. But,
what is that consideration?
Throughout history, many thinkers
have sought to devise a logical system
granting some human beings worth, while
denying this worth to others.
Kant, Hobbes, Aristotle and a myriad
of other thinkers have addressed the question
of what makes human life worth preserving.
In any philosophy not taking
human life as intrisically full of value,
lines are drawn, making some humans
truly humans and others subhuman. Sometimes,
as in the case of slavery or Nazism,
the principle that allows the distinction can
be seen in retrospect to be absurd. Often,
the conclusion that allows the distinction
can be shown to be inconsistent based on
the principles that determine the worth of
human life (such as in fetal homicide laws
and laws allowing partial birth abortion). I
would posit that the problem with this practice
is not how these distinctions are made
or upon what principles they stand. Rather,
the problem is that these distinctions are
being made in the first place.
Peter Singer, a ruthlessly logical
thinker, rejects the intrinsic value of human
life, and all that is predicated upon it.
He establishes an alternate principle: that
the value of all life is based upon an ability
to suffer, he says, is the correct way to
determine what human life is valuable. This
principle manages to support abortion,
making a pig more valuable than an unborn
baby, or even a severely retarded person,
for that matter.
The fact of the matter is that Singer
has provided a logical explanation of how
we can allow such practices as abortion.
Whether we should accept this explanation
instead of others is debatable — and should
be debated. What is sure is that if our beliefs
and our principles are not consistent,
then we must reexamine both to find which
is in error. People like Peter Singer can show
us our inconsistencies, and even what our
principles commit us to. Perhaps, if we
(rightly, in my view) are repulsed by Peter
Singer and his conclusion, he can help us
to see our lives on higher first principles.
Peter Singer is nether absurd nor illogical.
Rather, if we react properly to him, he shows
us why it is essential that we defend the
belief that all human life has intrinsic worth.
Some people call Peter Singer a monster. If you venture out where the
wild things are, you are bound to
find hideous monsters. If you stay there
long enough, you just might become accustomed
to this. If you stay longer still,
you might become a monster yourself. We
have been here a while now, and we are
certainly not frightened anymore. One can
only wonder whether some day we will be
found frightening.