Peter Singer Quotes About Understanding
-
Evolution 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.
→ -
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
→ -
With the eventual acceptance of Darwin's theory we reach a modern understanding of nature, one which has since then changed in detail rather than in fundamentals. Only those who prefer religious faith to beliefs based on reasoning and evidence can still maintain that the human species is the special darling of the entire universe, or that other animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them, and divine permission to kill them.
→ -
Sometimes animals may suffer more because of their more limited understanding. If, for instance, we are taking prisoners in wartime we can explain to them that although they must submit to capture, search, and confinement, they will not otherwise be harmed and will be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture wild animals, however, we cannot explain that we are not threatening their lives. A wild animal cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to kill; the one causes as much terror as the other.
→ -
Each 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.
→
Related Authors
-
Henry Sidgwick Philosopher -
Gary L. Francione Professor -
Jeremy Bentham Philosopher -
Garrett Hardin Ecologist -
David Hume Philosopher -
Richard Dawkins Ethologist -
Immanuel Kant Philosopher -
John Stuart Mill Philosopher -
Harriet McBryde Johnson Author -
Martha C. Nussbaum Philosopher -
Derek Parfit Philosopher -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Ingrid Newkirk Activist -
Sam Harris Author -
James Rachels Philosopher -
John Rawls Philosopher -
-
Thomas Nagel Philosopher -
Kwame Anthony Appiah Philosopher -
Tom Regan Philosopher