Peter Singer and the trap of logic: Part II
[NOTE: Part I, which was posted about two weeks ago, can be found here.]
Not only has Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer advocated infanticide for profoundly disabled infants if parents request it, he also has done a lot of writing about animal rights, which he champions. As one interviewer says, it was Singer:
…who wrote that our refusal to grant other animals moral equality is like saying that all human beings – even psychopaths and murderers – are superior to any dolphin or chimpanzee.
A startling statement, but Singer specializes in startling positions. In what way does he consider human psychopaths and murderers either no better than certain animals or perhaps even inferior to them?
Now, I certainly have not read all or in fact any of Singer’s books in their entirety. But I’ve read an enormous number of articles about him and many interviews with him, as well as some essays by him summarizing his thoughts. This sample of his writing offers the following important clues [emphasis mine]:
…Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as the vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for suffering – or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness – is not just another characteristic like the capacity for language, or for higher mathematics. Bentham is not saying that those who try to mark “the insuperable line” that determines whether the interests of a being should be considered happen to have selected the wrong characteristic. The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer…A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being tormented, because it will suffer if it is.
If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering – in so far as rough comparisons can be made – of any other being.
It’s hard to read that without the feeling that something is being left out of the equation. But what is that “something”? Religions have a lot to say about that “something,” and about the difference between animals and humans. But it isn’t even necessary to be a religious person to get a sense that Singer is missing an essential element in the equation he sets up.
To take an animal’s suffering [see * below] into consideration is something many religions do. For example, it is a basic principle of the Judaism which Singer has rejected (he is an atheist, and has been since childhood). But this does not mean that an animal’s suffering must be taken into equal consideration. Judaism (and many other religions, but we’ll take Judaism for the purposes of this discussion) has a great deal to say on the subject of the proper treatment of animals by humans and their place in the hierarchy of the world:
All of God’s creations are deserving of our humane consideration and can serve as pathways for sanctification. In his essay on animals and Halakhah, Rabbi Edward Friedman speaks of two opposing attitudes toward animals in the Torah: In Genesis, human beings are given mastery over the animal kingdom on the one hand, and are seen as potential partners, ”˜helpmates,’ for human beings, on the other hand. Rabbi Friedman writes: “Halakhah seeks a compromise between these two extreme positions. We are thus called on to be compassionate to other creatures, even though we are allowed to use their labors and even the bodies of these same creatures to fulfill various needs in our lives.”
So, according to Judaism and the Book of Genesis, which is also part of the foundation for Christianity, humans stand above animals in the hierarchy and can use them and even kill and eat them, but must always be cognizant of doing it in a way that does not cause unnecessary suffering. Humans and animals are not equal, but that’s not based on their capacity to suffer but on their capacity for consciousness and decision-making, and their relation to God and to each other.
But if we take religion out of the equation, we still can come up with the same conclusion. Animals themselves are morally neutral as agents. Only human beings can, and do (as Singer himself demonstrates), ponder moral and ethical issues. Even if one looks at the Garden of Eden story as a mere parable, even if you remove it from any consideration of religion, one message of the story is that animals and humans are different in their moral awareness. In fact, you could say the story is one of the dawning of moral awareness and the differentiation of humans from animals. The acts of animals stand outside of the system we might call morality; they are beyond right and wrong in terms of what they themselves do, and as such they can be neither morally superior nor inferior to humans. They do not have free will. They have not, as it were, eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, unlike Adam and Eve and all their actual or metaphoric descendants, humankind.
And so the way in which humans are “superior” to animals is that they act within a moral system: they make decisions, they are conscious of themselves, they know right from wrong (or at least they think about it and wonder about it). As human beings, they have made decisions that mean in some cases that they have done wrong (for instance, murder) and must be punished. They are punished precisely because they can make thoughtful decisions and therefore, as agents, they must be held responsible. And when humans do wrong they are punished by the justice system; animals who do wrong (bite humans, kill humans) are put down if they are deemed dangerous to others, but they are not punished.
So, to finally respond to Singer’s point, even murderers and psychopaths are human beings, and as such they have more rights than animals but they also have more responsibilities than even the highest-functioning animals that Singer mentions, such as dolphins and chimpanzees.
[* “Suffering” and “pain” are actually two separate, although related, phenomena. Animals feel pain and have physiological reactions that indicate when pain is present. But there is evidence that they feel pain to different extents depending on their complexity and development.
To what degree animals suffer is an even more hotly debated question. Although I’ve done a search to see whether Singer ever even considers the distinction between pain and suffering, I have as yet found nothing that indicates he does; he seems to treat the two words as more or less synonymous (see for example this from Singer).
If Singer ignores the distinction, he’s certainly not the only one. But the difference between the two means a great deal to me, based on my own experience with many years of chronic pain. One of the most important books I ever read on the subject was by Eric J. Cassell, entitled The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. I recommend it highly, but the gist of it can be summarized in one sentence of Cassell’s: Bodies do not suffer, only persons suffer. Cassell is not talking about animals there, he’s talking about the fact that the amount of suffering a person undergoes is related to a host of other issues, in particular the meaning and context in which he/she interprets and explains his/her pain: does it have a purpose? Is it just or unjust? Is it random or punishment or an opportunity for heroism? Is it temporary or will it last for a long long time? Does anyone care, and can anyone help?
I suppose that’s another post for another day.]
[ADDENDUM: By the way, the status of humans as beings with free will and a moral sense, and therefore moral responsibility, does not lie in their individual personal characteristics or degree of functioning. Singer might argue that the lack of those characteristics in a very disabled infant or certain other disabled people, for example (see Part I of this series), puts them on a plane equal to that of animals, or at least puts animals on the same plane as them. But the moral status of a human being, however disabled, injured, or diseased, lies in his/her identity as a human, a group of beings with certain characteristics that are different from those of animals. A deficient or ill human is nevertheless a human, whereas no animal—however smart and/or beloved—ever possesses the characteristics of moral responsibility and free will, nor do animals possess such characteristics as a group.
Religious people, of course, tend to deal with the issue by saying that only humans have souls. But that argument will not convince an atheist like Singer.]
[Part III can be found here.]
Well done. Singer is a clever eleven year old.
gpc31:
A clever eleven-year-old who has a big professorship at Princeton, sells tons of books, gives lectures all around the world, and influences the thought of our young people and others.
A clever eleven-year-old who has a big professorship at Princeton, sells tons of books, gives lectures all around the world, and influences thought of our young people and others.
Most everyone you know has the emotional maturity of a 12 year old.
If Singer ignores the distinction, he’s certainly not the only one.
This was a great post, Neo. I’ve had similar thoughts about the meaning of original sin, ie, that it is about having the ability to think, make our own choices, and accept responsibilty for them. Does any other being lie awake nights worrying about his wrongdoings?
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-supreme-court/1685538.html
‘Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.’
-Mark Twain
To trade simple immortality for transient illusion of moral superiority seems like a bad trade. I might have gone another way. The morally superior eat the innocent. The innocent just do not have to stay dead.
Smug predation is a very human concept.
That does not last very long.
I thought Neil Schulman got it right.
http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/aniright.html
“It’s hard to read that without the feeling that something is being left out of the equation.”
A conclusion that actually follows from the stated premisses for one.
But the part wherein he quotes that sack of, Bentham, illustrates some of the fun consequences that a close reading, rather than the reading they wish you to make, might entail.
For is, as you ask, the capacity for “suffering” itself equal? And if it is not equal, how can it stand as an arbitrating principle, as if it were?
Well it obviously cannot. And that is why Singer himself would agree that unconscious humans – of some kinds – have no life “interest”; or by reduction, right.
This leaves us however with an interesting consequence.
We may suppose the weaker you are, the more you suffer; and, the more you suffer, the more interests you therefore (demonstrably) have; and, the more interests you have, the more equal you are.
Or something like that.
Ditto the kudos for the Singer posts – looking forward to part 3 (4?).
Now to business.
I should like to hear just what the Principle of Equality is. The formulations of principles to something abstract, that is, something conceptual, notional is what has got us into our present predicament. First, everything transcendental is jettisoned. Second, that which remains is then divided into the material, i.e, all things that may be measured, and the sensational, i.e., all things that are felt – not as in sense but sentiment. So, make a principle of the immeasurable, the incalculable, or make a principle of our varied and varying sentiments. One of the great mistakes our civilizing ancestors made was putting a halt to autos-da-fé of heretics. And there never were religious heretics so destructive to Christianity to the degree that civilizational heretics are destructive of the moral and ethical underpinnings of Western civilization.
expat:
And only humans can be dyslexic agnostic insomniacs.
please note that your examining someone who is teaching from feminist theory of personhood, and who gets to grant it… why not go to the source you ignored for 30 odd years?
Her essays have sometimes been required readings in academic courses dealing with the abortion debate and they are frequently cited in major publications like Peter Singer’s The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature and Bernard Gert’s Bioethics: A Systematic Approach. She was sometimes described as a feminist, largely due to her pro-choice writings.
Warren also wrote on the implications of sex selection and about animal treatment. She was a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University for many years.
Mary Anne Warren died on August 9, 2010 from undisclosed causes, aged 63.
Peter Singer advocated infanticide for profoundly disabled infants if parents request it
this not actual persons thing comes from the feminist argument that unless momma wants the kid, its not a person. the woman, actualizes the growth in her, and it is women who make personhood…
Arguments based on criteria for personhood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_aspects_of_the_abortion_debate#Arguments_based_on_criteria_for_personhood
Mary Anne Warren, in her article arguing for the permissibility of abortion, holds that moral opposition to abortion is based on the following argument:
It is wrong to kill innocent human beings.
The embryo is an innocent human being.
Hence it is wrong to kill the embryo.
In response to whether a thing can be said to be a person, and so have moral standing, Warren suggested the following criteria:
Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);
The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics;
The presence of self-concepts and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.
this is what feminists used to make abortion ok… and also infanticide, and to deny fathers rights as only mothers can grant personhood, etc
why not study the sources of this stuff? most of it is feminist theory, and such… but then again… treat the symptom, ignore the desease as we are in love with our desease
the author your talking about is the end idiot at a long line of morons who were feminists and all he is doing is spouting what he learned in his required feminist studies courses.
[edited for length by n-n]
The influence of Peter Singer at work — from a long 2010 Time article, Inside the Minds of Animals:
And following up — the PBS 2014 Nova series program, Inside Animal Minds, and also in 2014, the BBC’s Inside the Animal Mind.
I’ve not seen the Nova series, but I watched an episode of the BBC show and the host simply gushes about just how smart the animals are, and not just smart, they make moral choices.
Shows like that are highly praised and get into our classrooms.
Artfldgr:
Why not? Because I am interested in the content of what he is saying, not in writing a book on its origins or on Singer himself. This is a post on a blog, and already represents a great deal of time and effort.
I am relatively certain that there are many many writers, thinkers, and teachers who go into the makeup and background of Singer’s thinking, and that most of them are people of the left—including, of course, some feminist thinkers. I do not have time to write what I write and am most interested in and ALSO to go into depth about the provenance of each person’s thought.
If you want to write a blog or website on that, if that is your focus. then do so. No one here is denying the influence of the left on thoughts such as Singer’s. And most people here are not the least bit sanguine about the left, its goals or its successes.
Why you continue to berate people about it is beyond me.
I forgot to point out that it doesnt matter what us rubes think… it only matters what the academics think as they teach the people who would become policy makers who then will do what they do whether we want it or not as we are not as well edumacated as they are and what do us plebs know?
too bad only a few of us who are concerend with this stuff followed its creation and dominance in academia.
the idea that one notices this now, is like noticing the nazi party games the day before the war started..
there is absolutly no way to oppose this kind of thing as rubes arguments are dispensed with out of hand, and of course, have been well addressed decades ago, and have decades of precidence!!!!!!!!
if one wanted to oppose such then one had to do this 30-40 years ago… not now… the game is over…
the philosophers have recaptured the seat they lost when the empiricists unseated them and their definition of reality in favor of science – now philosophy is science and science bends to philosophy and thats that
after gallileo unseated them, it only took them how long to get their power back?
[edited for length by n-n]
ann:
Animals make choices, but saying they are moral choices is a stretch. They are choices that we judge as moral; I can pretty much assure you that they do not judge them in that way as moral or not. We are the only creatures that ponder morality and right and wrong.
Those who say otherwise are fantasizing, IMHO. They are also—to use an appropriate word—anthropomorphizing.
Artfldgr:
And who here is “in love with our disease”? Who here is in love with leftism or with leftist feminist theory? I have never seen a single person.
The term “rights” only applies to animals with a volitional mode of consciousness (e.g. humans). The term is meaningless for animals, who have a perceptual mode of consciousness.
Oh, they are most definitely anthropomorphizing, Neo. What they’re also doing is proseltyzing. You should watch that BBC show if you ever get a chance. The host/narrator give the distinct impression that he is out to prove that some animals actually do such things as “ponder morality and right and wrong”.
Thank you Ray for commentary that reaches the very heart of the issue. “The Illogic of Animal Rights” by J. Neil Schulman
After logically demonstrating the utter intellectual bankruptcy of the animal rights crowd, Mr Schulman exposes the real agenda; “if animals have rights then we are not morally entitled to put them to utilitarian use, period.
Let me make it clear: I am not questioning the humaneness or cruelty of any particular practice. My point is that the interests of those who assert that the lower animals have rights is not to protect animals against cruel treatment. That can be done merely by an appeal to our consciences. Those who assert that animals or even “habitats” have rights do so to destroy individual human rights to control what I term the anthroposphere: the human habitat. It is the individual human right to control our private spheres of action — our individual habitats — which they oppose.
Some “animal rights” activists, basing their thinking on pantheism, equate humans with the rest of nature by saying that we are all share a divine consciousness. But equating humankind as no more divine than inanimate objects or other animals isn’t raising nature but lowering humankind. Pantheists believe that everything is sacred, including the inanimate. Yet, I don’t notice them picketing Mount St. Helen’s volcano for spewing its lava, burning trees and killing wildlife. It’s only human action to which animal rights activists object.
So where do we find ethics here? If we look to nature, we see only that the strong use the weak for their own purposes — and we are obviously the master of all other animals by that standard. If we look to the center of all human ethics, the Golden Rule, we are told to treat others as we would wish to be treated. But what others? Animals can’t treat us as we wish to be treated because they don’t have the wit to entertain ethics at all.
Which leaves us esthetics, which exists only in individual humans. Since lower animals don’t have rights, we humans need to make judgments on humane versus cruel treatment of lower animals not by treating animals as if they have rights but instead must rely on our esthetic values — our consciences.
But, after seeing tree-spikers, people throwing paint on fur coats, and Kentucky Fried Chicken being equated with Auschwitz, it’s now apparent that the effect of trying to give animals the same ethical immunities as humans is that all esthetic distinction between cock-fighting and eating meat is lost. The effect of “all or nothing” in our uses of animals is to blunt our consciences, which makes us crueler to animals, not less cruel.
Those people among us who would give lower animals human rights do not do it because they love other animals. They do it because they hate humankind. They hate the fact that their own superior nature as intellectual beings gives them superior challenges which they shrink from by attempting to deny the superiority of their human nature.
“Animal rights” is just one more diabolic scheme for promoting government control over human lives by destroying our right to private property. It is the logical tactic of those who hate the individual creative ability and wish it replaced by the anti-human jackboots of collectivism.
“Animal rights” activists use the tools of rationality which are uniquely available to the human species in order to deny the distinct nature of their own rational faculties. They raise up animals in an attempt to lower humankind. “ [my emphasis]
There are people who just wish to see the world burn. There are people who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. There are people who would rather destroy the innocent than face their own cowardice.
We see a corollary to Singer’s ideas all around us; albeit in less extreme form perhaps. Around my house I hear the opinion that our cat has gone to heaven, and predeceased pets–and human friends– will welcome her there. This from a devout Christian woman. Others have been heard to agree. I occasionally ask, “how can a Christian elevate an animal which does not have either a soul, or a conscience, with a human who we are taught has both?”. That does not go over well. Neither do suggestions that the elevation of animals is highly selective when practiced by Christian carnivores, who dearly loves In and Out Burgers. Still, the confusion is fairly wide spread, and probably originated when humans moved off of the land, and the only association with “live” animals became that with cherished pets.
Disclaimer. I am fond of my pets. I feel a moral obligation to care for them to the best of my ability; and I miss them with they are gone. I do not expect to see them later.
Ann:
And then there’s this.
😉
To be clear: While I find Singer intellectually intriguing, I am not in agreement with his ethical theories or it application as to infanticide or animal liberation.
That being said, Neo, I think you missed a crucial point in your response to Singer. Newborn babies do not make moral decisions and are not moral agents as the term is typically defined. Like animals, they are not “punished” for transgressions as it is commonly understood they cannot commit moral transgression (even on a very rudimentary level). This, in part, forms the basis of Singer’s argument for infanticide of disabled newborns.
Ackler:
Actually, I didn’t miss it, I included it in an addendum to the post that I posted a while ago. I can understand if you didn’t read all the way through to it, though; the post is rather long. But this is it:
and, specifically, the Tree — not just of “Knowledge,” but — of The Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Geoffrey Britain Bravo. Exactly!
Oldflyer: I kind of like what Will Rogers said, “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”
The benefit of being intolerant becomes clear in a case like this. I have no interest in Singer or his ideas, other than if he oversteps his bounds. Then, corrective action must be taken.
Oldflyer: I kind of like what Will Rogers said, “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”
There is more to animals than it seems.
We can all agree rabid dogs are rational targets on Main Street, but we can disagree on how we treat pedophiles, and other human trash that fester in our society. I understand the distinction but must admit that I am confused by the ‘morality’ of why I may legally put my front sight on one mammal but not another mammal simply because one is a member of my species and the other is not.
Neo,
I did see your addendum initially, but admit I did not read it carefully, and I apologize for that. Now that I have, I’m not sure you have answered Singer’s challenge. Please correct me if I misunderstood your point, but you seem to be saying our innate identity as a human simply separates us from other animals, even though some humans (newborns and the severely mentally ill) clearly have no more moral agency than intelligent non-human animals.
I’m sure you know how Singer would respond: he would state such a position is “speciesist”. He would likely argue you are taking an abstract and relatively arbitrary category (“human”) and using it as a bright line to exclude non-human animals from moral consideration. Given evolutionary theory (which I assume you accept), the dividing line between sapiens and (at least) primates is not so stark as to permit such a bright line rule for moral judgments.
You are entirely correct that the religious response is the reliance on immortal souls which (it is typically argued) only human’s possess. But I am not religious, nor is Singer nor (if I recall correctly) are you. For those of us who do not believe in immortal souls, the distinction remains, in Singer’s opinion, rather arbitrary and speciesist.
To repeat, I do not agree with Singer. I simply think that his challenge is more difficult than many often conclude. My typical response to the logical challenge is to concede the logical point but follow with a “So what?”. Okay, we’re speciesist, Singer. And yes, it is to a certain extent, illogical. So what? There is an emotive impulse here which carries sway. We prioritize humans (all humans) over animals in moral considerations due to a deep emotional reaction; if it is at some level illogical (or at least extra-logical), so much the worse for logic. No society ever has (or could) order itself under entirely logically sound principles. As long as we keep our emotive impulses relatively tempered in our ethical and legal rule-making, such impulses are necessary and often beneficial
Ackler:
I don’t think for a moment that Singer is so easy to refute. That’s why I call the series “the trap of logic.”
I would have several responses to him. My first is exactly and precisely like yours: “so what? Call me ‘speciesist,’ it’s fine with me.”
But further, I would say that you must deal with categories of beings and make judgments based on that, because any other way leads to a much worse situation. Once we decide whether a single individual human life is human based on that human’s intelligence or capacity, it’s a slope so slippery that it amounts to a cliff. The Nazis (yes, I’m invoking the Nazis, because that’s exactly where it leads) called it “Life unworthy of life“:
All human life is human, and its humanity comes from the characteristics humans have as a species. There is nothing wrong with that. Plus, there is nothing wrong with treating animals humanely. One of the biggest problems with Singer—in fact, the biggest—is not that he thinks we should treat intelligent animals well. After all, I’m not in favor of killing chimps or dolphins, or of torturing them. The problem with Singer is his lack of respect for some human life.
Neo,
To add to your last sentence, Singer wants to define for all of us which human life is worthy of respect. That diminishes all the rest of us.
Singer’s life isn’t worth the concrete an ant crawls on.
Ymarsakar:
Singer is worth it because he influences people, particularly young people.
The objective difference between humans and animals, and plants, also, is two-fold. One, the degrees of freedom (i.e. causality) each is capable of expressing. Two, the value each earns through common association (e.g. intrinsic value). There is no scientifically sound equivalence between humans and animals, and plants, too. Perhaps they can force it through the pro-choice doctrine or deem equal dignity into existence. I’m certain there is a judge for that.
That said, a human life evolves from conception to a natural, accidental, or premeditated death. Beware the pro-choice doctrine. Selective principles excuse people from logic traps and other considerations.
Professor Adam Kotsko Proclaims Whites Should Commit Mass Suicide
Hard as it is to believe, Zandria Robinson may not be the craziest or most malevolent moonbat to indoctrinate students in the combination lunatic asylums/reeducation camps that American colleges have become. Introducing the scholarly wisdom of Assistant Professor Adam Kotsko, who teaches humanities and social sciences at Shimer College in Chicago –
kotsko: whether or not your ancestors owned slaved you as a white person benefited from slavery and are complicit in it. Sorry
response: what follows from this
kotsko: we should commit mass suicide
lots of these people out there, the time to prevent it was 30 years ago, not now in the middle of their distinquised tenured for life cushy job molding the minds of the future leaders of the USSA
Professor of Color Blames Whitey for Her PMS
Caucasian-hating educator Zandria Robinson/Hurston is in the news again, this time for blaming the white man for her premenstrual syndrome:
Zandria Robinson, the recently-departed University of Memphis professor who described “whiteness” as synonymous with “terror,” had even more old tweets resurface Thursday, in which she blames whites for every lethal riot in U.S. history, blasts Dick and Jane stories for being “heteropatriarchal,” and even attributes her menstrual disorder to white “microaggressions.”
Singer is worth it because he influences people
Dead white males don’t have as much influence as the Communists might wish.
In addition to leaving something out, he puts the wrong thing in. His argument rests on what he calls “the principle of equality.” There is no such principle!
The closest thing to a law about equality is the laws of entropy, which means heat death.
Oldflyer 5:52 pm ” Around my house I hear the opinion that our cat has gone to heaven, and predeceased pets—and human friends— will welcome her there. This from a devout Christian woman. ”
Where do our pets go at death? I don’t know as that is left to someone at the Highest pay-grade. And I trust His decision.
I find in 1 Corinthians 8: That Paul understands that he can eat meat sacrificed to idols, But there is a side of him that also understands that others may not have his strength and may assume eating meat offered to idols is a sin. Therefore for the sake of his brother’s conscience, he will forgo eating the meat.
Somehow,in my opinion:If you had been in a similar situation, Your response would have been- “Get over it, eat the meat. It doesn’t mean anything” to the weaker brother.
I think I prefer St. Paul’s and Will Rogers approach than yours.
If you had kids, I bet there was no Santa, Easter Bunny or Tooth-fairy in their childhood either. A loss for them, in my opinion.
Sometimes good dialog and friendship is simply adapting to another’s view so long as we don’t violate our principles. Instead of demanding the other adapt to our view.
We can only take our life experiences, friendships and memories with us when leave this earth. Somehow I would rather have the memory of creating a safe harbor for a friend to rest in during a time of loss than the memory of- Let me show you where you are wrong.
But then that is simply my view of things.
Singer’s ideas will be mainstream in two decades and mandatory in two decades after that. Mark my words.
Singer’s not an atheist. He does have a religion.
Ymarsakar:
I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Singer describes himself as an atheist.
Singer’s lying.
Either he wants to create a Deus ex Machina that replaces God, or he thinks the Throne of Heaven is empty so that means men like him can take the Throne and utilize the same power of destruction and creation.
Atheism is the disbelief in God, gods, or the powers of divinity. But Singer doesn’t actually disbelieve in the powers of creation a god normally is said to have. Singer wants to develop those powers. People who want that power, cannot be atheists since they are seeking the godhood, but not in the CHristian sense.
I’ve enjoyed much of your writing (not to imply there is any of your writing I haven’t enjoyed, just that I haven’t read all of it).
In the kindest spirit, I’d like to make a suggestion.
Near the end of this piece, you write:
“But the moral status of a human being, however disabled, injured, or diseased, lies in his/her identity as a human, a group of beings with certain characteristics that are different from those of animals.”
I suggest that the word (and idea) you are actually reaching for is the person’s _nature_ as a human. Human nature is what separates us unequivocally from animals and their animal nature.
If this was merely a lapse in word choice, no bother. However, if this is a new concept I suggest you research it with your demonstrated verve. It may open up new worlds.
No doubt Dr. Hanson has a great mind, but he writes without hope, and tends to be groping for an explanation to events that are, in his astute view of history, devastatingly bad. The short answer to his query is we elected a President that is a reflection of our society, and that society is not likely to improve in its capacity to discern or elect leaders having both ability and integrity. This is due in large part to a prevailing information system that decimates both our attention span and our ability to sort fact from fantasy. Maybe some of us should invite Doc. Hanson over to view THE MATRIX on Netflix and get the right side of his brain equally engaged on the problem.
Sorry, the above comment is in the wrong place.
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