I decided to post this vast ethics analysis for those who we discussing Peter Singer ethics with me earlier. I hope you enjoy, it's not to long of a read and Admins feel free to move this if there is another place for something with it's length. Enjoy...

Note: Peter Singer, for me personally, shook my views of personal obligation and morality after reading his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" years ago. Now, to share this fine compilation of some of his views with you, is my pleasure



Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer



Peter Singer is arguably the most famous and
influential modern philosopher, offering the most
radical challenge to traditional Judeo-Christian
values. It has been said of him, that as an original
and influential moral pioneer, he surpasses any
philosopher since Bertrand Russell. On his
website he says, 'My work is based on the
assumption that clarity and consistency in our
moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us
to hold better views on ethical issues.'


Born in Australia in 1946, Peter Singer is the son
of Jews who fled from Vienna to avoid
persecution from the Nazis. His grandparents and
other relatives, who stayed behind, were killed.
His mother was a doctor. His father, a keen
animal lover, was a businessman. Studying
initially in Melbourne, Singer went on to obtain a
PhD in Philosophy at Oxford, where he also
developed his concerns for the well-being of
animals. Subsequently, he taught in Oxford, New
York, Colorado and California. He then returned
to Melbourne to become Professor in Human
Bioethics. In 1999 then became Professor of
Bioethics at the Centre for Human Values at
Princeton University.


Peter Singer is influential, not least because he is
a prolific writer on his subject of ethics and related
areas of philosophy. His best known book, Animal
Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of
Animals (1976), [2] with various references to
other writings.


His broad perspective


Singer is an atheist who very easily dismisses
Judeo-Christian ethics as being out of date and
irrelevant: 'We have no need to postulate gods
who hand down commandments to us because
we understand ethics as a natural phenomenon.'
[5]


His principle reason for rejecting the Christian
God is the existence of suffering in the world. In
particular, he dismisses the idea that mankind is
distinct from other animals by being 'made in the
image of God'. Hence the 'Sanctity of Human Life'
argument, which hangs on that distinctive, goes
out of the window. All that remains are 'Quality of
Life' issues. This leads him to the utilitarian
principle of 'The greatest happiness for the
greatest number', which undergirds so much
modern political thought. [6] Pleasure (or, rather,
'preference satisfaction') becomes the greatest
good; suffering and pain the only evils.
Utilitarianism, therefore, invites an examination of
the consequences of our actions, studying the
effects of our choices on others. Our actions
themselves have no intrinsic moral value - what
matters is what happens. Our intentions count for
nothing; the starting point is preference not
idealistic motivation. Reducing ethical choices to
a concern for personal preferences and useful
consequences sounds like a simplification of life's
moral dilemmas. However, the ethical process
involved in arriving at such a decision can be
extremely complicated. He writes:


I must, if I am thinking ethically, imagine myself in
the situation of all those affected by my action
(with the preferences that they have). I must
consider the interests of my enemies as well as
my friends, and of strangers as well as family.
Only if, after taking fully into account the interests
and preferences of all these people, I still think
the action is better than any alternative open to
me, can I genuinely say that I ought to do it. At
the same time I must not ignore the long-term
effects of fostering family ties, of establishing and
promoting reciprocal relationships, and of allowing
wrongdoers to benefit from their wrong doing. [7]


Abortion and infanticide


Suffering is, of course, more than just the
experience of pain. It has to do with self-
? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer
conscious awareness of suffering, involving the
memory of past freedom from suffering,
understanding the causes of suffering, and
anticipating the future implications and possible
options. An unborn child cannot suffer in this way -
and, of course, cannot be said to have personal
preferences, whether or not they could ever be
expressed. If other people have preferences that
the unborn child should not survive, and
assuming the procedure can be done painlessly,
there remains no moral barrier to terminating the
pregnancy. So in his view:


Those who regard the interests of women as
overriding the merely potential interests of the
foetus are taking their stand on a morally
impregnable position. [8]


Furthermore, the situation is essentially
unchanged for the newborn child, who does not
understand what life is about and therefore can
have no preference in the matter. If no one else
has a preference that the child should live,
infanticide within the first month of life can be
morally justified. Here Singer introduces his ethic
of replaceability. A child may not be wanted for
various reasons, such as timing, gender or
congenital disease. The decision-making process
can be profoundly influenced if the death of an
unwanted child subsequently allows the parents
the freedom to have a wanted child who would
replace it. Such ethics have not endeared him to
the disabled community in general. They fear that
his views support discrimination against them.
Neither have they gone down well in Germany
with its painful memories of the eugenics
movement for genetic purity.


Euthanasia - voluntary & non-voluntary


Singer's overthrow of the 'Sanctity of Human Life
Ethic', replacing it with a 'Quality of Life Ethic',
comes most sharply into focus when considering
voluntary euthanasia. This is most fully discussed
in his book, Rethinking Life and Death, where he
offers some new rules: [9]


Firstly, we should not see all human lives as of
equal worth but recognise that some are more
valuable than others. Such judgements should be
made on the basis of the individual's capacity to
think, relate and experience. Patients in a
persistent vegetative state have none of these
faculties. Without consciousness, life has no
value. In cases of brain damage making it
impossible for the patient to express a preference,
this principle obviously opens the door to nonvoluntary
euthanasia.


Secondly, the taking of human life is not a moral
issue in itself; the consequences of the action
determine the ethical rightness of it. The
preferences of the individual - if they can be
expressed - are of central importance.


Thirdly, suicide is not intrinsically wrong. An
individual's desire to die should be respected.
Hence, it is ethical for a doctor to assist a suicide
in fulfilling the patient's considered preference.


Animal liberation and vegetarianism


Singer distinguishes human beings in the
biological sense from persons, who are rational
and self conscious beings. He has no basis for
seeing human beings in a different category from
other animals. In general, humans have more
intelligence and greater self-awareness, but some
humans lack these faculties. In the newborn they
are undeveloped; in the severely brain damaged
they are lost; and in the dementing they are
fading day by day. They are humans, but not
persons. Some adult animals, however, are
remarkably intelligent. They are persons, though
not human.


More important for Singer is the division between
sentient creatures, which can experience
pleasure and suffering, and non-sentient
creatures which cannot. Most - but not all - humans
come in the first category, as do many animals.
Hence the protection afforded to persons should
be extended to such non-humans. The division
between these categories is not always obvious.
[11]


The focus of Singer's concern about animals is the
human tendency to think in terms of species.
While sexism and racism assert the superiority of
one sex or race over another, speciesism asserts
that humans are superior to other animals. Such
discrimination, in Singer's view, is indefensible.
[14]


Sexuality


? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer
'The moral case for acceptance of sexual
relationships between consenting adults that do
not harm others is . . . clear-cut,' he writes. [15] As
long as the consequences of sexual acts fulfil the
preferences of those involved and do not harm
others, sexual ethics are of little or no importance.
In his view, the important ethical issues in the
world today are the fact that racial hatred stops
people living together, that people are starving in
an affluent world, that animals are bred in factory
farms, and that we are damaging the ecological
system of our planet. He writes:


Once it is generally understood that ethics has no
necessary connection with the sexually-obsessed
morality of conservative Christianity, a humane
and positive ethic could be the basis for a renewal
of our social, political and ecological life. [16]


In a review article entitled Heavy Petting, [17]
Singer asks what is wrong with human sexual
activity with animals. The argument that bestiality
is unnatural because it cannot lead to procreation
is not good enough, he says, because many
widely practised sexual activities, which are seen
to be natural, cannot lead to procreation either.
Isn't bestiality cruel and harmful? Not necessarily.
Can animals meaningfully give consent to sex?
Well, sometimes they initiate it, as for instance a
dog rubbing its genitals against a human leg. If
the animal shows a preference and there are no
harmful consequences, there appear to be no
grounds in Singer's ethical framework to object.


World poverty


Singer castigates Christians for their attitude to
world poverty. [18] He sees a major discrepancy
between their passion for the sanctity of life
argument as it relates to the embryo, the
unwanted infant and the terminally ill, and their
failure to take seriously - in his view - Christ's
teaching about possessions and the needs of the
poor. He sees Christians being concerned for
those who express no desire to live while ignoring
the lives of countless people who long to hang on
to life. Christ's teaching to the rich young ruler is
certainly stark, and the wealth of western
Christians is disturbingly great.


Critique of Singer on Christianity


Singer finds it easy not to take Christianity
seriously, He writes:


Once we admit that Darwin was right when he
argued that human ethics evolved from the social
instincts that we inherited from our non-human
ancestors, we can put aside the hypothesis of a
divine origin for ethics. [19]


He has not written a substantial critique of
Christianity, but his general antipathy is clear. He
does not understand the dynamics of the gospel
of grace, and so has a 'salvation by works'
understanding of Christian theology, where ethical
behaviour is driven by self-interest in rewards
[21] He is left with 'a man of straw' to knock down -
or rather, marginalise.


As we have seen, central to his concerns is
speciesism and the Judeo-Christian view that
mankind is made uniquely in the image of God.
He emphasises the Bible's view that humanity has
been given dominion over the animals. This he
always describes in terms of dominating rule,
never as responsible, caring stewardship.
Christians, however, do not believe that animals
are their possession, to do with as they think fit.
Singer emphasises Genesis 1:28 which speaks of
'rule' but ignores Genesis 2 which introduces the
ideas of a 'duty of care' and also companionship.
In fact, there are many references in the Bible to
the well-being of animals, which Singer chooses
to ignore. These passages qualify and describe
how 'dominion' over the animals is to be
expressed. [22]


In the New Testament, Jesus pointed to God's
provision for the birds, but in saying that people
are more valuable than they are, he is clearly not
saying that they are without value before God.
[27] which Singer fails to consider. In other words,
Singer's treatment of Scripture is misleading and
unbalanced, if not unethical. He selects proof
texts to support his argument, without trying to
see them in their wider context.


Critique of Singer's utilitarianism


There are several well-documented difficulties
with utilitarian philosophy. [28]


1. Consequences

The intellectual challenge of chess is to think
through the consequences of a move and predict
? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer
the knock-on effects. A move you think is brilliant
may prove a short cut to being caught in
checkmate. The game must be played slowly.
The difficulty is that we cannot cope with too
many possible alternatives, which is why most of
us play chess badly! Only God can see the future;
the rest of us have to settle for shrewd guesses.
One amusing story about Singer is that he fed a
vegetarian diet to his cat - with the result that the
cat became very skilled at catching mice!
According to Craig and Moreland, the
consequences by which the action is to be judged
have, 'an uncertainty that paralyses moral
decision-making.' Furthermore, it 'brings to centre
stage a tentativeness about duty that is not
conducive to the development of conviction and
character'. [29]


Consider the consequences of sexual activity.
Commonly regarded as harmless pleasure, it is
far from easy to predict the implications of a given
sexual encounter, either emotionally, physically or
socially. The consequences of an unwanted
pregnancy should be obvious enough, but are
frequently overlooked. Many, presumably to their
great surprise, have found themselves quickly
addicted to a new sexual partner or a new sexual
behaviour that becomes very destructive to them
and their families. Sexually transmitted diseases -
often leading to infertility or cervical cancer - occur
commonly and may be incurable, but they rarely
seem to be anticipated. The single greatest cause
of pain and suffering in the world today is due to
the devastation brought by the sexual
transmission of HIV, which does not even feature
in Singer's list of 'the crucial moral questions of our
day'. [30] How could he overlook it? We do not
know how the virus crossed from monkeys to
humans - it could even have occurred through
bestiality; whatever happened, the consequences
could not have been imagined. Less surprising is
his failure to even begrudgingly acknowledge that
the only practice that could resolve the HIV
epidemic (and do so largely within a generation)
is the biblical ideal of one sexual partner for life.
How can he think that sexual ethics are irrelevant?


2. Happiness

Each attempt to explain the principle of
utilitarianism presents its own difficulties. The best
known description is that it seeks 'the greatest
happiness for the greatest number'. Two issues
immediately arise that may well be in conflict.


Imagine that I have ?1,000,000 to give
away. If I was concerned for the greatest
happiness, I might decide to give it all to one
person and make him very happy indeed.
However, if I was concerned for the greatest
number, I might give ?1 to each of a
million people. Many would not even consider
thanking me! Yet one might think that giving away
money would be among the simpler moral
decisions.


But there is a second, more fundamental problem.
What exactly is happiness? And if I knew, how
might I obtain it and then hold on to it? Those who
experience the most intense happiness find they
cannot maintain it. It inevitably fades. Similarly,
those who experience the deepest tragedies
seem, in the passage of time, to recover and once
more find things to smile about. It is an
extraordinary feature of life that some of the
poorest people are among the most contented,
while some of the wealthiest are among the most
wretched. This is true of individuals, but it is also
true of societies: 'Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, the
United Kingdom and the United States all share
similar life satisfaction scores despite per capita
income varying ten-fold between the richest and
the poorest country'. [31] If happiness is so poorly
correlated to wealth, the same study, among
others, shows that it is strongly correlated to the
traditional family unit. The divorce rate in Britain
has quadrupled since 1970, and currently 40,000
children a year are prescribed anti-depressants.
Therefore, one might suppose that the morality of
actions that undermine the family unit, cannot be
advocated on utilitarian grounds - again
underlining the central importance of sexual
ethics for human well-being.


3. Reductionism

Preference consequentialism seems a flat earth
way of doing ethics. The whole process is
reduced to a two-dimensional view of life: our
actions are evaluated only in terms of preferences
and consequences (whether or not they are
actually predictable or measurable). There is no
recognition of ultimate goodness, no
acknowledgement of the importance of motive
and intent, no significance attached to the
agonies of conscience or the depths of moral
revulsion, no sense of overall meaning and
purpose, no exploration of the nature of self-
? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer
denying love rather than 'preference satisfaction',
no realisation of the need for forgiveness, no
understanding of the fallibility of human moral
character and no basis for considering justice.
Nor does Singer allow the subtle influences of our
relationships in moral decision making, even
though his own rationality proved an insufficient
guide in dealing with his mother's death from
Alzheimer's disease. [32] His tough talk about
euthanasia evaporated in the face of the personal
reality. Morality is evaluated only on our
preferences and the consequences of our actions,
but most of us realize that there is rather more
going on here as we make our choices.


4. The Yuk Factor

In his letter to the Romans, Paul teaches that
certain truths about right behaviour are instinctive.
We don't need to be taught them, but if we
suppress such intuitive awareness, it will affect
our rational grasp of ethical judgements. [34] In
Paul's phrase, we will become 'futile in our
thinking.'


Several aspects of Singer's teaching cause deep
intuitive revulsion - not just in Christians, but in
people who make many different assumptions
about the nature of truth and ethics. Singer claims
the taboos are falling one by one [36] And what
about incest, if there are no harmful
consequences and both parties desire it? As
there is no internationally agreed age at which
children become adults, he is also left without
strong grounds for condemning paedophilia. Why
is he so quiet about that explosive subject? Is it
not another major, modern, ethical issue? What
has he got to say about it? Chuck Colson has
written:


'Every rationale that Singer employs to justify
(sexual) activities with animals can be applied to
relations with children. Actually, the case is
stronger since the "physical similarities" Singer
identifies are greater in the case of children. [37]


5. Is it liveable?

Gordon Preece maintains that preference
utilitarianism is actually unliveable: Singer's
demanding universal utilitarianism is much more
opposed to individual pleasure and almost
infinitely guilt-inducing compared to Christianity.
[38] The problems of the entire world are set
before us. And it is not just the greatest happiness
for the greatest number of humans which must
direct our moral choices, but of all sentient
mammals. The task is overwhelming.


Of course, the demands of world poverty distress
us all. Historically, however, it has never been like
this. In apostolic times, for instance, a church
community might learn from a traveller about a
distant fellowship experiencing hard times, and
collect some money to help them. In general, they
remained entirely ignorant of the human condition
worldwide. For the most part, people lived in
small, self-contained communities within which
they learned to carry one another's burdens. [44]


Today, however, the tragedies of the world find
their way onto the screens in our living rooms. We
are not absolved responsibility for how we
respond, [48]


Yet utilitarianism gives us no respite. If we were to
take Singer at face value, our lives would be
minimalist. We could hardly waste money buying
books of any sort; education would be basic and
presumably prevent the sort of expensive
researches which might lead to significant
benefits for the world's poor. We could forget
about the arts and entertainment - luxuries no one
should afford. In order to remain sane with such
pressing demands, Singer apparently gives away
20% of his income. This is impressive, and
certainly puts many Christians to shame. [50]


At the end of the day, we can understand the idea
of acting morally towards the people we meet. It is
quite possible, if more difficult, to act morally to
those we do not know. Acting morally to everyone
in the world is quite beyond us, but acting morally
and equally to every sentient mammal robs
morality of any real meaning. The best we can do
is respond as and when we have the opportunity.
Christians have grounds for believing that God is
ultimately responsible for his world, but has put us
in caring and supportive family units so that we
might be agents of his mercy and compassion.


The point of view of the universe


Jesus took as the central plank of his ethical
teaching, the Old Testament commandment, 'You
should love your neighbour as yourself.' [55] He
does not mention the Koran, which has no similar
statement, nor any other religion.
? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer


What he fails to notice is that Christ alone puts
the golden rule in the positive form. The other
three all say in effect that you should not do to
others what you would not want them to do to
you. [56] The Rabbinic version says, "Do not do to
your neighbour what is hateful to you; this is the
whole law, all the rest is commentary", which
seems a far cry from the tone and intention of the
Old Testament commandment. Confucius justified
his saying with self-interest: "What you do not wish
upon yourself, extend not to others. Then there
will be no resentment against you, either in the
family or in the state." This, it seems, is the
wisdom of the world. It is a recipe for detachment.
It concerns what you shouldn't do, not what you
should do. It presumably, in Christ's story of the
Good Samaritan, enabled the priest and the
Levite to pass by on the other side. What Christ
taught was quite unique. We cannot pass by. We
are under obligation to treat others as we would
wish to be treated.


In the modern world of instant communications
about the most awful disasters, Christ's golden
rule may seem overwhelming. However,
acknowledging our failings before a merciful God,
finding his forgiveness, realising that he
understands our limitations, opening our selves
up to his good purposes, realizing, as Jesus
taught, that 'each day has enough trouble of its
own', [58] So Christ's way is quite possible, but
Singer's is crushing.


Conclusion


In dismissing Christianity, Singer recognises that
he has been unable to find a higher ethic than
Christ's, but is less than persuaded that he has
found a compelling alternative as a basis for such
ethical thinking. He writes:


Ethical truths are not written into the fabric of the
universe . . . If there were no beings with desires
or preferences of any kind, nothing would be of
value and ethics would lack all content. [59]


However, there are not only the subjective values
of each individual. He writes:


The possibility of being led, by reasoning, [61]


Again he concedes:


It would be nice to be able to reach a stronger
conclusion than this about the basis for ethics.
[62]


Unfortunately, he does not explore the objective,
rational evidence that an ultimate moral being
exists, who has uniquely revealed his own
character as the basis for our ethics. The
existence of God, for instance, can be argued on
the basis of the very existence of moral values.
As philosopher William Lane Craig expresses it:
[63]

<ul type="disc">
? If God does not exist, objective
moral values do not exist.

? However, evil exists

? Therefore objective moral values exist - namely,
some things are evil

? Therefore God exists


By creating humans in his image, God not only
gives us an inherent foundation for our moral
values, he also equips us with the intelligence we
need to make moral and rational choices. Had
Singer acknowledged the uniqueness of Christ's
golden rule, seeing it as 'the point of view of the
universe' just might have been a clue to the
unique authority of Christ the Teacher! Without
such an understanding, Singer is left floundering
when he writes about the meaning and
significance of human life:


The possibility of taking the point of view of the
universe overcomes the problem of finding
meaning in our lives. [64]


He concludes:


Most important of all, you will know that you have
not lived and died for nothing, because you will
have become part of the great tradition of those
who have responded to the amount of pain and
suffering in the universe by trying to make the
world a better place. [65]


As the violins fade, we might well ask, 'Is that
enough to live by?'





____________________________
(Blackwells, 2005)


? Peter May
Source: bethinking.org - Life after God? -The Ethics of Peter Singer
(Oxford University Press, 1993)