He believes rational thought has played a major role in expanding the moral circle over the centuries. Some go even further and argue that all living organisms deserve moral consideration.11 This view is biocentrism. I hear from people who tell me about his latest anti-animal liberation statement, thinking I might want to use it as ammunition to take him down, but I don’t. For 20 years I felt like I was covering for him, betraying myself, and betraying the women in our movement and the movement itself. Finally, when the horrible truth of our relationship was thrown in my face, I felt forced to stand for myself and the female activism experience.
Moral status of animals
Similarly, other inventions have arguably catalyzed the expansion of the moral circle. Steven Pinker, in his book The larabet casino Better Angels of Our Nature, says the printing press was crucial to humanity’s ethical development because it helped spread humanitarian ideas. And then there are some who argue that even machines can be granted rights. What about a robot we may invent in the future that seems just as sentient as chimpanzees and elephants, despite being made of silicon?
But Singer quickly became so defensive and enraged that he used the c word in order to humiliate me, as he misrepresented an embarrassing event from our past. Then he walked out of the dinner, at which he was the guest of honor. Though Peter Singer eventually told me he had slept with about thirty women in our movement, my claim refers to just a few, whose lives, like mine, were profoundly damaged by their dealings with him.
There’s a concept from philosophy that describes this evolution — it’s called humanity’s expanding moral circle. The circle is the imaginary boundary we draw around those we consider worthy of moral consideration. Over the centuries, it’s expanded to include many people who were previously left out of it.
Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, published in 1975, exposed the realities of life for animals in factory farms and testing laboratories and provided a powerful moral basis for rethinking our relationship to them. Now, nearly 50 years on, Singer, 76, has a revised version titled Animal Liberation Now. It comes on the heels of an updated edition of his popular Ethics in the Real World, a collection of short essays dissecting important current events, first published in 2016. Singer, a utilitarian, is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University. In addition to his work on animal ethics, he is also regarded as the philosophical originator of a philanthropic social movement known as effective altruism, which argues for weighing up causes to achieve the most good. He is considered one of the world’s most influential – and controversial – philosophers.
- An email trail I presented proved he had been invited to spend a few hours while changing planes, not days, all of those hours at a fundraising dinner.
- It owes much to the work of philosopher Peter Singer and his 1975 book ‘Animal Liberation’.
- The circle is the imaginary boundary we draw around those we consider worthy of moral consideration.
- It is much better for the climate than meat from animals and for animal suffering.
- We are currently hearing his actual voice on his book tour – a voice for animal welfare but not rights, for some animal experimentation, and for eating animal products and even some animals when veganism is inconvenient.
- Examples like these complicate the Western narrative of moral progress.
- It’s painful to see Peter Singer out there in the media this month, under the banner of Animal Liberation Now.
Are Humans More Equal Than Other Animals? An Evolutionary Argument Against Exclusively Human Dignity
- That was profoundly professionally punishing, given his standing in the nonprofit world, and another act he omitted from his summary of the situation before the auditorium.
- And while it is true that it still suggests that meat is desirable, there are people who are unwilling to make that switch to becoming vegan or vegetarian.
- They’re allies in the movement against factory farming, and a world of conscientious omnivores would produce much less meat and dairy products, with vastly less suffering.
- I hope that anybody who questions him will ask him to name any untruth in this essay or the lawsuit, for I am aware of none.
- Alternatively, if it is morally relevant (e.g., intelligence), then it probably isn’t something that all and only humans have.
- People care about animals, so we need not hide our concern for them while trying to save them using backdoor approaches.
Instead of working to empirically determine which entities are and aren’t sentient, you might sidestep that whole question and believe instead that anything that’s alive or that supports life is worthy of moral consideration. All other animals – human and non-human – deserve moral consideration. Animal lovers would say that all animals deserve moral consideration. The idea that non-human animals have significant moral status is comparatively modern. It owes much to the work of philosopher Peter Singer and his 1975 book ‘Animal Liberation’. Finally, according to ecocentrism, what deserves moral consideration isn’t individual beings but collectives or groups, specifically those that promote the flourishing of ecosystems (e.g., wolf packs and aspen groves).
Social Media
They’re allies in the movement against factory farming, and a world of conscientious omnivores would produce much less meat and dairy products, with vastly less suffering. Effective Altruism may be helpful for fields that most people already acknowledge matter – human life, for example. And it may work in the field of basic animal welfare, within the framework of humans having the right to breed, own, and kill animals. Ratiocentrism has the plausible implication that if rational space aliens exist, they also deserve moral consideration.
Strategies for proactively expanding the moral circle — for example, to include animals
After consulting with lawyers, I decided not to appeal the court’s ruling, that my sexual harassment claim against Peter Singer had been filed beyond the statute of limitations. I learned that over 90 percent of appeals fail, and that a judge would need to commit a glaring mistake, as opposed to making a surprising but legally justifiable ruling, before a higher court would overrule. It was too risky and too expensive to proceed with an appeal while not knowing her thinking. The original claim was for $4 million, with the amended complaint increasing punitive damages after I learned, in 2022, that his behavior had not changed. Peter Singer, however, has said that animal experimentation is justified if the good done to others outweighs the harm inflicted on the animals, even making that point with regard to terminal primate research. While I acknowledge there may be reasonable people who agree, who should not be shouted down or shamed, especially given that they may currently be in the majority, I am sorry to see one of them trying to carry the torch for the animal liberation movement.
Another factor, of course, is the presence of activists who are willing to work damn hard to push the boundaries of the circle. “Reason enables us to take the point of view of the universe,” he told me. The same is true for the belief that black people should have the same rights as white people.
I understand that the organizers did not know that for the last few decades Peter Singer has been treating our movement like his personal harem and was, at the time of the conference, fighting that claim in court. It’s entirely possible that we’ll have expanded it in some respects and narrowed it in others. I can imagine us having laws against eating sentient animals, even as we continue to repress certain classes of people.
Zugang zu EPLASS Professional
That is an important point because Peter Singer has publicly accused me of being untruthful. I hope that anybody who questions him will ask him to name any untruth in this essay or the lawsuit, for I am aware of none. The affair resumed, briefly, for what was one of the lowest points of my life. It took a toll, which eventually proved insurmountable, on my primary relationship with a man who had unreservedly supported me and my work for animals.
Malcolm Gladwell spells that out in The Tipping Point, a book all activists should read. The Effective Altruism movement urges funders to donate to charities that can prove how many animals they help. One of the top recommendations is a group that urges food companies to stop using eggs from hens in battery cages. That effort will surely help end that one hideous farming practice and ease some of the suffering of billions of animals. But those approaching the companies would have no success if other activists weren’t changing public opinion, pushing the envelope, and putting societal pressure on those companies to at least make some improvements. It’s worth noting that any choice of litmus test for inclusion in the circle is, to some degree, culturally determined.
He walked out of the fundraising dinner at which he was the guest of honor, and during our next contact he quit the DawnWatch board. The “consent” is questioned in my complaint as it was achieved via deceit, with the married man attesting to an “arrangement” with his wife that did not exist, and his choosing not to reveal that I was becoming one of three current lovers other than his wife. The day I learned of the other women, I broke off our sexual relationship. I was lured back into his orbit a few months later, with the offer of a co-writing credit for a Los Angeles Times piece. That kind of professional pressure to achieve close contact also calls “consent” into question.