Peter Singer 1946

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Peter Singer (1946- )

• Utilitarianism continued

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• Principle of Utility (or, the Greatest Happiness
  Principle)
• holds that actions are right in proportion as
  they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they
  tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (p.257)

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Lets take an example

• Is meat-eating morally justified?
• The utilitarian as Mill suggests is obliged
  to take into consideration the suffering of all
  sentient creatures. So, the suffering of the
  animal weighed against the pleasure of the
  meat-eater. And, not only the suffering in death,
  but also in life raising questions about
  modern, industrialised farming practices.

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• One might argue that this still comes out in
  favour of meat-eating (raises important question
  of who weighs the pros and cons) at least if we
  were to use humane farming practices.

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• But, one might also raise yet another set of
  consequences consequences for the environment.
  Meat-eating, one can argue, (esp. in the
  developed world) is an inefficient and
  environmentally destructive practice.

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• But, the utilitarian must also recognise
  cultural exceptions eg. Eskimos (Inuit) may
  be justified in meat-eating because of their
  geographical limitations and their culture. Or,
  eg. traditional fishing village...

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• Then, there is also the question of the extent of
  any individuals involvement is the individual
  act of eating a hamburger morally wrong for (any
  of) these reasons?
• Is it wrong because it is based on a
  non-justified practice?

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• NB even though various forms of utilitarianism
  promise to give us a clear method for evaluating
  calculating the morality of our actions they
  dont end the debate. Even utilitarians will
  disagree over relative values and disvalues of
  expected consequences.

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• Peter Singer is a prominent and controversial
  contemporary moral philosopher working in the
  utilitarian, or consequentialist, mode.
• Well look at an extract from his book Practical
  Ethics on the justifications for taking human
  life.

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• I have already pointed out that moral
  philosophers tend to work with the same set of
  moral prohibitions (no lying, stealing, killing,
  etc), but that their reasons justifications
  change hugely.
• With Singer well see one (in fact, several)
  possible ways of arguing that killing human
  beings is immoral.

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• What is a human?
• We may define it in terms of the species homo
  sapiens
• But, Singer questions whether species membership
  can be morally relevant.

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• That is to treat a member of one species
  differently just because of that membership is
  analagous to racism.
• It is what Singer calls speciesism.

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• So, for Singer, from a moral point of view,
  membership of our species is not relevant.
• However, there is another way of thinking about
  human which is morally relevant.

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• Singer (along with many other moral philosophers)
  uses the idea of person as a category which
  often coincides with human, but doesnt
  necessarily do so.
• Example adult humans, intelligent aliens but
  not severely handicapped humans, permanently
  comatose humans, etc.

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• For Singer, a person is a RATIONAL and
  SELF-CONSCIOUS being.
• So, the question now becomes whats wrong with
  killing rational self-conscious beings?

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• Singer presents four possible reasons why killing
  a person may be wrong. These reasons are based on
  claims about the way that a persons life is more
  valuable than a non-persons life.
• They are

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• The classical (or, act) utilitarian concern with
  the effect of killing on others. This is an
  indirect reason.
• The preference utilitarian concern with the
  frustration of the persons desires and plans for
  the future.
• That the person (since they have the capacity to
  conceive of themselves as existing over time)
  have a right to life.
• That we must respect the autonomy of persons.