Interviews Peter Singer, director of the Centre for Human Bioethics
at Monash University in Australia, on animal rights. His views on how his
family history influenced his choice to be an ethicist; Influence of his
book 'Animal Liberation,' on the rise of animal rights movement; Analysis
on the rights of people who are considered brain dead.
By
Neale Duckworth, published on January 01, 1999
PS: Numbers matter, but I'd assume the preference of that one being
not to die is much more intense than the preferences of the other ten to
kill it. You'd have to actually live all 11 of those lives to know for
certain.
PT: Right--so how can you evaluate the intensity of a preference
from the outside?
PS: It's very hard. You can't actually go around living a moral
life by doing those calculations all the time. That's why we have moral
rules of thumb.
In general, most people have a very serious, intense preference to
continue to live that outweighs almost any other preference. But these
rules don't have absolute moral status.
PT: What do you say to those who see you as an advocate of
eugenics, even an advocate of death?
PS: Well, all my views are motivated by an abhorrence of gratuitous
suffering, and an attempt to allay that.
One of the issues I've written about is the obligation we all have
to assist people in need in the Third World. When people call me an
advocate of death, I wonder how much they're doing to save lives overseas
by distributing wealth more equally
PT: You yourself give money to help people overseas.
PS: For the last 25 years I've given away 10% of my income, and
more recently, the royalties from Practical Ethics. I question the
motives of people who complain about my views but don't actively try to
extend lives by giving more to overseas aid. The next time they go out
and buy a luxury item, they should consider that they could be helping
people dying from preventable diarrhea or malnutrition.
PT: You've tackled some huge and thorny philosophical issues. What
are you going to turn to next?
PS: I've taken time off from Monash University to write a biography
of my grandfather. He was a member of Freud's Wednesday circle [a group
of Freud's followers]. Later he left it, along with Alfred Adler.
He was also a victim of the Holocaust. I have many letters he and
my grandmother wrote, and they're very moving. At the end he could only
send little Red Cross notes.
PT: Can I take a look at them?
PS: They're in German. This one is from my grandmother to my
father, after the liberation. I'll translate: "It's really difficult...to
write after such a long sad time. Your dear father is no more...I never
though I'd live to see this day; and I can't celebrate this long-awaited
freedom, the one thing I hoped for. Reunion with you seems
unreachable...I don't even know when this letter will reach you...About
my future life I can't and don't want to say today. I don't know how I
will live."
PT: It's hard to imagine someone writing and trying to express the
inexpressible. Did she come to live with you after that?
PS: Yes. I remember her as being frail, thin and very loving. She
was in the house with us a lot. She died when I was about nine.
PT: So we're back to my original question about your family's
history in the Holocaust illuminating your life and ethics.
PS: Indifference to suffering was so evident in the Holocaust.
Unfortunately, it's still evident in many of the areas of ethics with
which I'm concerned.
Tags:
animal rights,
animal rights movement,
death,
ethicist,
ethics,
human rights,
laboratory animals,
melbourne australia,
morality,
princeton university,
s center,
university in australia
