22 ideas
| 20289 | Ethics is universalisable - it must involve an impartial and universal view of things [Singer] |
| Full Idea: A distinguishng feature of ethics is that ethical judgements are universalisable. Ethics requires us to go beyond our own personal point of view to a standpoint like that of the impartial spectator who takes a universal point of view. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 10) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that ethical agents are more 'situated' than that. Suppose a finance minister stole billions in tax and gave it to a poor country. Good from the universal angle, perhaps, but a shocking betrayal of his own community. |
| 20286 | Following an inner voice for morality is irresponsible in a rational agent [Singer] |
| Full Idea: When following conscience means doing as one's 'internal voice' prompts one to do, to follow one's conscience it so abdicate one's responsibility as a rational agent. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Seems dead right. An inner voice is far more likely to be your culture and upbringing than to be an absolute moral truth. It may not be entirely wrong, though, to behave as your culture requires. |
| 20282 | The sanctity of a human life depends either on being of our species, or on being a person [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the sanctity of human life has two separate claims, one that there is a special value in the life of a member of our species, and the other that there is a special value in the life of a person. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 04) | |
| A reaction: These don't seem 'separate'. Value cats but not this cat? Value this cat but not cats? In a car crash we value each individual simply because they are people. |
| 20278 | 'Marginal utility' says something is more useful if it is in short supply [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The economic principle of marginal utility states that for a given individual a set amount of something is more useful when the individual has little of it than when he has a lot. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: But individuals may very a lot on this one. 'He can't get enough of X'. I may be desperate to buy 10,000 books, but you may consider such a need ridiculous, so who decides? |
| 20281 | Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me? [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Most striking is the impact of the contract model on our attitude to future generations. 'Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?' would be the view we ought to take. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 03) | |
| A reaction: I should bury my mobile phone for future archaeologists, because it will be more valuable then than it is now. Singer cites the disposal of nuclear waste as an instance. |
| 20276 | Conflict of rules might be avoided by greater complexity, or by a hierarchy of rules [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Those who think ethics is a system of rules can rescue their position by finding more complicated and more specific rules which do not conflict, or by ranking the rules in some hierarchical structure to resolve conflicts. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 01) | |
| A reaction: The problem is that clear-cut rules seem to produce conflicts. I would have thought that more specific rules would increase that problem. Safety is in generality. |
| 20290 | Psychopaths may just be bored, because they cannot participate in normal emotional life [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Maybe psychopaths are bored because their emotional poverty means that they cannot take interest in, or gain satisfaction from, what for others are the most important things in life: love, family, success in business or professional life, etc. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 10) | |
| A reaction: [he cites Hervey Cleckley for this] Maybe boredom is a symptom of some human inadequacy, but it might sometimes be a mark of superiority. It drives people to both creation and destruction. Quite a good account of criminal behaviour. |
| 20288 | You can't condemn violent revolution without assessing the evils it prevents [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It would be one-sided to say that violent revolution is always absolutely wrong, without taking account of the evils that the revolutionaries are trying to stop. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: This seems like common sense, but there are plenty of right-wing authoritarians who would claim that stable authority has priority over all social wrongs. I think that view is mistaken. But the problem is, how to know the future? |
| 21997 | In Marxism the state will be superseded [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It is a famous Marxist doctrine that the state will be superseded. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Marx [1980], 9) | |
| A reaction: Why is that final state communism rather than anarchism? |
| 20287 | If 49% of the population can be wrong, so can 51% [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The case for majority rule should not be overstated. No sensible democrat would claim that the majority is always right. If 49% of the population can be wrong, so can 51%. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Well said! We can't possibly put a figure on when the majority become right. In the recent Brexit referendum hardly anyone seemed to understand the issues very well, so none of us have a clue about who was right. |
| 21993 | Materialist history says we are subject to incomprehensible forces [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The materialist conception of history tells us that human beings are totally subject to forces they do not understand and control. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Marx [1980], 6) | |
| A reaction: How does Marx know the forces? An exceptionally influential idea, because it is a modern commonplace that we have very little control over our own lives (apart from right wingers asserting that 'you can have anything if you really really want it'). |
| 22252 | Capitalism may actually be the best way to foster community [Conway,D] |
| Full Idea: Not only is there no good reason for supposing capitalism inimical to community, but there is reason to think it more conducive to community than the feasible alternatives to it. | |
| From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], I) | |
| A reaction: Conway is defending an obviously unorthodox view, while attacking the hopes of communitarians. |
| 22253 | Capitalism is just the market, with optional limited government, and perhaps democracy [Conway,D] |
| Full Idea: There are three types of capitalism: 1) the market - private ownership, labor contracts and profit, 2) limited government - the state provides goods the market cannot do, 3) limited government with democracy - with political freedom and elections. | |
| From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], II) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I would have thought that capitalism is compatible with a fair degree of workplace democracy, which would make a fourth type. |
| 22256 | Capitalism prefers representative democracy, which avoids community decision-making [Conway,D] |
| Full Idea: By opting for representative rather than direct democracy, capitalism is said to preclude political community, for which the citizens of a state must possess a common will, which needs their direct participation in decisions. | |
| From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], V) | |
| A reaction: Conway does not accept this claim. I'm beginning to wonder whether the famous British electoral system is actually a capitalist conspiracy against the people. |
| 22255 | Capitalism breaks up extended families, and must then provide welfare for the lonely people [Conway,D] |
| Full Idea: It is said that capitalism encourages the breakup of extended families, which creates the need for extensive state welfare for those indigent members of society who can no longer rely on their own family to take care of them. | |
| From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], V) | |
| A reaction: Conway does not accept this claim. It seems to simplistic to say that capitalism is the sole culprit. Any rise of mechanisation in agriculture would break up rural extended families. |
| 22257 | Capitalism is anti-community, by only valuing individuals, and breaking up families [Conway,D] |
| Full Idea: Communitarns say capitalism is inimical to family community, because it encourages an individualistic mentality which only values self-fulfilment, and because it demands labour mobility which is disruptive of families. | |
| From: David Conway (Capitalism and Community [1996], VI) | |
| A reaction: Chicken-and-egg with the first one. Small entrepreneurs are individualists who seek their own gain. It is big capitalism that sucks in the others. Traditional community is based on labour-intensive agriculture. |
| 20277 | Equality of interests is a minimal principle, not implying equal treatment [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Equal consideration of interests is a minimal principle of equality in the sense that it does not dictate equal treatment. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: Do those convicted of serious crime retain equal interests? Should a huge group of people sacrifice all of their interests, because of the powerful interests of one person? |
| 20279 | Equality of opportunity unfairly rewards those lucky enough to have great ability [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Equality of opportunity is not an attractive ideal. It rewards the lucky, who inherit those abilities that allow them to pursue interesting and lucrative careers. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: He makes it sound like cheating. Singer has a highly individualistic view, but society as a whole needs the development of talent, wherever it can be found. |
| 20285 | If a right entails having the relevant desire, many creatures might have no right to life [Singer] |
| Full Idea: If to have a right one must have the ability to desire that to which one has a right, then to have a right to life one must be able to desire one's own continued existence. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 07) | |
| A reaction: The unborn, small infants, and persons in comas may well lack the relevant desire (at least consciously - arguably even a plant has a non-conscious 'desire' or drive for life). The idea that a right entails a conscious desire seems daft. |
| 20284 | Why should a potential person have the rights of an actual person? [Singer] |
| Full Idea: A prince may be a potential king, but he does not have the rights of a king. Why should a potential person have the rights of a person? | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 06) | |
| A reaction: But the prince is probably accorded special rights, merely on the grounds that he is the potential king. An unborn potential king is always considered as special. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |
| 20283 | Killing a chimp is worse than killing a human too defective to be a person [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It seems that killing a chimpanzee is worse than the killing of a gravely defective human who is not a person. ...[p.103] the effects on relatives of the defective human will sometimes constitute additional indirect reasons against killing the human. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 05) | |
| A reaction: Singer's most notorious idea. Perhaps we should all carry cards (perhaps combined with donor cards) saying how many people will care if we die. |