Peter Singer's motivations for his philosophy

[Jason_Hurd]

Interesting analogy, but if a policeman saw me going on a rampage (running down people with cars) akin to that of what the protagonist does on Grand Theft Auto (the video games), it is morally acceptable for him to kill me with brutal force as my actions are not in the best interest of society.

The same can be said about Hitler; he needed to be stopped, but obviously an omnipotent God is capable of stopping Hitler, but did not choose to do anything about it.

An omnipotent God can do many things. He could have stopped Hurricane Katrina. He could have nipped the HIV virus in the bud before it spread to humans. He could have prevented the 9/11 disaster. Unfortunately, your analogy of a policeman does not really apply. It presupposes a God who, rather than allowing us as humans to grow and mature through suffering, would shield us from any and all evil, thus preventing the spiritual and emotional growth that come from our encounters with evil and disaster. The whole question is simultaneously complex and simple. Just because God is omnipotent does not mean he will, or even should, intervene any and every time we are threatened. Evil as the Holocaust was, many good things came from it, not the least of which was the myriad opportunities for personal heroism that it brought about. It also showed that, rosy as our self-view as human beings may be, we are capable of great monstrousness and bestial behavior. The whole period of history from 1933-1945 stands as a monument to our capacity for cruelty, and hopefully this is one of the things that will help keep some of us humble and careful about our attitudes and actions.

 

[ribozyme]

An omnipotent God can do many things. He could have stopped Hurricane Katrina. He could have nipped the HIV virus in the bud before it spread to humans. He could have prevented the 9/11 disaster. Unfortunately, your analogy of a policeman does not really apply. It presupposes a God who, rather than allowing us as humans to grow and mature through suffering, would shield us from any and all evil, thus preventing the spiritual and emotional growth that come from our encounters with evil and disaster. The whole question is simultaneously complex and simple. Just because God is omnipotent does not mean he will, or even should, intervene any and every time we are threatened. Evil as the Holocaust was, many good things came from it, not the least of which was the myriad opportunities for personal heroism that it brought about. It also showed that, rosy as our self-view as human beings may be, we are capable of great monstrousness and bestial behavior. The whole period of history from 1933-1945 stands as a monument to our capacity for cruelty, and hopefully this is one of the things that will help keep some of us humble and careful about our attitudes and actions.

Interesting perspective, I do agree that some good can come out of the Holocaust, and it is indeed a reminder of what humanity is capable of doing to each other. We should never forget about the Holocaust because of this.

Well, that is an example of human inflicted evil, but I ask what good has came out of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. How did that motivate us to love one another. Instead, it shows the power of nature, and how it could kill humans indiscriminately.

 

[Veritas41]

Well, I am saying that it is because of the problem of evil, he does not believe in God, or includes him in is ethical theory. Whether you disagree with him or not, Peter Singer wants a better world for everyone, not himself or for a group.
***How do you define “better world?” Who determines what constitutes a better world with a philosophy that denies God and absolute truth? Hitler thought he was making a better world, not just for himself, but for all Germans by exterminating Jews and other “undesirables.” ***
Unlike the Nazis in Germany, Singer is concerned with the best interests of everyone, not only a small group.
***Again, how do you determine what is in the “best interests” of “everyone?” Is it in the “best interests” of a handicapped newborn to kill it? Have you ever read about the history of euthanasia in the Netherlands? It started out being only for those who were terminally ill and who requested it. Now people who are just depressed or suffer chronic ailments are killed. And recent studies indicate a high percentage (I don’t remember the exact number) are involuntary – doctors in the Netherlands are taking it upon themselves to determine who should live and who should die, presumably in what they perceive to be the “best interests” of everyone. It is now to the point where elderly people are afraid to go to the hospital in that country because they don’t know if the doctor is going to treat them or kill them. ***
I think Singer’s philosophy of utilitarianism prevents tragedies like the Holocaust from happening because we have to act in the best interest of others. Singer’s decisions about life are not arbitrary though.
***How can you say that his philosophy of utilitarianism prevents tragedies like the holocaust? All the holocausts that have occurred because a person or group of persons determined that it was expedient that others die for what they perceived as being for their own good or good of their country, etc. Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, you name them, none of them operated within a Judeo-Christian moral framework that upheld the intrinsic dignity of man as a person created in the image of God. Singer’s decisions about life are highly arbitrary. As I mentioned in my previous post, he has seriously suggested making it legal to kill newborns up to two months of age. Why stop at two – why not six months, one year or eighteen years or whatever arbitrary age you want to pick? What about people who are born with no illnesses or deformities, but have tragic accidents that may render them paralyzed or disfigured – do we kill them? Why or why not? ***How are Singer’s views akin to those of the Nazis… In fact, he wants to prevent human suffering.
***If you look at the history of the rise of the Nazis, they didn’t start out with a massive program of genocide. It began incrementally with the legalization of abortion and the practice of euthanasia, both were legalized with the intention of getting rid of “undesirables” like the mentally retarded, etc. And the people killed under their euthanasia program were not killed with their families’ consent – families were notified of the person’s death and given a false cause of death like pneumonia or something like that. These people were loved by their families and had people to take care of them, but the Nazis considered their lives not worth living. Singer believes some lives are not worth living and believes in abortion and euthanasia to eliminate those lives. Do we prevent human suffering by killing people? How about the suffering of the families of those who are killed? ***

1. Does atheism solve the problems of evil?
   No, but we should do our best to prevent evil.
   How do we determine what is evil if we have no absolute standard of right and wrong? And if we disagree on what is evil, how can we work to prevent it if we cannot agree on what it is?

I have one question for all of you. Why do you believe in a personal God, even if there is evil in the world? Why didn’t you become like Peter Singer, an atheist, with this dilemma.

Because there isn’t only evil in the world – there is much good. And like other posters have said, evil is a possibility because God has given us the free will, the capability, to choose evil. Love is a choice, and God doesn’t force us to love Him or our fellow man. And God Himself didn’t exempt Himself from experiencing and suffering under the evil in this world. He became a Man and died a most brutal and agonizing death, taking upon Himself the punishment for all the evil that has ever been committed or ever will be committed by mankind. God isn’t an abstract, theoretical concept for us – He is a Person we know, we love and see work in our lives and our hearts every day.

 

[ribozyme]

Veritas41:
Because there isn’t only evil in the world – there is much good. And like other posters have said, evil is a possibility because God has given us the free will, the capability, to choose evil. Love is a choice, and God doesn’t force us to love Him or our fellow man. And God Himself didn’t exempt Himself from experiencing and suffering under the evil in this world. He became a Man and died a most brutal and agonizing death, taking upon Himself the punishment for all the evil that has ever been committed or ever will be committed by mankind. God isn’t an abstract, theoretical concept for us – He is a Person we know, we love and see work in our lives and our hearts every day.

I think it is humanity that is inherently good, not the intervention of God in the world. We are capable of benevolence without God, and we must do what we can to prevent the triumph of malice and hatred in the world (such as the Holocaust).

 

[JimG]

I think it is humanity that is inherently good, not the intervention of God in the world. We are capable of benevolence without God, and we must do what we can to prevent the triumph of malice and hatred in the world (such as the Holocaust).

Unfortunately, evil does not have its roots only in malice and hatred. It was Flannery O’Conner who wrote: "“If we are not ruled by faith, we are ruled by compassion, and compassion leads to the gas chamber.” Which brings us back to Peter Singer.

 

[ribozyme]

Unfortunately, evil does not have its roots only in malice and hatred. It was Flannery O’Conner who wrote: "“If we are not ruled by faith, we are ruled by compassion, and compassion leads to the gas chamber.” Which brings us back to Peter Singer.

Could you please explain that quote to me. How does compassion lead to the gas chamber?

 

[JimG]

Could you please explain that quote to me. How does compassion lead to the gas chamber?

Keep in mind that the gas chamber in the Flannery O’Conner quote is a metaphor. It need not be an actual gas chamber, just something that leads to killing.

So let’s start here: compassion for women in distress leads to killing of their unborn children.

Compassion for the elderly may lead to us putting them out of their misery.

Compassion for the disabled means they don’t deserve to live (Singer’s thesis). Society is better off if they don’t.

(PS–Let me add a hypothetical example: A compassionate Drill Instructor might go easy on his troops; he wouldn’t push them too hard. Once he was through with his compassionate treatment of them, those softie troops would quickly die on the battlefield.)

Compassion for the poor leads to the elimination of poverty? Hmm, in practice it has led to more abortions for the poor, resulting in fewer poor, and less respect for their lives.

For Terri Schiavo, compassion meant starving her to death.

Or in the case of the Nazi’s, compassion for the Jews, the Gypsies, and others meant that their racial makeup being inferior, their lives were really not worth living; compassion meant putting them in the gas chamber, and according to the Nazi view, society was better off too. (another echo of Singer here.)

In Fidel Castro’s Cuba in the 1960’s compassion for the peasants led to the firing squad for the middle class and the businessmen.

 

[deb1]

I think it is humanity that is inherently good, not the intervention of God in the world. We are capable of benevolence without God, and we must do what we can to prevent the triumph of malice and hatred in the world (such as the Holocaust).

What is goodness? If there is no God then there is no good or evil. Those are only man made terms, after all. On what do you base your definition of goodness and evil?

Why was the Holocaust wrong? Because it killed women and children? Why is that wrong?

Do you believe that there are some things that are always wrong? If so, why?

 

[Ham1]

What is goodness? If there is no God then there is no good or evil. Those are only man made terms, after all. On what do you base your definition of goodness and evil?

Why was the Holocaust wrong? Because it killed women and children? Why is that wrong?

Do you believe that there are some things that are always wrong? If so, why?

Well put…

Ribozyme, you say we must “do what we can to prevent the triumph of malice and hatred in the world.” But how do you define malice, how do you define evil?

Isn’t evil just the absence of good?

 

[Dai_Yoshida]

Interesting analogy, but if a policeman saw me going on a rampage (running down people with cars) akin to that of what the protagonist does on Grand Theft Auto (the video games), it is morally acceptable for him to kill me with brutal force as my actions are not in the best interest of society.

The same can be said about Hitler; he needed to be stopped, but obviously an omnipotent God is capable of stopping Hitler, but did not choose to do anything about it.

Ribozyme:

God is not a policeman. You are the policeman.

You are sitting next to an old woman in a bus. A man comes in, drags the old woman out of her seat and beats the woman to death.

Can you say, “Oh why, oh why didn’t God stop this man?”

Wasn’t it your place to come to the woman’s aid? Don’t take yourself out of the equasion.

 

[st_lucy]

How could one reconcile to notion of a loving God with the Holocaust. Peter Singer found this an impossible reconcilation, so that explains why he is an atheist.

I hear this so much that I have found this to be a very interesting answer.

If God created everything, then he must have created evil. Why?" This is a question that used to burn on my mind and I am sure it burns on the minds of others. When I found the following story, I nearly jumped out of my seat. If you are searching for the answer to this difficult question, I think this story should suffice.

The university professor challenged his students with this question. “Did God create everything that exists?” A student bravely replied, “Yes, he did!”

“God created everything?” The professor asked.

“Yes sir”, the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil.” The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask you a question professor?”

“Of course”, replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The students snickered at the young man’s question.

The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, “Of course it does.”

The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”

Finally the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?”

Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”

To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”

The professor sat down.

The young man’s name — Albert Einstein.

 

[Dai_Yoshida]

The same can be said about Hitler; he needed to be stopped, but obviously an omnipotent God is capable of stopping Hitler, but did not choose to do anything about it.

Ribozyme:

I have trained in martial arts since I was 8 years old. I am 47 now. The same hands that change my son’s diapers can squeeze the life out of a man twice my size. If I chose to go on a killing rampage I could do a lot of damage before they take me down. But it wouldn’t happen because I choose not to let it happen.

God did not stop Hitler because you are Hitler. I am Hitler.

If Hitler had no followers he would have been powerless. Every person who followed Hitler and every person who stood back and watched are also responsible for the Holocaust. It’s a poor argument for Atheism.

 

[Rosalinda]

Ribozyme asked:

Could you please explain that quote to me. How does compassion lead to the gas chamber?

In Nazi Germany the sick and handicapped children were the first to die under the guise of compassion. Just like we already see practiced, openly and legally in the Netherlands today, and clandestinely in America, physicians obtained the consent of the parents to quietly euthanize their children. It was misguided compassion yesterday. Today it is finding increasing favour thanks to the likes of Peter Singer. This article at LifeSiteNews today:

…The mass grave of 22 children and 29 adults thought to have been victims of the Nazi government’s Euthanasia program, has been discovered in the cemetery of a Catholic church in the village of Menden-Barge…
The grave site is near a hospital once run by Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, who headed Action T-4, the Nazi state euthanasia program that “compassionately” murdered hospitalized handicapped infants, children, elderly and mentally ill people and even veterans before it was ordered stopped.
The T-4 program allowed the Nazi’s to develop the gas chamber technology that was used on a large scale in the death camps such as Auschwitz. The excavation of the Menden-Barge cemetery is still under way…

lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06100505.html

I agree with you Ribozyme; people are inherently good. To bypass the natural repugnance we have to killing defenseless human beings, the “Prince of Darkness” is clever enough to distract us with circumlocutions convincing us evil is good, wrong is right and death is preferable to life. Incrementally, evil gains momentum as it advances unchallenged by ordinary folk who never imagined ideas could have such destructive consequences. The death toll the last century to atheism, fascism and communism was more than a 100 million.

 

[Rosalinda]

Current Medical Euthanasia and Eugenic Abortion Practices Echo Nazi Past
Planned Parenthood foundress Margaret Sanger worked with the Nazi’s in early 1930s
BERLIN, October 2, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Recent research into the Nazi euthanasia programme has shown that as many as 200,000 institutionalized patients were killed beginning in 1939 before the instigation of the Jewish Holocaust.

Germany’s Federal Archive released a report Tuesday revealing new evidence that doctors and other hospital staff used gas, drugs or starvation to kill the disabled patients as part of Hitler’s programme of racial purification…

lifesite.net/ldn/2003/oct/03100208.html

One doesn’t have to be a believer to believe this was wrong.

 

[ribozyme]

For defining “good” and “evil” I will use the utilitarian definition:

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, 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. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Source:
utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm

Good promotes happiness, evil promotes pain and suffering, thus they are two discrete entities.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Good promotes happiness, evil promotes pain and suffering, thus they are two discrete entities.

What time frame do you use to decide if something is good or evil? Fifteen minutes? One day? Two years? Thirty years? Eternity?

Exercise fanatics say “no pain, no gain” because there’s some reality to that. If we eat only junk food and never exercise, our bodies may become unhealthy, and that may lead to unhappiness. What appears pleasurable in the short term may ultimately lead to unhappiness. Excessive pleasure without restraint ultimately leads to suffering. Likewise, what apears to cause sufferring may lead to great joy.

If you use a time frame such as eternity to decide if something is good or evil, your definition might work, but without an eternal perspective, your definition can’t really distinguish good from evil.

 

[deb1]

For defining “good” and “evil” I will use the utilitarian definition:

Source:
utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm

Good promotes happiness, evil promotes pain and suffering, thus they are two discrete entities.

Your definition is very broad.

What about those who give their lives for others? By giving their lives and suffering for another are they promoting evil?

For some psychopaths torturing people gives them pleasure and not doing so gives them pain. Wouldn’t such a definition of goodness and evil be very subjective and dependent on the individual’s own emotions?

Killing someone would become good for the serial killer but evil for his victims.

How far does promoting happiness go? Am I only good if I promote others’ happiness, even if it is ultimately harmful to the person. What if I provide a die hard alcoholic with alcohol? Am I doing right or wrong? After all, it makes him/ her happy.

Animals don’t worry about one anothers pleasure and pain but work on instinct and a desire for their own survival. Why am I held to a higher standard then an animal?

 

[Rosalinda]

Ribozyme, When the novelity of your utilitarian philosophy wears off try this as a powerful antidote to your depression.

RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS

1. Feed the hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Clothe the naked.
4. Shelter the homeless.
5. Visit the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.

Ribozyme.

 

[jimmy]

I have recently got a copy of* Practical Ethics *from a library, and from reading it, I would say that some of Singer’s views might be wrong. But I would like to point out that he really wants to alleivate suffering in the world. He sincerely believes in this. I don’t think Peter Singer should be viewed as some ogre, but he honestly wants humanity to be happy; he has good intentions, regardless of whether his views are wrong.

Well, regarding the topic, I found this website:

humanevents.com/article.php?id=7942

This explains Peter Singer’s atheism, and from reading that, one should sympathetic to him because of his history. He is like myself because we do not find Christianity palatable to the problem of evil.

Any commentary?

Hitler had good intentions I would bet but no one would say that we should symathize with him.

 

[deb1]

ribozyme please hurry back. I enjoy conversations like these and you’ve disappeared!

I want to see your responses to our answers.

Maybe I am strange but I like debate that is intelligent and polite. I, also, feel like my faith can stand up to the challange of difficult questions.