## Inbox ## Parfit on objectivity and “ the Profoundest Problem of ethics” Singer and [[=Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek]]. And if we are not thereby required to “abandon morality altogether,” we will at least have to abandon “the idea of rationalising it completely.” 2Sidgwick calls this problem “the dualism of practical reason” and says that it is “the profoundest problem of ethics.” In On What Matters, Parfit describes Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics as “the best book on ethics ever written.” 3If the conclusion of the best book ever written on ethics is that some of our apparently most solid and carefully examined intuitions about practical reason are illusory, this poses a serious problem for anyone who, like Parfit, defends the view that we can know some ethical judgments to be objectively true because they are based on reason. --- **whether the normative beliefs help us to survive and reproduce has nothing to do with whether they are true**, and we have no empirical evidence, nor any other grounds, for believing them to be true. Hence we are not justified in believing that the normative beliefs we hold are true. Parfit calls this “the Naturalist Argument for Normative Skepticism.” It has recently been pressed in a particularly forceful form by Sharon Street. --- Parfit presents Sidgwick’s view of the dualism as follows: > [T]he Dualism of Practical Reason: We always have most reason to do whatever would be impartially best, unless some other act would be best for ourselves. In such cases, we would have sufficient reasons to act in either way. If we knew the relevant facts, either act would be rational. Rational egoism is false because it asserts that we could not have sufficient reason to do what is worse for us. But I would have sufficient reasons, for example, to suffer an injury in order to save the life of a stranger. Rational impartialism is false because it maintains that we could not have sufficient reasons to do what would be impartially worse. But I would have sufficient reasons to save my own life rather than the lives of several strangers. This leads Parfit to what he calls: > [W]ide value-based objective view: When one of our two possible acts would make things go in some way that would be impartially better, but the other act would make things go better either for ourselves or for those to whom we have close ties, we often have sufficient reasons to act in either of these ways.7 On Parfit’s view, it would not be rational for me to do something that would be only very slightly better for me, but very bad impartially. For instance, it would not be rational to save myself from one minute of discomfort if doing so meant that a million people would die or suffer agony. Our self-interested reasons can be outweighed by impartial or moral reasons. Nevertheless, **because the relative strength of these different kinds of reasons is very imprecise, there is a wide range of cases about which Parfit agrees with Sidgwick that it is not irrational to do what is in one’s own interests, and also not irrational to do what is impartially better**. This would include, for instance, a case in which I have to choose between an injury to myself or saving the life of a stranger, whether the injury were losing one finger, or losing both legs; similarly it would include a case in which I have to choose between saving my own life or saving the lives of strangers, whether the number of strangers whose lives are at stake were two or 2,000. Despite this wide range of imprecision in the guidance reason can give us, Parfit says that Sidgwick’s famous despairing remarks about the damage that the unresolved dualism does to the rational basis of ethics are “overstatements.” significantly, Parfit denies that our whole system of beliefs of what is reasonable in conduct would fall “if we concluded that, when duty and self-interest conflict, we could reasonably, or rationally, act in either way.” On the other hand, he concedes: “But it would be bad if, in such cases, we and others would have sufficient reasons to act wrongly. The _moralist’s problem_, we might say, is whether we can avoid that conclusion. And it would be disappointing if, in such cases, reason gave us no guidance.”8 Parfit then reformulates Sidgwick’s dualism in terms of two questions: “What do I have most reason to do?” and “what ought I morally to do?” Parfit accepts that if the two questions often had conflicting answers, so that we often had decisive reason to act wrongly, morality would be undermined. “For morality to matter,” he writes, “we must have reasons to care about morality, and to avoid acting wrongly.” We could try to claim that though it is rational to act contrary to morality, these acts would still be wrong, and hence morality would not be undermined. But this would make morality trivial --- Parfit does not defend the claim that we always have decisive reasons to act morally. He writes: We might have sufficient reasons to act wrongly, for example, if some wrong act was our only way to save from great pain or death, not ourselves, but our close relatives, or other people whom we love.10 In a personal communication, Parfit has offered an example of what he has in mind. 11Suppose a man saves his own life and that of his two children by stealing medicine from a stranger who, as the man knows, needs the medicine to save her own life and that of her four children. Parfit agrees that this man’s act would be wrong, but he finds it hard to accept that this man would be acting irrationally. --- #### 3. Street’s Darwinian Dilemma *Highlight [284]:* any form of the dualism of practical reason, whether it is Sidgwick’s original version of it or Parfit’s modified version, undermines morality to a significant degree. If we want morality to have the importance that it is often believed to have, we need to be able to overcome the dualism completely. *Highlight [284]:* Sharon Street has argued that a “Darwinian Dilemma” faces those who hold a realist theory of value. The defining claim of realism, as Street uses the term, is that at least some evaluative facts or truths hold independently of all our evaluative attitudes, so Parfit is a realist in Street’s sense. Street starts from a premise that we fully accept: “Evolutionary forces have played a tremendous role in shaping the content of human evaluative attitudes.” 12She then argues that those who defend objective moral truth face a choice between two uncongenial possibilities. The first possibility is that evolutionary forces have no tendency to lead to the selection of beings who hold objectively true evaluative attitudes. In this case, objectivists will have to admit that most of our evaluative judgments are unjustified. The second possibility is that evolutionary forces did favor the selection of those who are able to grasp objective moral *Text [284]:* PH: The issue here is that moral/evaluative truth is being thought of as distinct from adaptiveness. *Highlight [285]:* truths. But this, Street argues, is contrary to a scientific understanding of how evolution works. *Highlight [285]:* It is not so easy to see how evolutionary forces would lead us to make only judgments that are objectively true. Why should the truth of a judgment be something that evolution favors? As Street says, it is more scientifically plausible to explain human evaluative attitudes as having evolved because they help us to survive and to have surviving offspring, than because they are true. *Underline [285]:* it is more scientifically plausible to explain human evaluative attitudes as having evolved because they help us to survive and to have surviving offspring, than because they are true. *Highlight [285]:* Assuming that in some way we could be intelligent, but with reproductive patterns more like those of social insects or lions, we would, she claims, have different basic evaluative attitudes that would lead us to make different reflective evaluative judgments *Highlight [286]:* In responding to such doubts about our evaluative attitudes, utilitarians are at an advantage over those who hold moral views that are based on our commonly accepted moral rules or intuitions. Utilitarians seek to maximize utility in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. If therefore we find ourselves in very different circumstances, perhaps as intelligent sentient social insects, or as lions, with their modes of reproducing and surviving, the specific acts that will be right or wrong in those circumstances will be very different from the specific acts that are right or wrong for us as we are now, but it will still be true that we ought to maximize utility. Hence it is quite possible for a utilitarian to accept what Street describes as the “far-fetched skeptical result” that “most of our evaluative judgments are off-track due to the distorting pressure of Darwinian forces.” Given that evolutionary forces operate at the level of the gene or the individual, or at most the community, rather than at the level of the species (and certainly not at the level of all sentient beings), it is quite plausible that these evolutionary forces have produced evaluative attitudes that fail to conduce to ultimate moral truths such as “Maximize the utility of all sentient beings.” We can therefore reject any particular judgments based on these evolved evaluative attitudes, while maintaining the validity of the more general principle that we should do what is best for the well-being of all. *Highlight [286]:* Street would no doubt then try to press her argument against the ultimate principle. How do we reach it, if it has no relation to our evolved basic evaluative attitudes? *Highlight [286]:* When it comes to an ultimate principle like that of doing what is best for the well-being of all, however, rationalists like Sidgwick and Parfit have a good response. They can say that we come to understand such principles by the use of our reason. *Underline [286]:* When it comes to an ultimate principle like that of doing what is best for the well-being of all, however, rationalists like Sidgwick and Parfit have a good response. They can say that we come to understand such principles by the use of our reason. *Highlight [287]:* Street correctly points out that a specific capacity for recognizing moral truths would not increase our reproductive success. But as Parfit points out, a capacity to reason would tend to increase our reproductive success *Highlight [287]:* Moreover, once we have this capacity to reason, it may lead us to other true beliefs, some unrelated to survival and reproduction. These beliefs may be about physics, such as beliefs about black holes, or about higher mathematics, or about valid proofs. They may also, Parfit has suggested, be normative epistemic beliefs, for instance, the belief that, when some argument is valid and has true premises, these facts give us a decisive reason to believe this conclusion. Parfit argues that this normative claim, about what we have decisive reason to believe, is not itself evolutionarily advantageous, since to gain that advantage, it would have been sufficient to have the non-normative beliefs that the argument is valid, and has true premises, and that the conclusion must be true. Hence *Highlight [288]:* this and other normative epistemic beliefs are not open to a debunking argument. 17This may also hold for some of our moral beliefs. Parfit suggests the Golden Rule, which in his formulation requires us to “treat other people only in ways in which we would be willing to be treated by others, whether or not these others treat us in these ways.” As Parfit points out, natural selection cannot easily explain our widespread acceptance of the Golden Rule. 18A similar example would be Sidgwick’s axiom of universal benevolence.19 *Highlight [288]:* It appears to be the case, however, that we have retained capacities to reason that do not confer any evolutionary advantage, and may even be disadvantageous. How can that be? A plausible explanation of the existence of these capacities is that the ability to reason comes as a package that could not be economically divided by evolutionary pressures. Either we have a capacity to reason that includes the capacity to do advanced physics and mathematics and to grasp objective moral truths, or we have a much more limited capacity to reason that lacks not only these abilities, but others that confer an overriding evolutionary advantage. If reason is a unity of this kind, having *Highlight [289]:* the package would have been more conducive to survival and reproduction than not having it. *Highlight [289]:* but given that philosophers like Sidgwick have long said that it is our capacity to reason that enables us to grasp moral truths, and given that we can explain why a capacity to reason would have been evolutionarily advantageous, it is odd that Street does not directly confront the idea that the capacity to grasp moral truths is simply an application of our capacity to reason, which enables us to grasp a priori truths in general, including both the truths of mathematics, and moral truths. #### 4. Which Moral Beliefs Survive the Evolutionary Critique? *Highlight [290]:* Evolutionary theorists have long had difficulty in explaining how pure altruism is possible. They tend to explain it in terms of more limited forms of altruism, such as altruism toward kin, and reciprocal altruism, that is, altruism toward those with whom we are in a cooperative relationship. Some theorists also accept the possibility of altruism toward one’s own group. It is, however, difficult to see any evolutionary forces that could have favored universal altruism of the sort that is required by the axiom of rational benevolence. On the contrary, there are strong evolutionary forces that would tend to eliminate it. In the absence of an appeal to our evolved capacity to reason as the basis for our ability to grasp moral truth, therefore, it is difficult to see what plausible evolutionary explanation there could be for the idea of equal concern for the interests of complete strangers who do not belong to one’s own group.2 *Highlight [290]:* an evolutionary understanding of the origins of our ethical judgments does seem to undermine some of our ethical judgments, at least to the extent of suggesting that we should not take them for granted merely because we intuitively judge them to be sound. *Underline [290]:* an evolutionary understanding of the origins of our ethical judgments does seem to undermine some of our ethical judgments, at least to the extent of suggesting that we should not take them for granted merely because we intuitively judge them to be sound. *Highlight [291]:* This is not to say that the judgment that we have greater obligations to help our own children than to help strangers cannot be justified, but #### 5. The Dualism Resolved *Underline [292]:* justified, it needs a form of justification that does not start from the idea that because we strongly feel that it is right, it must be true. *Highlight [292]:* rather that if it is to be justified, it needs a form of justification that does not start from the idea that because we strongly feel that it is right, it must be true. For instance, it may be the case that our nature is such that the most reliable way of raising happy, well-adjusted children is to raise them in a close, caring family, united by natural ties of love and affection. If so, then this would provide an indirect justification of the judgment that we have greater obligations to our own children than to the children of strangers. Given the kind of creatures we are—mammals with children who are dependent on us for many years—loving our own children and helping them more than we help the children of strangers would, on this view, be justified in terms of a more ultimate principle, for example that it is good to do what is best for the well-being of all. *Underline [292]:* years—loving our own children and helping them more than we help the children of strangers would, on this view, be justified in terms of a more ultimate principle, for example that it is good to do what is best for the well-being of all. *Highlight [292]:* Since the claim that egoism is rational clashes with the Golden Rule and with the principle of universal benevolence, and the principle of egoism is subject to a debunking evolutionary explanation, while the impartial principles are not, we have grounds for supporting the impartial principles rather than the egoistic one. If the rationality of egoism can thus be put in doubt, we can tentatively conclude that all reasons for action are impartial, and the dualism that led Sidgwick to fear “an ultimate and fundamental contradiction in our apparent intuitions of what is Reasonable in conduct” can, at least on the level of rationality, be dissolved. *Underline [292]:* the principle of egoism is subject to a debunking evolutionary explanation, while the impartial principles are not *Underline [292]:* If the rationality of egoism can thus be put in doubt, we can tentatively conclude that all reasons for action are impartial, *Highlight [293]:* although utilitarianism is impartial at the level of theory, in practice there are various factors that limit the extent to which we should try to act impartially, including our greater knowledge of how to bring about our own happiness—which is of course a part of the general happiness—as compared with the difficulty of knowing what will increase the happiness of strangers. Sidgwick also notes that we are better able to increase the happiness of others when we are happy ourselves. 27In a similar manner, the common view that it is rational to act self-interestedly may gain plausibility because acting in one’s own interest, broadly conceived, is often in harmony with doing what is in the best interests of all. Nevertheless, this harmony is far from complete. In a world with a wide gulf between rich and poor, and many opportunities for the rich to help the poor, impartiality remains highly demanding for the rich. *Highlight [293]:* Some of the remaining air of paradox around the idea that all reasons for action are impartial stems from the assumption that a reason for action must provide the person for whom it is a reason with a motivation for acting. Denying the rationality of egoism leaves reason detached from our strongest sources of motivation, namely our desires to further our own interests and those of our family. *Underline [293]:* assumption that a reason for action must provide the person for whom it is a reason with a motivation for acting. *Highlight [293]:* we follow Parfitas well as Thomas Nagel, Thomas Scanlon, and Jonathan Dancy among many—in distinguishing normative reasons from motivating reasons, the paradoxical nature of our claim is reduced. 28On this view, normative reasons are independent of our present desires, wants, and beliefs. A normative reason can be a motivating reason when we act for this reason. But we may also have a motivating reason without having a normative reason. Parfit gives the example of someone who acted in order to get revenge. We may say: “His reason was to get revenge, but that was no reason to do what he did.” 29A discussion of motivating reasons is, Parfit believes, relevant to why people act as they do, but not to how they ought *Underline [293]:* distinguishing normative reasons from motivating reasons, *Underline [293]:* A normative reason can be a motivating reason when we act for this reason. But we may also have a motivating reason without having a normative reason. *Underline [293]:* A discussion of motivating reasons is, Parfit believes, relevant to why people act as they do, but not to how they ought *Underline [294]:* to act *Highlight [294]:* to act. The distinction is vital for Parfit’s defense of objective reasons for action, because it allows for a conception of practical reason that is free of Hume’s assumption that reasons for action must be based on desires. We can have normative reasons for action, irrespective of whether we like them, agree with them, or desire to act in accordance with them. Given Parfit’s insistence on the normative rather than the psychological nature of practical reason, our argument suggests that he could have gone further and rejected what he refers to as personal and partial reasons. Why then does Parfit accept the validity of personal and partial reasons, rather than say that they are very common motivating reasons, but—as with the desire for revenge—not normative reasons? The explanation might seem to be that, like so many contemporary moral philosophers, he accepts the model of reflective equilibrium made popular by John Rawls, and this leads him to be reluctant to reject too many of our common moral judgments. *Underline [294]:* We can have normative reasons for action, irrespective of whether we like them, agree with them, or desire to act in accordance with them. *Underline [294]:* Why then does Parfit accept the validity of personal and partial reasons, rather than say that they are very common motivating reasons, but—as with the desire for revenge—not normative reasons? *Underline [294]:* like so many contemporary moral philosophers, he accepts the model of reflective equilibrium made popular by John Rawls *Highlight [294]:* “When we try to achieve what Rawls calls reflective equilibrium, we should appeal to all of our beliefs, including our intuitive beliefs about the wrongness of some kinds of act.” 30 *Highlight [294]:* It may be claimed that, since we all have this attitude, this is a ground for thinking it justified. This claim is undermined by the evolutionary explanation. Since there is this explanation, we would all have this attitude even if it was not justified; so the fact that we have this attitude cannot be a reason for thinking it justified. Whether it is justified is an open question, waiting to be answered.31 *Underline [295]:* Since there is this explanation, we would all have this attitude even if it was not justified; so the fact that we have this attitude cannot be a reason for thinking it justified. *Highlight [295]:* Parfit, and other proponents of reflective equilibrium, widely interpreted, could therefore draw on evolutionary theory, as well as on Sidgwick’s normative arguments in order to reject many widely-shared moral intuitions, while retaining the principle of universal benevolence. Although those who make use of reflective equilibrium in normative and applied ethics typically assume that they should try to achieve an equilibrium between a plausible normative theory and most, or at least many, of our commonly accepted moral judgments, there is no need for them to make this assumption. They could reject the commonly held view that it is rational to do what is in one’s own interests (even though people may have strong motivating reasons to act in this way) and accept that when one of two possible acts would make things go impartially better, that is what we have decisive normative reason to do. *Underline [295]:* reject many widely-shared moral intuitions, while retaining the principle of universal benevolence. *Highlight [296]:* the choice between right and wrong is not like the choice between going to the football or to an art exhibition. If we lack decisive reasons to do what is right, the significance of morality is seriously diminished. For Sidgwick the dualism was between partiality and impartiality. *Underline [296]:* If we lack decisive reasons to do what is right, the significance of morality is seriously diminished *Highlight [296]:* Street thinks that a sound scientific understanding of evolution shows that our moral judgments are highly unlikely to be objectively true. We agree that this evolutionary debunking does apply to many of our common moral judgments, and this includes all kinds of partial moral judgments. Partiality, where it cannot be given an impartial justification, is the domain of what Street calls “evolutionary forces.” *Highlight [296]:* Reason, on the other hand, is independent of natural forces and presents us with rules or principles that are impartial. Moral acts, understood as acts that are justifiable from an impartial perspective, are not only rational to undertake but, given the debunking of partial reasons that count against impartiality, are rationally required.32 ## Peter Singer: Jewish Moralist https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WHJkPQ8jeCW3FaQGx/peter-singer-and-tyler-cowen-transcript#Peter_Singer__Jewish_Moralist Cowen: Let me try giving you my reading of Peter Singer, which is highly speculative, and I'm not even saying it's true, it's just what I think when I read you, especially the later Peter Singer, and I'm just curious to hear your reaction to it. My reading is this: that Peter Singer stands in a long and great tradition of what I would call "Jewish moralists" who draw upon Jewish moral teachings in somehow asking for or demanding a better world. Someone who stands in the Jewish moralist tradition can nonetheless be quite a secular thinker, but your later works tend more and more to me to reflect this initial upbringing. You're a kind of secular Talmudic scholar of Utilitarianism, trying to do [Mishna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishna) on the classic notion of human well being and **bring to the world this kind of idea that we all have obligations to do things that make other people better off**, that you're very much out of the classic European, Austrian, Viennese, ultimately Biblical tradition about our obligations to the world. What do you say? Singer: I'm amused, I have to say. I think it's interesting. You're right that I come from a Jewish family. It was a pretty secular Jewish family, so I never got as a child, actually, a lot of Jewish teaching, never went to Jewish Sunday school, I never learned Hebrew, I never had a Bar Mitzvah, I never read the Torah. So if I had got some of that it must have come kind of at a distance through, sort of, osmosis, as you say this vaguely Jewish Viennese culture that certainly was part of my family background but was very much secularized. The interesting thing to speculate is whether I'm doing something that, say, someone out of the British Utilitarian tradition, the tradition of [Bentham](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham) and [Mill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) and [Sidgwick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sidgwick) could not have done. What are the distinctive features of my version of Utilitarianism that they would have rejected? And if there is something, it probably is attributable to that background you mention. But I'd be interested in your answer, what do you think that there is in my view that Bentham or Mill or Sidgwick could not have whole-heartedly endorsed? Cowen: I'm not sure if there's anything, but I think the mere fact that it is you who is doing it nonetheless reflects something about this. **I think of you as one of the worlds greatest theologians**, in a way, having this understanding of the quality of mercy, which is put into a secular framework, **but what the intuitions really consist of, I think none of us really ever know where our moral intuitions come from.** Singer: Ok. Well, look. It's a possible view, as I think you said introducing it, you don't know whether it's true but it's an interesting view of me and where I come from. You've put it out there. I find it hard to look internally, so I'll leave it to others to judge which of the elements of my background they see having formed me most strongly. ## Peter Singer Under Fire See [[=Peter Singer]] ### Response to Williams (second half) To say this does not involve the quasi-religious claim that the universe actually has a purpose or a point of view. The denial of a purposeful universe does not compel us to accept that the only sense in which our existence matters is that it matters to us. We can still maintain that our lives, and the satisfaction or frustration of our preferences, matter objectively. All that is needed is the ability to imagine an impartial observer who puts herself in the position of all of the sentient beings involved, and considers which of various possible universes she would prefer, if she were to live all those lives. There is no need for this imaginary observer to be actual. ## Huemer on Singer's meta-ethics I know that beliefs produced purely by cultural programming are in general unreliable, I know that there are many other cultures with different beliefs, and I have no reason to think my culture would be more likely to get the ethical facts right than another culture. Similarly, “Many people have the intuition that ~E” can defeat my justification for believing that E, given that I have no reason to expect other people’s intuition to be less reliable than my own. An intuitionist should therefore seek to build his ethics on intuitions that are neither culturally specific nor controversial. This can result in jettisoning a great many ethical intuitions. Second, we may on reflection find ourselves more confident of some intuitions than others, and it might well turn out that many of our intuitions about specific moral issues conflict with other intuitions of which we are more confident. For instance, we may well find it more intuitively obvious that the physical proximity of a suffering person is morally irrelevant to whether we should help them, than that we are not obligated to give money to famine relief organizations. Posner is a poor advocate for intuition. In fact the conflict between Posner’s and Singer’s methods is not one between intuition and philosophy. **It is a conflict between an inflexible and parochial reliance on intuition, and a more reflective, more inclusive use of intuitions.** It goes without saying that any intuitionist should prefer the latter. It does not follow from this that science will tell us the world is pretty much the way it appears, to casual observation, to be. On the contrary, science teaches us such things as that the sun is 1.3 million times larger than the Earth, that invisible force fields fill all of space, and that ordinary material objects are composed of tiny, colorless particles in rapid motion, with great spaces between them. None of these things are apparent to casual observation, yet all of these conclusions are adequately supported, indirectly, by observation. Imagine a philosopher insisting that the sun is obviously much smaller than the Earth, because he can just see this with his eyes, and “if we have to choose between observation and science, then it is science that will have to go.” This philosopher would not be a good empiricist; he would merely be a dogmatist. For the ethical intuitionist, **intuition is to ethics what observation is to science.** There is no general requirement that ethics should vindicate what appears, to casual consideration, to be correct. This is not to say that an ethicist may simply disregard intuitions that conflict with his theory. Just as scientists can explain why the sun falsely appears much smaller than it is and can support their theory with other observations, an ethicist should be able (perhaps with the help of psychologists) to explain why people have mistaken ethical intuitions and to support his theory with other intuitions. ### Singer response Ethics—there is plenty of scope for argument about moral judgments. First, our judgments must be coherent and consistent. We can’t, for example, simultaneously hold that all human life is of equal value, that human life begins at conception, and that it is acceptable to kill a fetus for reasons that do not justify killing an adult. If we find that we hold all of these views, then we have a problem that can only be overcome by giving up at least one of the trio. **Just as an officer who gives inconsistent commands will leave his troops in a quandary, not knowing what to do, so inconsistent prescriptions are of no use in deciding how to act**. In addition to being coherent and consistent, moral judgments must be universalizable, and indeed universalizable in a special sense that means that we must be prepared to hold them after putting ourselves in the position of—and taking on the preferences of—all those affected by our actions. The Moral Equivalent of Murder?”—and the question mark is not a typo. Over the next seven pages I examine five differences between killing and allowing to die, in the context of absolute poverty and overseas aid, and conclude that among these are differences that “show that not aiding the poor is not to be condemned as murdering them; it could, however, be on a par with killing someone as a result of reckless driving, which is serious enough.” 359 ancient and modern arguments for linking self-interest, broadly conceived, with commitment to concern for others. We could soften our moral demands to the point at which they coincide with what most people want to do anyway, or at least would want to do, given some social encouragement and sanctions for noncompliance. This is, very roughly, Hume’s solution Judith Lichtenberg’s contribution to this volume works within the broad framework of natural and social virtues, enhancing the social side of it by focusing on the need to arrange social institutions so as to encourage actions that lead to better results. Richard Brandt held that the rational thing to do is the action that would most satisfy our desires, provided that we were choosing under ideal conditions of rational choice.362 These include full information, and in Brandt’s view, that means we must also understand the nature and origin of our desires—in other words, we should undergo a form of cognitive psychotherapy before we make the choice. We should also be fully aware of the consequences of our choice for everyone affected, by imaginatively putting ourselves in their position. Under these conditions, Brandt argues that most of us would give much more weight to the serious interests of others than we do in our everyday lives This position understands morality in terms of judgments that we can universalize or accept from an impartial perspective. To this can be added other requirements of rationality, for instance consistency and the avoidance of arbitrary distinctions. This is the view I have defended. It provides scope for reason and argument within ethics, but it leaves open the question of why one should be interested in, or committed to, acting only on those judgments that we are prepared to accept from an impartial perspective. If, as Hare and others have argued, putting yourself in the position of others is a defining characteristic of moral discourse, then the prevalence of such discourse is itself evidence that many people are interested in acting in ways that can be justified from this perspective It is possible to have a strong, but not overriding, desire to act ethically. I know many people like this. **She doesn’t think that her desire to go hiking provides a moral justification for spending this money, but she also doesn’t think that it is irrational for her to spend it.** She has some other similarly strong desires that she also goes to some expense to satisfy, without considering this defensible from an impartial perspective. The upshot is that she gives a substantial part of her income to agencies working to overcome poverty, but she spends substantially more on herself than she can defend morally. In these circumstances, Helen’s ethical views are clearly relevant to her actions. **Huemer suggests that, on my view, partially fulfilling my ethical obligations “would enable me to be comparable to a murderer of fifty people a year, rather than one hundred.” He wryly comments that it “is unclear how much of a sense of fulfillment one can derive” from such a perspective.** I’ve already pointed out that this misrepresents my view, and that a better comparison with not giving to poverty relief would be killing people by reckless driving. Suppose, then, that I live in a society in which most people drive so recklessly that they kill one hundred people a year. This is considered normal, and few people suggest that there is anything wrong with this level of recklessness, or that those who drive in this manner are not decent people. By hard work and great effort—making a real sacrifice, in comparison to the blithely indifferent recklessness of most of my fellow-citizens—I manage to drive more carefully and kill only fifty people per year. Perhaps I can then take some satisfaction in knowing that there are fifty people alive who, without my efforts, would be dead. Huemer accurately describes the first aspect of my **moral methodology, my rejection of the idea that we can test moral theories by seeing if they clash with our intuitions about what we ought to do in *concrete situations**. I believe, few people will want to defend the moral relevance of physical proximity in determining our obligations to assist someone who is in danger (as long as we are careful to isolate physical proximity from factors like the probability of success). If people are prepared to defend the moral relevance of the factors that I say “are obviously of no moral significance at all,” then different arguments will need to be produced, on both sides. The third aspect of my moral methodology, Huemer claims, is my acceptance of “one very general ethical intuition,” the principle of equal consideration of interests Here Huemer touches upon another central unresolved issue in my metaethics. **On what basis do I hold the principle of equal consideration of interests?** One possibility is, following R.M. Hare, to derive it, at least as a provisional or default position, from the requirement that moral language be universalizable.366 The other is to follow Sidgwick and see it as a self-evident truth. 3the idea of putting yourself in the place of others is a feature of a particular kind of discourse, in which we seek to justify our conduct to others, and in order to do so, have to take a point of view that they can share .368 Sidgwick: If the Egoist strictly confines himself to stating his conviction that he ought to take his own happiness or pleasure as his ultimate end, there seems no opening for any line of reasoning to lead him to Universalistic Hedonism as a first principle; it cannot be proved that the difference between his own happiness and another’s happiness is not for him all-important. 369 Sidgwick returns to this problem, but is unable to make further progress towards reconciling egoism and utilitarianism, because It would be contrary to Common Sense to deny that the distinction between any one individual and any other is real and fundamental, and that consequently “I” am concerned with the quality of my existence as an individual in a sense, fundamentally important, in which I am not concerned with the quality of the existence of other individuals: and this being so, I do not see how it can be proved that this distinction is not to be taken as fundamental in determining the ultimate end of rational action for an individual. 370 Thus although Sidgwick writes of rational axioms and Hare about the meaning of the moral terms, they agree that consistent amoralists or egoists cannot be convicted of irrationality. That agreement may explain why I have been unable to make up my mind between Sidgwick’s intuitionism and Hare’s non-cognitivism. **For although the metaphysical implications of their positions diverge profoundly, if there are no practical differences between them, the choice is less momentous than it may at first appear**. my arguments go beyond Huemer’s in the extent of the intuitions that I consider unreliable, and so threaten to undermine even an intuitionism as revisionary as the one he holds. Singer, quoting his essay Ethics and Intuitions: In the light of the best scientific understanding of ethics, we face a choice. We can take the view that our moral intuitions and judgments are and always will be emotionally based intuitive responses, and reason can do no more than build the best possible case for a decision already made on non-rational grounds. That approach leads to a form of moral skepticism, although one still compatible with advocating our emotionally-based moral values and encouraging clear thinking about them. Alternatively, we might attempt the ambitious task of separating those moral judgments that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history from those that have a rational basis. This is a large and difficult task. Even to specify in what sense a moral judgment can have a rational basis is not easy. Nevertheless, it seems to me worth attempting, for it is the only way to avoid moral skepticism. On the other hand, acting altruistically to strangers we are unlikely to come into contact with again is something that evolutionary psychology struggles to explain. If, after putting ourselves in the position of all those affected by our actions, we conclude that it is our obligation to act altruistically to strangers, this judgment looks very much like a judgment that has a rational basis, rather than one that is the result of our evolutionary history. # Ethics in the Real World Moral judgments are not purely subjective; in that, they are different from judgments of taste. If they were merely subjective, we would not think it was worth arguing about ethical issues, any more than we think that it is worth arguing about which ice cream flavor to choose. We recognize that tastes differ, and there is no “right” amount of garlic to put in a salad dressing; but we do think it is worth arguing about the legalization of voluntary euthanasia, or whether it is wrong to eat meat. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 158-161 Nor is ethics just a matter of expressing our intuitive responses of repugnance or approval, even if these intuitions are widely shared. We may have innate “yuck” reactions that helped our ancestors to survive, at a time when they were social mammals but not yet human and not capable of abstract reasoning. Those reactions will not always be a reliable guide to right and wrong in the much larger and more complex global community in which we live today. For that, we need to use our ability to reason. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 162-165 The astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that the Voyager space probe capture an image of Earth as it reached the outer reaches of our solar system. It did so, in 1990, and Earth shows up in a grainy image as a pale blue dot. If you go to YouTube and search for “Carl Sagan—Pale Blue Dot,” you can see it, and hear Sagan himself telling us that we must cherish our world because everything humans have ever valued exists only on that pale blue dot. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 221-224 Russell sometimes wrote as if the fact that we are a mere speck in a vast universe showed that we don’t really matter all that much: “On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.” But no such nihilistic view of our existence follows from the size of our planetary home, and Russell himself was no nihilist. He thought that it was important to confront the fact of our insignificant place in the universe, because he did not want us to live under the illusory comfort of a belief that somehow the world had been created for our sake, and that we are under the benevolent care of an all-powerful creator. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 225-231 Russell sometimes wrote as if the fact that we are a mere speck in a vast universe showed that we don’t really matter all that much: “On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.” But no such nihilistic view of our existence follows from the size of our planetary home, and Russell himself was no nihilist. He thought that it was important to confront the fact of our insignificant place in the universe, because he did not want us to live under the illusory comfort of a belief that somehow the world had been created for our sake, and that we are under the benevolent care of an all-powerful creator. “Dreams and Facts” concludes with these stirring words: “No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 225-233 “On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 226-228 Just as we can grasp the truth that 1 + 1 = 2, so we can see that I have a reason to avoid suffering agony at some future time, regardless of whether I now care about, or have desires about, whether I will suffer agony at that time. We can also have reasons (though not always conclusive reasons) to prevent others from suffering agony. Such self-evident normative truths provide the basis for Parfit’s defense of objectivity in ethics. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 264-267 If Parfit is right, there is much less disagreement between apparently conflicting moral theories than we all thought. The defenders of each of these theories are, in Parfit’s vivid phrase, “climbing the same mountain on different sides.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 275-276 argued that while I cannot disprove the existence of every possible kind of deity, we can be sure that we do not live in a world that was created by a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all good. Christians, of course, think we do live in such a world. Yet a powerful reason for doubting this confronts us every day: the world contains a vast amount of pain and suffering. If god is all-knowing, he knows how much suffering there is. If he is all-powerful, he could have created a world without so much suffering. If he is all-good, he surely would have created a world without so much suffering. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 328-332 Finally, D’Souza fell back, as many Christians do when pressed, on the claim that we should not expect to understand god’s reasons for creating the world as it is. It is as if an ant should try to understand our decisions, so puny is our intelligence in comparison to the infinite wisdom of god. (This is the answer given, in more poetic form, in The Book of Job.) But once we abdicate our own powers of reason in this way, we may as well believe anything at all. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 356-359 The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world is not created by a god at all. If, however, we insist on divine creation, the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all-good. He must either be evil or a bungler. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 361-362 The third difficulty for the view that morality is rooted in religion is that some elements of morality seem to be universal, despite sharp doctrinal differences among the world’s major religions. In fact, these elements extend even to cultures like China, where religion is less significant than philosophical outlooks like Confucianism. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 378-381 explanation, consistent with the facts of biology and geology, is that over millions of years we have evolved a moral faculty that generates intuitions about right and wrong. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 382-383 Consider the following three scenarios. For each, fill in the blank space with “obligatory,” “permissible,” or “forbidden.” 1. A runaway boxcar is about to run over five people walking on the tracks. A railroad worker is standing next to a switch that can turn the boxcar onto a side track, killing one person, but allowing the five to survive. Flipping the switch is ______. 2. You pass by a small child drowning in a shallow pond, and you are the only one around. If you pick up the child, she will survive and your pants will be ruined. Picking up the child is ______. 3. Five people have just been rushed into a hospital in critical condition, each requiring an organ to survive. There is not enough time to request organs from outside the hospital, but there is a healthy person in the hospital’s waiting room. If the surgeon takes this person’s organs, he will die, but the five in critical care will survive. Taking the healthy person’s organs is ______. If you judged case 1 as permissible, case 2 as obligatory, and case 3 as forbidden, then you are like the 1,500 subjects around the world who responded to these dilemmas on our web-based moral sense test (http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu). Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 385-395 There has been considerable research on abnormal people, like psychopaths, but we need to know more about relatively stable differences (perhaps rooted in our genes) in the great majority of people as well. Undoubtedly, situational factors can make a huge difference, and perhaps moral beliefs do as well, but if humans are just different in their predispositions to act morally, we also need to know more about these differences. Only then will we gain a proper understanding of our moral behavior, including why it varies so much from person to person and whether there is anything we can do about it. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 433-437 Might governments begin screening people to discover those most likely to commit crimes? Those who are at much greater risk of committing a crime might be offered the morality pill; if they refused, they might be required to wear a tracking device that would show where they had been at any given time, so that they would know that if they did commit a crime, they would be detected. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 441-444 I HAVE JUST PUBLISHED A BOOK about my maternal grandfather, David Oppenheim.1 A Viennese of Jewish descent, he was a member first of Sigmund Freud’s circle, and later of that of Alfred Adler. But despite his abiding interest in exploring human psychology, he underestimated the Nazi threat, and did not leave quickly enough after the Nazi annexation of Austria. Deported to the overcrowded, underfed ghetto of Theresienstadt, he soon died. Fortunately my parents left Vienna in time. They were able to go to Australia where, after the war, I was born. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 498-503 Do I have here an example of how, as Solon said, what happens after one dies does make a difference to how well one’s life goes? I don’t think you have to believe in an afterlife to give this question an affirmative answer. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 544-545 All this suggests that we think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don’t usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as “the asymmetry,” and it is not easy to justify. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 555-557 How good does life have to be to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make this decision unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 558-560 Schopenhauer’s pessimism has had few defenders over the past two centuries, but one has recently emerged, in the South African philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. One of Benatar’s arguments trades on something like the asymmetry noted earlier. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 563-566 Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 569-573 we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required—we could party our way into extinction! Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 577-578 do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 586-591 I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 586-591 Nor will it be news to anyone familiar with the many successful efforts to bring philosophy to a broader market. There is, for example, the magazine Philosophy Now, and equivalents in other languages. There are the Philosophy Bites podcasts, many blogs, and free online courses, which are attracting tens of thousands of students. Perhaps the growing interest in reflecting on the universe and our lives is the result of the fact that, for at least a billion people on our planet, the problems of food, shelter, and personal security have largely been solved. That leads us to ask what else we want, or should want, from life, and that is a starting point for many lines of philosophical inquiry. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 620-625 The leading American universities cherish the ideal of a liberal arts education that in Australia seems to have been overwhelmed by vocational and professional training. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 635-636 This kind of education does not train you in a profession, but it gives you an intellectual foundation to use throughout your life, whether you decide to go into medicine, law, business, engineering, or any other occupation. If our best-educated citizens have no idea how to answer these basic questions, we will struggle to build a democracy that can solve the problems we face, whether they are what to do about climate change, the world’s poor, the problems of Australia’s Indigenous people, or the prospect of a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring. An education in the humanities is as valuable today as it was in Plato’s time. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 671-676 Not for fish. There is no humane slaughter requirement for wild fish caught and killed at sea, nor, in most places, for farmed fish. Fish caught in nets by trawlers are dumped on board the ship and allowed to suffocate. In the commercial fishing technique known as longline fishing, trawlers let out lines that can be 50–100 kilometers long, with hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks. Fish taking the bait are likely to remain fully conscious while they are dragged around for many hours by hooks through their mouths, until eventually the line is hauled in. Likewise, commercial fishing frequently depends on gill nets—walls of fine netting in which fish become snared, often by the gills. They may suffocate in the net, because, with their gills constricted, they cannot breathe. If not, they may remain trapped for many hours before the nets are pulled in. The most startling revelation in the report, however, is the staggering number of fish on which humans inflict these deaths. By using the reported tonnages of the various species of fish caught, and dividing by the estimated average weight for each species, Alison Mood, the report’s author, has put together what may well be the first-ever systematic estimate of the size of the annual global capture of wild fish. It is, she calculates, in the order of one trillion, although it could be as high as 2.7 trillion. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 726-736 Last year, a scientific panel to the European Union concluded that the preponderance of the evidence indicates that fish do feel pain. Why are fish the forgotten victims on our plate? Is it because they are cold-blooded and covered in scales? Is it because they cannot give voice to their pain? Whatever the explanation, the evidence is now accumulating that commercial fishing inflicts an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering. We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely—or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 749-753 They claim that Western countries object to Japanese whaling because for them whales are a special kind of animals, as cows are for Hindus. Western nations should not, the Japanese say, try to impose their cultural beliefs on them. The best response to this argument is that the wrongness of causing needless suffering to sentient beings is not a culturally specific value. It is, for example, one of the first precepts of one of Japan’s major ethical traditions, Buddhism. But Western nations are in a weak position to make this response, because they themselves inflict so much unnecessary suffering on animals. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 782-787 So if there is no serious ethical objection to killing animals, as long as they have had good lives, then being selective about the animal products you eat could provide an ethically defensible diet. It needs care, however. “Organic,” for instance, says little about animal welfare, and hens not kept in cages may still be crowded into a large shed. Going vegan is a simpler choice that sets a clear-cut example for others to follow. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 840-843 My own view is that being a vegetarian or vegan is not an end in itself, but a means toward reducing both human and animal suffering, and leaving a habitable planet to future generations. I haven’t eaten meat for 40 years, but if in vitro meat becomes commercially available, I will be pleased to try it. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 933-935 Whereas there were more than ten references to “cow that” for every reference to “cow who” in 1920, by 2000 the ratio had dropped to less than five to one. It seems that we are personifying cows more, despite the fact that many family-run dairy farms, in which the farmer knows every cow, have been replaced by corporate-run factory farms with thousands of nameless animals. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 989-992 English usage should change to make it clear that animals are fundamentally more like us than they are like tables and chairs, paintings and mountains. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1003-1004 In 1992, Switzerland became the first country to include a statement about protecting the dignity of animals in its constitution; Germany followed ten years later. In 2009, the European Union amended its fundamental treaty to include a statement that because animals are sentient beings, the EU and its member states must, in formulating policies for agriculture, fisheries, research, and several other areas, “pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1005-1008 In a language like English, which implicitly categorizes animals as things rather than persons, adopting the personal pronoun would embody the same recognition—and remind us who animals really are. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1008-1010 I believe the Groningen protocol to be based on the sound ethical perception that the means by which death occurs is less significant, ethically, than the decision that it is better that an infant’s life should end. If it is sometimes acceptable to end the lives of infants in group two—and virtually no one denies this—then it is also sometimes acceptable to end the lives of infants in group three. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1137-1140 PNEUMONIA USED TO BE CALLED “the old man’s friend” because it often brought a swift and relatively painless end to a life that was already of poor quality and would otherwise have continued to decline. Now a study of severely demented patients in US nursing homes around Boston, Massachusetts, shows that the “friend” is often being fought with antibiotics. Are doctors routinely treating illnesses because they can, rather than because doing so is in the best interests of the patient? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1153-1156 how many people want their lives to be prolonged if they are incontinent, need to be fed by others, can no longer walk, and their mental capacities have irreversibly deteriorated so that they can neither speak nor recognize their children? The interests of patients should come first, and I doubt that longer life was in the interests of these patients. Moreover, when there is no way of finding out what the patients wants, and it is very doubtful that continued treatment is in the interests of a patient, it is reasonable to take account of other factors, including the views of the family, and the cost to the community. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1161-1165 One may suspect that a misguided belief in the sanctity of all human life plays some role in decisions to prolong human life beyond the point where it benefits the person whose life it is. Yet on this, some religions are more reasonable than others. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1172-1173 There has to be a limit to what a family can demand from the public purse, because to spend more money on long-term care for a patient with no prospect of recovery means that there is less money for other patients with better prospects. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1191-1192 OF ALL THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the “slippery slope”: once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die. There is no evidence for this claim, even after many years of legal physician-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the American state of Oregon. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1199-1202 The Vatican’s position is an application of what is known as “the doctrine of double effect.” An action that has two effects, one good and the other bad, may be permissible if the good effect is the one that is intended and the bad effect is merely an unwanted consequence of achieving the good effect. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1224-1226 She has suggested that there is nothing wrong with feeling that you ought to die for the sake of others as well as for yourself. In an interview published in 2008 in the Church of Scotland’s magazine Life and Work, she supported the right of those suffering intolerably to end their lives. “If somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they’re a burden to their family, or the state,” she argued, “then I think they too should be allowed to die.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1259-1262 Maynard became the new face of the right-to-die movement and was such an effective spokeswoman that after her death in Oregon the California legislature passed the End of Life Option Act, modelled on Oregon’s law. It will come into effect not later than February 2017. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1311-1313 Physician-assisted suicide will then be legal down the entire west coast of the US. At present, the only US states where physicians can lawfully help patients wishing to end their lives are Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont, but with California, the nation’s most populous state, joining in, many observers expect the movement to spread across much of the country. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1313-1316 There are many places where savings can be made. Encouraging people to exercise, to avoid smoking, to use alcohol only in moderation, and to eat less red meat would help to reduce health-care costs. But, given developed countries’ aging populations, the cost of caring for the elderly is bound to rise. So we will have to find other ways to save money. Here it makes sense to start at the end. Treating dying patients who do not want to go on living is a waste, yet only a few countries allow physicians actively to assist a patient who requests aid in dying. In the United States, about 27 percent of Medicare’s budget goes toward care in the last year of life. While some of that is spent in the hope that the patient will have many years to live, it is not unusual for hospitals to provide treatments costing tens of thousands of dollars to patients who have no hope of living more than a week or two—and often under sedation or barely conscious. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1499-1506 Against that background, spending $200,000 to give a patient in an affluent country a relatively short period of extra life becomes more than financially dubious. It is morally wrong. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1532-1534 Indeed, only about 15 percent of Australians and 20 percent of Americans smoke, but in 14 low and middle-income countries covered in a survey recently published in The Lancet, an average of 41 percent of men smoked, with an increasing number of young women taking up the habit. The World Health Organization estimates that about 100 million people died from smoking in the twentieth century, but smoking will kill up to one billion people in the twenty-first century. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1559-1562 Mill’s defense of individual liberty, however, assumes that individuals are the best judges and guardians of their own interests—an idea that today verges on naiveté. The development of modern advertising techniques marks an important difference between Mill’s era and ours. Corporations have learned how to sell us unhealthy products by appealing to our unconscious desires for status, attractiveness, and social acceptance. As a result, we find ourselves drawn to a product without quite knowing why. And cigarette makers have learned how to manipulate the properties of their product to make it maximally addictive. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1566-1570 If we value both sustainable human well-being and the natural environment of our planet, “my weight is my own business” just isn’t true. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1608-1609 In the case of the incest taboo, our response has an obvious evolutionary explanation. But should we allow our judgment of what is a crime to be determined by feelings of repugnance that may have strengthened the evolutionary fitness of ancestors who lacked effective contraception? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1738-1740 John Stuart Mill was writing his celebrated essay On Liberty, in which he put forward the following principle: . . . the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. . . . Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1765-1768 Where Mill says that the good of the individual, “either physical or moral,” is “not sufficient warrant” for state interference, Hart says that the individual’s physical good is sufficient warrant, if individuals are likely to neglect their own best interests and the interference with their liberty is slight. For example, the state may require us to wear a seat belt when driving, or a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1770-1773 Nevertheless, one may wonder whether it is really necessary for us to ask people as often as we do what sex they are. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1897-1898 I’m not saying that no one should be having any fun. I’m just reminding you how much we have, in comparison with the little we give. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 1976-1977 We need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do. Silent giving will not change a culture that deems it sensible to spend all your money on yourself and your family, rather than to help those in greater need—even though helping others is likely to bring more fulfillment in the long run. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2076-2079 because many people appear to have irrational attitudes toward the small risks of very bad things happening. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2118-2119 because many people appear to have irrational attitudes toward the small risks of very bad things happening. (That’s why we need legislation requiring people to fasten their seat belts.) Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2118-2120 Serious evaluation of charities helping people in extreme poverty began six years ago with the creation of the nonprofit charity evaluator GiveWell. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2126-2127 “Effective altruism,” as this evidence-based approach to charity is known, is an emerging international movement. Not content with merely making the world a better place, its adherents want to use their talents and resources to make the biggest possible positive difference to the world. Thinking about which fields offer the most positive impact for your time and money is still in its infancy, but with more effective altruists researching the issues, we are starting to see real progress. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2132-2135 Yet we can still ask if these emotions are the best guide to what we ought to do. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2140-2141 It’s obvious, isn’t it, that saving a child’s life is better than fulfilling a child’s wish to be Batkid? If Miles’s parents had been offered that choice—Batkid for a day or a cure for their son’s leukemia—they surely would have chosen the cure. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2146-2148 the plight of a single identifiable individual much more salient to us than that of a large number of people we cannot identify. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2150-2151 In a more ethical world, to spend tens of millions of dollars on works of art would be status-lowering, not status-enhancing. Such behavior would lead people to ask: “In a world in which more than six million children die each year because they lack safe drinking water or mosquito nets, or because they have not been immunized against measles, couldn’t you find something better to do with your money?” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2222-2225 Last July, the UN General Assembly passed, without dissent, a Bhutanese-initiated resolution recognizing the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal and noting that this goal is not reflected in GDP. The resolution invited member states to develop additional measures that better capture the goal of happiness. The General Assembly also welcomed an offer from Bhutan to convene a panel discussion on the theme of happiness and well-being during its 66th session, which opens this month. These discussions are part of a growing international movement to re-orient government policies toward well-being and happiness. We should wish the effort well, and hope that ultimately the goal becomes global, rather than merely national, happiness. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2382-2387 LaSalle Leffall, who chaired the President’s Cancer Panel, wrote to President George W. Bush in August, saying, “We can and must empower individuals to make healthy choices through appropriate policy and legislation.” If that is true for encouraging healthy diets and discouraging smoking, it is no less true for lifestyle choices that promote greater mental health. Governments can’t legislate happiness or ban depression, but public policy can play a role in ensuring that people have time to relax with friends, and pleasant places to do it. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2427-2431 In a related effort to get its residents to know each other, the city government also facilitates street parties. It leaves the details to the locals, but offers organizational advice, lends out barbecues and sun umbrellas, and covers the public liability insurance. Many people who have lived in the same street for many years meet each other for the first time at a street party. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2441-2444 Some local governments see their role as being to provide basic services like collecting the trash and maintaining the roads—and of course, collecting the taxes to pay for this. Others promote the area’s economy, by encouraging industry to move to the area, thus increasing jobs and the local tax base. The Port Phillip city government takes a broader and longer-term view. It wants those who live in the community after the present generation has gone to have the same opportunities for a good quality of life as today’s residents have. To protect that quality of life, it has to be able to measure all the varied aspects that contribute to it—and friendliness is one of them. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2450-2455 For many governments, both national and local, preventing crime is a far higher priority than encouraging friendship and cooperation. But, as Professor Richard Layard of the London School of Economics has argued in his recent book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, promoting friendship is often easy and cheap, and can have big payoffs in making people happier. So why shouldn’t that be a focus of public policy? Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 2455-2458 “The man who dies rich,” he is often quoted as saying, “dies disgraced.” We can adapt that judgment to the man or woman who wears a $30,000 watch, or buys similar luxury goods, like a $12,000 handbag. Essentially such a person is saying: “I am either extraordinarily ignorant, or just plain selfish. If I were not ignorant, I would know that children are dying from diarrhea or malaria because they don’t have safe drinking water, or a mosquito net, and obviously what I have spent on this watch or handbag would have been enough to help several of them survive; but I care so little about them that I would rather spend my money on something that I wear for ostentation alone.” Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 3662-3667 to laugh at someone for having a sensible watch at a modest price puts pressure on others to join the race to greater and greater extravagance. That pressure should be turned in the opposite direction, and we should celebrate those with modest tastes and higher priorities than conspicuous consumption. Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World, loc. 3668-3670