Author: What the Bible really says about homosexuality

[loco]

That is not what Singer says. Since you've been corrected more than once and continue to repeat that I can only conclude that you are blatantly and knowingly lying. *plonk*

I am the only one here who has posted exactly what Singer actually said.  So if anyone is lying here, it is you.

[Primemuscle]

Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, preference utilitarian perspective.
 
He has served, on two occasions, as chair of philosophy at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he unsuccessfully stood as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. He has been voted one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.
 
Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. Not all members of the animal liberation movement share this view, and Singer himself has said the media overstates his status. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.

Singer's most comprehensive work, Practical Ethics (1979), analyzes in detail why and how living beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor. For example, this approach would privilege a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.
 
Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others". The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness". He holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a 'journey' model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures.

[avxo]

I am the only one here who has posted exactly what Singer actually said.  So if anyone is lying here, it is you.

Singer has NEVER said that we should "kill all people with disabilities" something which you suggested he said. I challenge you to provide the exact reference. You won't, because you can't.

[Primemuscle]

Adolf Hitler (German: 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including nearly six million Jews.

A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and later authorized a euthanasia programme for adults with serious mental and physical handicaps, now usually referred to as Action T4.

Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, he approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union—and he was well informed about their activities. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers, the records of which were declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his adjutant, Otto Günsche, stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers.
 
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, were responsible for the deaths of eleven to fourteen million people, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe, and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma. Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.
 
Hitler's policies also resulted in the killings of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.

[loco]

Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, preference utilitarian perspective.
 
He has served, on two occasions, as chair of philosophy at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he unsuccessfully stood as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. He has been voted one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.
 
Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. Not all members of the animal liberation movement share this view, and Singer himself has said the media overstates his status. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.

Singer's most comprehensive work, Practical Ethics (1979), analyzes in detail why and how living beings' interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor. For example, this approach would privilege a starving person's interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.
 
Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one's projects without interference, "and many others". The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for "suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness". He holds that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a 'journey' model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures.

So?

[loco]

Adolf Hitler (German: 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including nearly six million Jews.

A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and later authorized a euthanasia programme for adults with serious mental and physical handicaps, now usually referred to as Action T4.

Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, he approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union—and he was well informed about their activities. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers, the records of which were declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his adjutant, Otto Günsche, stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers.
 
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, were responsible for the deaths of eleven to fourteen million people, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe, and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma. Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.
 
Hitler's policies also resulted in the killings of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.

So?

[loco]

Singer has NEVER said that we should "kill all people with disabilities" something which you suggested he said. I challenge you to provide the exact reference. You won't, because you can't.

Haven't I already done that and more?  Whatcha talkin bout Willis?   

[avxo]

Haven't I already done that and more?  Whatcha talkin bout Willis?   

No, you haven't. You just put quotes around something you typed and attributed it to Singer. Can you provide a specific reference to writings by Singer where he says the exacts words you attribute to him?

[loco]

No, you haven't. You just put quotes around something you typed and attributed it to Singer. Can you provide a specific reference to writings by Singer where he says the exacts words you attribute to him?

I did not write anything.  I copied and pasted from the articles for which I provided a link.  The articles provide Singer's quotes and references.  Anything else I can get you, avxo?

[avxo]

I did not write anything.

Of course not.

[loco]

Of course not.

Check the links I provided.  

Anything else I can get you, avxo?

[Dos Equis]

That's an opinion not a fact. The fact is that someone 18 years old is legally considered an adult.

Ok.  Yes, it's an opinion.  But it's one most grown folks agree with.  In fact, I can't recall ever talking to an older adult who disagreed with the following:  if I knew then what I know now . . . .  Or:  we really don't know squat at age 21.  

I'm not talking about whether someone is legally considered an adult.  That has no bearing on maturity, development, experience, wisdom, etc.  

[Dos Equis]

Quite impressive. Alas, I didn't attack you. I challenged your close-mindedness and your summary dismissal of Singer's work based on your misunderstanding.


Right... you're absolutely right. No "kids" attending University (and one of the world's most prestigious one, at that) should ever be exposed to different and new ideas and challenged to consider them, examine them and decide for themselves. They should just be spoon-fed aphorisms, to be memorized and repeated.

And just because a Professor has published something you disagree with and doesn't sit well with your particular theory of ethics - such as it is - means that he's unfit to teach.


You're right - truly smart people don't need to try to sound smart; they talk simply, eloquently, and measure their words carefully. As to whether they have common sense, I'll again point out that common sense isn't really all that common.



Thanks for the pointer. I reserved a copy from the library, but probably won't get to it for a couple of weeks.


I never saw the wisdom in blindly deferring to those who are older simply because of their age - it's just a number after all. One should certainly take advantage of and learn from the experiences of others, but never blindly. We have brains for a reason.

This is addressing the person instead of the argument:  "He knows a lot more about the subject than you will ever know, and I'm sure he is a highly competent instructor. You have a mentality I've seen before: the mentality of someone who didn't set a foot inside an institute of higher education, and has no idea what the meaning or purpose of university is."

The discussion is about the fact Singer is a fool, not my mentality, educational level, etc.  But it's a typical tactic when someone gets frustrated or is just unable to address the facts of a particular subject.  I use ad hominem too, but at least I admit it.   

Kids should be challenged.  They should be engaged.  They should be allowed to develop critical thinking skills.  They should not be exposed to a delusional fool whose ideas are best left in old Nazi Germany. 

Most truly smart people don't actually talk "eloquently."  They just talk.  They also know their audience. 

Common sense is very common.   

[Dos Equis]

"Singer's mother suffers from severe Alzheimer's disease, and so she no longer qualifies as a person by his own standards, yet he spends considerable sums on her care. This apparent contradiction of his principles has not gone unnoticed by the media. When I asked him about it during our interview at his Manhattan apartment in late July, he sighed and explained that he is not the only person who is involved in making decisions about his mother (he has a sister). He did say that if he were solely responsible, his mother might not be alive today." (Singer's mother died shortly thereafter.)
http://reason.com/archives/2000/12/01/the-pursuit-of-happiness-peter/singlepage

When Singer's mother became too ill to live alone, Singer and
his sister hired a team of home health-care aides to look after
her. &guy's mother has lost her ability to reason, to be a person,
as he defines the term[/b].  So I asked him how a man who has written
that we ought to do what is morally right without regard to proximity
or family relationships could possibly spend tens of thousands
of dollars a year on private care for his mother.  He replied that
it was "probably not the best use you could make of my money.
That is true.  But it does provide employment for a number of people
who find something worthwhile in what they're doing.''

  This is a noble sentiment, but it hardly fits with Peter Singer's
rules for living an ethical life.  He once told me that he has no
respect for people who donate funds for research on breast
cancer or heart disease in the hope that it might indirectly save
them or members of their family from illness, since they could
be using that money to save the lives of the poor.  ("That
is not charity,'' he said.  "It's self- interest.")
http://www.michaelspecter.com/1999/09/the-dangerous-philosopher/

Geeze.   

[avxo]

This is addressing the person instead of the argument:  "He knows a lot more about the subject than you will ever know, and I'm sure he is a highly competent instructor. You have a mentality I've seen before: the mentality of someone who didn't set a foot inside an institute of higher education, and has no idea what the meaning or purpose of university is."

The discussion is about the fact Singer is a fool, not my mentality, educational level, etc.  But it's a typical tactic when someone gets frustrated or is just unable to address the facts of a particular subject.  I use ad hominem too, but at least I admit it.   

No. The discussion is about you not understanding Singer's arguments and not caring to understand it. That attitude is, in my experience, fairly typical of those who haven't had a rigorous education, a fact which I pointed out.

Kids should be challenged.  They should be engaged.  They should be allowed to develop critical thinking skills.  They should not be exposed to a delusional fool whose ideas are best left in old Nazi Germany. 

University students typically aren't kids, although there are a few really rare exceptions. You agree that they should be allowed to develop critical skills, yet you somehow think that will be done without exposing them to other ideas that they can evaluate.

As for ad homimen attacks, now who's the one launching them? Singer isn't delusional and he is no fool. And as for this idea that loco threw out there and which you are parroting, that his theory of ethics is somehow sharing a root with Nazi ideas, it's preposterous. And even if it was true, you'd have no way of knowing it, since you don't know what Singer's theory of ethics is all about - having admitted that you've never read it and don't plan on reading it. And that admission is what makes your opinion on the subject worthless and irrelevant.

Most truly smart people don't actually talk "eloquently."  They just talk.  They also know their audience.

... okie dokie.

Common sense is very common.   

You keep saying that, but you haven't even explained what this common sense is.

[Dos Equis]

No. The discussion is about you not understanding Singer's arguments and not caring to understand it. That attitude is, in my experience, fairly typical of those who haven't had a rigorous education, a fact which I pointed out.


University students typically aren't kids, although there are a few really rare exceptions. You agree that they should be allowed to develop critical skills, yet you somehow think that will be done without exposing them to other ideas that they can evaluate.

As for ad homimen attacks, now who's the one launching them? Singer isn't delusional and he is no fool. And as for this idea that loco threw out there and which you are parroting, that his theory of ethics is somehow sharing a root with Nazi ideas, it's preposterous. And even if it was true, you'd have no way of knowing it, since you don't know what Singer's theory of ethics is all about - having admitted that you've never read it and don't plan on reading it. And that admission is what makes your opinion on the subject worthless and irrelevant.


... okie dokie.


You keep saying that, but you haven't even explained what this common sense is.

No.  The discussion is about Singer being a fool. 

What is a "rigorous education"? 

University students are, on average, 18-22 or so.  Those are kids.  They don't know their head from their rear end.  This doesn't mean they are dumb, always immature, unable to take care of themselves, etc.  It just means they are still impressionable and have a lot of growing to do.   

I never said they should not be exposed to "other ideas."  They should not be exposed to stupid ideas passed off as some viable ethical theory. 

I know enough about Singer's ideas to call him a fool.  I'm relying on his own words, which loco posted.  Good enough for me.   

[Dos Equis]

... okie dokie.

Now you're speaking my language.  lol 

[avxo]

And to close out my participation in this discussion, I'll just add that for someone comparing Singer and his ideology to the Nazis, Beach Bum it seems to me that your ideology, namely the suppressing of opinions you do not care to understand but which you consider unfit, is a lot closer to a Nazi mentality than Singer will ever be.

[Shockwave]

Did you mean to respond to this post rather than the one you quoted:

Indeed. My bad. 

[Dos Equis]

And to close out my participation in this discussion, I'll just add that for someone comparing Singer and his ideology to the Nazis, Beach Bum it seems to me that your ideology, namely the suppressing of opinions you do not care to understand but which you consider unfit, is a lot closer to a Nazi mentality than Singer will ever be.

 

[loco]

And to close out my participation in this discussion, I'll just add that for someone comparing Singer and his ideology to the Nazis, Beach Bum it seems to me that your ideology, namely the suppressing of opinions you do not care to understand but which you consider unfit, is a lot closer to a Nazi mentality than Singer will ever be.

avxo,

Let me explain it to you again.  I really don't mind explaining it a second time.  It's very simple:

There were thousands of people who were killed by the Nazis for one, very specific reason.  They had one or more disabilities.

Peter Singer said that he would kill an infant, for one, very specific reason.  The infant has one or more disabilities.

Now, if Peter Singer was some nut, or unknown guy, or someone who is very much disliked it might not be a big deal.  But Peter Singer is a professor of ethics and the Chairman of the Ethics Department at Princeton University.  College kids get to listen to him and read his stuff.  Many people look up to him and admire him.  He is entitled to his views, and people are entitled to listen to him and come to agree with him.  And that is what is so sad and scary.  


Nazi Euthanasia Program (Action T4)

The "euthanasia campaign" of mass murder gathered momentum on 14 January 1940 when the "handicapped" were killed with gas vans and killing centres, eventually leading to the deaths of 70,000 adult Germans.[45] Professor Robert Jay Lifton, author of The Nazi Doctors and a leading authority on the T4 program, contrasts this program with what he considers to be a genuine euthanasia. He explains that the Nazi version of "euthanasia" was based on the work of Adolf Jost, who published The Right to Death (Das Recht auf den Tod) in 1895. Lifton writes: "Jost argued that control over the death of the individual must ultimately belong to the social organism, the state. This concept is in direct opposition to the Anglo-American concept of euthanasia, which emphasizes the individual's 'right to die' or 'right to death' or 'right to his or her own death,' as the ultimate human claim. In contrast, Jost was pointing to the state's right to kill. [...] Ultimately the argument was biological: 'The rights to death [are] the key to the fitness of life.' The state must own death—must kill—in order to keep the social organism alive and healthy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanise#Nazi_Euthanasia_Program_.28Action_T4.29


Singer’s response came to Dublin reader Karen Meade’s question: “Would you kill a disabled baby?”

“Yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole. Many people find this shocking, yet they support a woman’s right to have an abortion,” he said.

http://www.wnd.com/2006/09/37903/

http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=436

http://www.lifenews.com/2006/09/12/bio-1766/

[Primemuscle]

So?

"So" as you will notice there is no comparison between these two men except in the confused and perhaps somewhat ignorant minds of folks such as you.

[loco]

"So" as you will notice there is no comparison between these two men except in the confused and perhaps somewhat ignorant minds of folks such as you.

I was referring to Nazis in general.  Please read above.

[Primemuscle]

Ok.  Yes, it's an opinion.  But it's one most grown folks agree with.  In fact, I can't recall ever talking to an older adult who disagreed with the following:  if I knew then what I know . . . .  Or:  we really don't know squat at age 21. 

I'm not talking about whether someone is legally considered an adult.  That has no bearing on maturity, development, experience, wisdom, etc. 

Of course I am biased in this case, but my grandchildren never cease to amaze me with how much they know....so much more than I knew at their ages. Okay, I'll give you credit for the fact that many, if not most, young folks lack some maturity and the features that some of us gain with it. I have also met people older than myself who are still struggling with maturity and wisdom.

Experience can be a wonderful teacher when folks pay attention to the lessons experience provides. Unfortunately this does not always happen. Some folks never mature, instead remaining stuck in a rut all of their lives. It is sad, but all too often true. Most of us have moments of immaturity. I know I still do at the advanced age of 67 years.

[Dos Equis]

Of course I am biased in this case, but my grandchildren never cease to amaze me with how much they know....so much more than I knew at their ages. Okay, I'll give you credit for the fact that many, if not most, young folks lack some maturity and the features that some of us gain with it. I have also met people older than myself who are still struggling with maturity and wisdom.

Experience can be a wonderful teacher when folks pay attention to the lessons experience provides. Unfortunately this does not always happen. Some folks never mature, instead remaining stuck in a rut all of their lives. It is sad, but all too often true. Most of us have moments of immaturity. I know I still do at the advanced age of 67 years.

I agree.  I wasn't intending to speak in absolute terms.  Just a general proposition.

And don't get me wrong:  kids are incredibly smart.  From a very young age.  But as you said, experience can be a wonderful teacher.  That's what young folks don't have.  There is no substitute.