411 Quotes by Peter Singer

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 doubt that there is a huge difference between human and nonhuman animals. But what we are overlooking is the fact that nonhuman animals are conscious beings, that they can suffer.

In some parts of the world, what you are doing is already apparent.According to the World Health Organization, the warming of the planet caused an additional 140,000 deaths in 2004, as compared with the number of deaths there would have been had average global temperatures remained as they were during the period 1961 to 1990. This means that climate change is already causing, every week, as many deaths as occured in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

In the sense that you're not at the centre of power, like a president or prime minister of a major power, everyone is marginalised; my position doesn't isn't unique in that respect. I think there are different sorts of relevance in different contexts.

Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy. If we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist.

Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example.

I think ethics is always there; it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.

In the past 20 years alone, it adds up to more death than were caused by all the civil and international wars adn government repression of the entire twentieth century, the century of Hitler and Stalin. How much would we give to prevent those horrors? Yet how little are we doing to prevent today's even larger toll and all the misery that it involves? I believe that if you read this book to the end, and look honestly and carefully at our situation, assessing both the facts and the ethical arguments, you will agree that we must act.

I don't think there's anything in the compromise that means that there's a clash of ethics.