411 Quotes by Peter Singer

We do not have to make self-sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

I don’t think nationalism is alone holding the field; it’s in contention with a lot of different things.

More often there’s a compromise between ethics and expediency.

What is there about the notion of a person, at law, that makes every living member of the species Homo sapiens a person, irrespective of their mental capacities, but excludes every nonhuman animal – again, irrespective of their mental capacities?

I guess basically one wants to feel that one’s life has amounted to more than just consuming products and generating garbage. I think that one likes to look back and say that one’s done the best one can to make this a better place for others. You can look at it from this point of view: What greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering?

Sci-fi is often a metaphor. I think it’s more the themes and questions that science fiction raises rather than the exact predictions that should guide us.

One might also ask why we should develop energy-intensive robots to work in one of the few areas – care for children or elderly people – in which people with little education can find employment.

All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.

But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being.