Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchists)

[Ken Hanly]

I would appreciate the quotes but I do begin to recall that indeed Singer does take some
positions in these areaas that I do not support as I suggested in my post to Yoshie.Is
this later book the one he co-authored with a woman? If he does take this position I
doubt that it is because he makes anything such as personhood a condition of humanity or
equal treatment. What he may argue is that the newborn infant would on the basis of its
defects have a life that is not worth living and that if per impossible it could envision
its future it would choose voluntary euthanasia. I am just guessing but that argument is
consistent with his views on moral considerability i.e. you are counting the infants
interests in your calculation just as much as the mother's etc. Of course given his
utlitarian bent he also must factor in such matters as social costs. I do not agree with
this argument. Certainly his position on non-infant disabled would seem to go alojng the
lines I sketched. As disabled they have special interests and a claim to have those
interests furthered equitably just as do the gifted and the average. The infanticide
argument I sketched does not involve making intelligence a marker of social worth but I
do not want to speculate further without more text to chew on.
(Richard Brandt is another philosopher who argues for infanticide) Tooley's argument is a
personhood argument too but it has nothing to do with the question of social worth as
mark of intelligence either. It has to do with the fact that a newborn infant cannot
envisage a future self (well that is oversimplified). At least Tooley's argument would
not help puppies or kittens. Tooley specifically mentions I believe that kittens do not
have a right to life but they would have a right to be put down painlessly since they can
feel pain.

        Is it wrong to not want to have a severely disabled child?. Are you against
abortion -not infanticide-
of a fetus with severe spina-bifida (sp) or abortions for economic reasons or in cases
where the continued fetal development might be a threat to the health of the pregnant
woman? Personally I support abortion on demand (as a legal right) even though I think
that in many cases that the result will be abortions that are not justified morally. I
believe that Singer also holds this position but of course he goes beyond that it would
seem to infanticide, and there I part company with him. By the way do you know the video
Who Should Choose? or perhaps "WIll choose". It is an absolutely marvelous teaching tool
for the issue
of abortion and fetal defects. THe pregnant wife has mild spina-bifida but has sufficient
capacities to have gotten to the point where she has her own career home-based. The fetus
is found to also have spina bifida
but the degree of severity is uncertain but at the very least the fetus (a female) will
be wheel-chair bound and have at least the degree of disability of the mother. The
husband wants her to have an abortion. She wants to have the child even though she will
have to give up her career etc. The husband's family thinks he was absolutely nuts to
marry his wife in the first place. If they have a disabled child this obviously will not
improve his relationship to his parents. The mother was planning to come and help with
the baby I believe and does not know the actual situation-if my memory serves me. You get
the scenario. It is marvelously done in my opinion. THere is no conclusion. Students are
left to discuss who should choose and what should be done
(no relation to Lenin's problem). I think the video was produced by Ontario Educational
TV. Perhaps someone knows of it. Or if you are interested in it I can probably find out
from the university library.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

P.S. I am over limit so I will pack in a brief response to Tom Waters and Carl. First
Tom: You seem to have just joined.  I made the statement about the MOnarch in reference
to a long post I made criticizing in detail Losey;s article. The post will be in the
archives. I suggest you read it. Perhaps you have detailed criticisms of it rather than
preaching about big bad ugly now Pharmacia-Upjohn Monsanto. Carl: Well I was mightily
pissed off. In earlier posts I thought you granted that GM technology might be OK under
socialism but as I pointed out it wouldn't be given your requirements. Maybe you are a
socialist, just a weird one who requires categorical guarantees of no bad results from
the introduction of a technology. I have contacted Heartfield. He was on holidays and
will resub he said. Isn't that droll :) ?

Marta Russell wrote:


> Ok I see your point re speciesism, but when one reads Singer further, one comes to
> realize that he does make intelligence and physical ability a marker of social
> worth.  He openly advocates for euthanizing any infant under one month old because it
> does not meet his criteria of "personhood" but he particularly singles out disabled
> infants as subjects for killing.  In Should the Baby Live, he makes this clear.  If
> you want some quotes, I can dig them up.  Singer bloody well knows that parents are
> not going to be killing nondisabled children (maybe they would kill females in some
> countries) - it is the disabled children who are his target.
>
> Then if you would apply his reasoning to the animal world - say to dogs - would it be
> alright to kill a newborn puppy because it does not experience "doghood"?  Singer
> would never carry his same argument over to legitimize killing puppies because the
> animal rights activists would be all over him.
>
> Disabled activists are all over him all over the world for his bias.
>
> The thing about these ethicists is that you really cannot separate what they ethicize
> about from who they are.  I believe that Peter Singer, the man, would never want to
> have a disabled child becuase he perceives that as too much trouble and interfere
> with his lifestyle, so he has rationalized his ethics accordingly.  He has given the
> "right" to the parent to dispose of it.  It was only a couple years ago that he even
> bothered to get to know any disabled adults.  In other words, he doesn't know of what
> he assumes.
>
> best,
> Marta