Princeton philosopher, Peter Singer, is best known for his support of infanticide and starting the animal liberation movement. On 9-11-06 Singer answered a host of questions on the Animal Liberation Front website, including questions about the forenamed topics. Two stand out in particular:

 

Question: Would you kill a disabled baby?

Answer: 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. One point on which I agree with opponents of abortion is that, from the point of view of ethics rather than the law, there is no sharp distinction between the foetus and the newborn baby.

 

While I think Singer is morally sick, at least he is consistent in his views…unlike most abortion-choice advocates. He is absolutely right: birth is not a morally significant difference.

 

Question: Why should we assign rights to animals when we already recognise duties (of care, preservation of their species, etc) towards them? If animals have a right to life, for example, must we protect them against natural predators in the wild?

Answer: Unfortunately, we don’t come anywhere near fulfilling the duties we have to animals. If we did, we wouldn’t be bringing misery to the lives of millions of factory farmed animals, for no reason except that we prefer the taste of their flesh to other, cruelty-free and sustainable ways of feeding ourselves. As for protecting prey from predators, if we did that we would be upsetting the ecological system, and the prey would soon become too numerous and starve.

 

This one blows me away. While Singer claims we should not protect animals from other animals, we should protect animals from ourselves. This is contradictory given Singer’s view that we are just another animal in the forest. If we shouldn’t protect animals from other animals, then there is no need for us to protect them from other humans who want to eat them. Doing so “would be upsetting the ecological system.”