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Humans Quotes by Peter Singer

46 Humans quotes by Peter Singer

All Humans quotes Peter Singer’s page

Peter Singer argues that ending animal slaughter could free enough food to end human hunger, and that animals deserve moral respect because they can feel pain. He also says that having more intelligence does not give humans the right to use other beings for personal gain.

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In appropriate circumstances we are justified in using humans to achieve goals (or the goal of assisting animals).

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Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.

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You shouldn't say 'animals' to distinguish between humans and non-humans. We are all animals.

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Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.

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I do not believe that it could never be justifiable to experiment on a brain-damaged human.

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According to the Dominant Western tradition, the natural world exists for the benefit of human beings.

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We should give the same respect to the lives of animals as we do to the lives of humans.

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Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong.

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Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against…

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If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close…

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Putting the AR movement directly in opposition to the environmental movement, which should be our natural allies in fighting human arrogance and…

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If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how…

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We wait until Pandora's box is opened before we say, "Wow, maybe we should understand what's in that box." This is the…

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Remember that not everyone is as strong as you are. Be mindful of human weakness, and of the fact that it may…

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The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a…

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The traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological and demographic developments.

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...the proposed air force and army experiments were designed so that many animals would suffer and die without any certainty that this…

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I don't understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It's a pretty gross interference with nature. I…

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Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the…

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We ought to consider the interests of animals because they have interests and it is unjustifiable to exclude them from the sphere…

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The newspapers do little better. Their coverage of nonhuman animals is dominated by "human interest" events like the birth of a baby…

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It is now generally accepted that the roots of our ethics lie in patterns of behavior that evolved among our pre-human ancestors,…

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Typically, defenders of experiments on animals do not deny that animals suffer. They cannot deny the animals' suffering, because they need to…

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...chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are thinking, self-aware beings, capable of planning ahead, who form lasting social bonds with others and have…

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...the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the…

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If animals are no longer quite outside the moral sphere, they are still in a special section near the outer rim. Their…

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Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong…

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There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be…

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By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed,…

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Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection…

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If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be…

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There has been opposition to experimenting on animals for a long time. This opposition has made little headway because experimenters, backed by…

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The animal liberation movement is saying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding…

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Whereas the property-owning middle class could win freedom for themselves on the basis of rights to property--thus excluding others from the freedom…

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For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form of contact with nonhuman animals is…

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The core of ethics runs deep in our species and is common to human beings everywhere. It survives the most appalling hardships…

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I would not question the sincerity of vegetarians who take little interest in Animal Liberation because they give priority to other causes;…

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So far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we…

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Once we ask why it should be that all human beings - including infants, the intellectually disabled, criminal psychopaths, Hitler, Stalin, and…

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Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced…

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Other authors on Humans

More by Peter Singer

I have never really been fond of animals. I certainly wasn't an 'animal lover' when I became involved in the movement. I just came…

Knowledge is generally considered a good thing; so, presumably, knowing more about how the U.S. thinks and operates around the world is also good.

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The hope of Internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the Internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information,…

Nineteen thousand children [are] dying every day. Does it really matter that we're not walking past them in the street? Does it really matter…

“The unchallenged assumption is that humans may use animals for their own purposes, and they may raise and kill them to satisfy their preference…

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance…

“Population growth is not a reason against giving aid but a reason for reconsidering the kind of aid to give.”

Well the real concept of basic needs if you cut it right down are simply the physical needs that are unavoidable for all of…

“Dairy farmers routinely remove calves from their mothers at an early age so that the milk will be available for humans; anyone who has…

Attempts to defend amusement parks and circuses on the grounds that they 'educate' people about animals should not be taken seriously. Such enterprises are…

“A consequence of this alienation of humans from their own nature is that they are also alienated from each other. Productive activity becomes ‘activity…

“I argued against the view that the only obligation we have to strangers is to avoid harming them; but even if we were to…

I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou…

It may be thought justifiable to require tests on animals of potentially life-saving drugs, but the same kinds of tests are used for products…