Peter Singer

Friday 29th of March 2024

Altruism If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own? Peter Singer The Expanding Circle © 2016 Kwiple.com
Altruism … we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called “supererogatory” - an act which it it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so. Peter Singer Famine, Affluence, and Morality © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Industry reports and scientific journals provide evidence that each year 139 million chickens don't even make it to slaughter. Their legs collapse under them and, unable to move or reach food and water, they die of thirst or they starve. Or they simply cannot cope with the conditions they are living in, and their hearts give out. Or they die from the stress of being rounded up, thrown into cages, and transported to the slaugher- houses. In one way or another, they suffer to death. Peter Singer, New York Rewview of Books, May 12, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Charity An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 could cut a check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away. Peter Singer © 2017 Kwiple.com
Ethics If it is within our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence and Morality” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nonbelievers Put them [Bill Gates and Warren Buffett] together with Andrew Carnegie, famous for his freethinking, and those three of the four greatest American philanthropists have been atheists or agnostics. (The exception is John D. Rockefeller.) In a country in which 96% percent of the population say they believe in a supreme being, that's a striking fact. It means that in one sense, Gates and Buffett are probably less self-interested in their charity than someone like Mother Teresa, who as a pious Roman Catholic believed in reward and punishment in the afterlife. Peter Singer © 2017 Kwiple.com
Poverty Our obligation to the poor is not just one of providing assistance to strangers but one of compensation for harms that we have caused and are still causing them. Peter Singer, “What Should a Billionaire Give – And What Should You?” © 2017 Kwiple.com