Animal Rights, Abortion, and Lying with Peter Singer

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Great episode. I acknowledge Coleman for taking philosophy out of the ivory tower and into living mainstream internet discourse. So glad you’re here Coleman!

Good to see this discussion. The way a person treats animals says a lot about the person as a whole

I loved bringing up Peter Singer's arguments in my philosophy classes. He pursues his line of reasoning so wildly far that generally even the staunch abortion supporters would squirm a bit.

Coleman you are an excellent interviewer. You listen and process and you don't interrupt your guests like so many hosts do. Thank you from Austin, Texas !

Singer is so based. His willingness to take modern philosophy to it's logical and unavailable conclusions illistrates it's utter depravity. He sacrifices his very soul so that those with even a modicum of decency can recoil in disgust. Thanks man!

It's always good to hear from Peter Singer! Such a clear, logical and persuasive thinker! He's one of the great moral reformers of our age, pushing us to be better people.

Thanks to both of you beautiful persons, and all who contributed to this!

It is acceptable to abort if the fetus can’t feel pain @26:00 what about someone who has been knocked out for surgery. Is it acceptable to kill them if they can’t feel the pain?

As long as the child is sacrificed to Baal or Moloch it's PC.

Look at all the Ethiopians that were born in poverty and extremely hard conditions. Look at them and how successful they are in America now.

Great discussion and thank you for editing the mouth sounds 😊

Spartan infanticide, chattel slavery, 20th century eugenics, Peter Singer; all disciples of utilitarianism.

I was hoping that you would press Singer more on economics. I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that global capitalism is responsible for pulling over 1 billion people out of poverty the last 50 years. Trade and economic growth have done orders of magnitude more good for reducing poverty then all of the aid ever put together. Bono figured this out in the 1980s and 90s. In fact you can make an excellent argument that by reducing your consumption and directly giving aid is actually worse for people than buying stuff. It seems counterintuitive, but history has really borne that out. If he’s going to be a consequentialist, then he has to be a consequentialist. It’s one thing for him to hold his view 50 years ago, and it’s another thing to hold it now. More than just global capitalism has made that possible, however. The international order created after Bretton Woods allowed direct access to the US economy, which is almost insatiable. China’s economic growth really never took off until it was given access to the US markets. Even in the developed world, the export-based economies would be in deep trouble without access to the American market. And the global stability particularly keeping open sea lanes of communication for free trade, and also ensuring free trade in energy products (oil), as well as other economic inputs has had a huge global benefit, at the expense of the US taxpayer and military. Unfortunately, it seems like the era of United States being willing to spend blood and treasure on that he waning. As you can tell, I am not a fan of consequentialist ethics. For example, you can easily make a consequentialist argument, supporting maximum intervention around the world and colonialism. Love your podcasts!

Love the notion that abortion is done by a licensed healthcare professional, as if you can't abort one without government approved death. And to use the term "remove the embryo or fetus" --- but, officer, I didn't murder my wife, I just removed her from living in her environment.

One reason to think you can't benefit an animal by bringing it into existence is that it would mean bringing them into existence would increase their well-being. However, an animal that doesn't exist doesn't have a well-being state, so you may not be able to make that comparison. This is to say that in order for you to benefit or harm an animal, it would already need to exist in the first place.

Thank you Coleman for your recent comments on The Fifth Column podcast. I was in a similar situation as you, as I was mandated to get boosted to Baruch classes. The only difference is that I’m still feelings the consequences of it mire than a year later after getting shoulder bursitis and thus having surgery.

Great discussion! I think you let Singer off a little easy with the hospital thought experiment. Why should the surgeon wait for a patient with a brain tumor? Why shouldn’t he just go into the influenza ward, and give a patient an undetectable lethal injection? Even if the patient would have clearly recovered, the surgeon can now save five other patients, which would produce more quality-adjusted life years.

The moment someone presents a Malthusian argument, their foundational premises fail in my opinion, and I loose nearly all respect for what they have to say thereafter. The belief that more humans (the creatures with the most conscious awareness on the planet) are somehow an existential danger to the planet, but the person positing the argument is not a part of that problem (since they believe their life is worth the danger it poses to our existence, or they would have ended it), is a foundationally flawed one.

With birth rates falling below replacement rates, the statement the abortion is a delaying tactic.