293Peter Singer has written about assisted reproduction, a.docx

293
Peter Singer has written about assisted reproduction, animal
rights, abortion, infanticide, the environment, and famine relief.
Because of his controversial beliefs, Singer’s appointment to
Princeton University in 1999 created a public uproar
reminiscent
of 1940, when the City College of New York appointed
Bertrand
Russell, one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers, to
a
one-year professorship. In Russell’s case, the outcry culminated
in a judge’s ruling that canceled the state university’s appoint-
ment. Commenting on the case, Albert Einstein said, “Great
spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.”
Since Princeton is a private university, Singer’s ordeal stayed
out
of the courts.
The treatment of nonhuman animals has traditionally been
regarded as a trivial matter. Until recently, almost every ethicist
who wrote on the subject provided some rationale for excluding
animals from moral concern. Aristotle said that, in the natural
order of things, animals exist to serve human purposes. The
Chris-
tian tradition added that man alone is made in God’s image and
that animals do not have souls. Immanuel Kant said that animals
are not self-conscious, so we can have no duties to them.
Chapter 27
All Animals Are Equal

Peter Singer
Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal” in Animal Rights and
Human Obligations, ed. Tom
Regan and Peter Singer (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, 1989), 215–26. Copy-
right © 1989 Peter Singer. Used with permission of the author.
Rachels & Rachels_9781538127926.indb 293 17-06-2019
19:00:27
The Right Thing to Do : Readings in Moral Philosophy, edited
by James Rachels, and Stuart Rachels, Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/newschoolarch-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=5798603.
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Chapter 27294

The utilitarians took a different view, holding that we should
consider the interests of all beings, human and nonhuman. Peter
Singer (1946–) took up this argument in the mid-1970s.
Today, Professor Singer splits his time between Princeton
University in the United States and Melbourne University in
Australia.
“Animal Liberation” may sound more like a parody of other
liberation
movements than a serious objective. The idea of “The Rights of
Ani-
mals” actually was once used to parody the case for women’s
rights.
When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists,
pub-
lished her Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, her
views were
widely regarded as absurd, and before long an anonymous
publication
appeared entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The
author of
this satirical work (now known to have been Thomas Taylor, a
distin-
guished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Mary
Wollstonecraft’s
arguments by showing that they could be carried one stage
further. If
the argument for equality was sound when applied to women,
why
should it not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? The reasoning
seemed
to hold for these “brutes” too; yet to hold that brutes had rights
was
manifestly absurd. Therefore the reasoning by which this

conclusion
had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when
applied to
brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since
the very
same arguments had been used in each case.
In order to explain the basis of the case for the equality of
animals, it
will be helpful to start with an examination of the case for the
equality
of women. Let us assume that we wish to defend the case for
women’s
rights against the attack by Thomas Taylor. How should we
reply?
One way in which we might reply is by saying that the case for
equal-
ity between men and women cannot validly be extended to
nonhuman
animals. Women have a right to vote, for instance, because they
are just
as capable of making rational decisions about the future as men
are;
dogs, on the other hand, are incapable of understanding the
significance
of voting, so they cannot have the right to vote. There are many
other
obvious ways in which men and women resemble each other
closely,
while humans and animals differ greatly. So, it might be said,
men and
women are similar beings and should have similar rights, while
humans
and nonhumans are different and should not have equal rights.

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All Animals Are Equal 295
The reasoning behind this reply to Taylor’s analogy is correct
up to
a point, but it does not go far enough. There are obviously
important
differences between humans and other animals, and these
differences
must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have.

Recog-
nizing this evident fact, however, is no barrier to the case for
extending
the basic principle of equality to nonhuman animals. The
differences
that exist between men and women are equally undeniable, and
the
supporters of Women’s Liberation are aware that these
differences may
give rise to different rights. Many feminists hold that women
have the
right to an abortion on request. It does not follow that since
these same
feminists are campaigning for equality between men and women
they
must support the right of men to have abortions too. Since a
man cannot
have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have
one. Since
dogs can’t vote, it is meaningless to talk of their right to vote.
There is
no reason why either Women’s Liberation or Animal Liberation
should
get involved in such nonsense. The extension of the basic
principle of
equality from one group to another does not imply that we must
treat
both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same
rights
to both groups. Whether we should do so will depend on the
nature of
the members of the two groups. The basic principle of equality
does
not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal
consideration.
Equal consideration for different beings may lead to different

treatment
and different rights.
So there is a different way of replying to Taylor’s attempt to
parody
the case for women’s rights, a way that does not deny the
obvious dif-
ferences between human beings and nonhumans but goes more
deeply
into the question of equality and concludes by finding nothing
absurd in
the idea that the basic principle of equality applies to so-called
brutes.
At this point such a conclusion may appear odd; but if we
examine
more deeply the basis on which our opposition to discrimination
on
grounds of race or sex ultimately rests, we will see that we
would be
on shaky ground if we were to demand equality for blacks,
women, and
other groups of oppressed humans while denying equal
consideration
to nonhumans. To make this clear we need to see, first, exactly
why
racism and sexism are wrong. When we say that all human
beings,
whatever their race, creed, or sex, are equal, what is it that we
are
asserting? Those who wish to defend hierarchical, inegalitarian
societ-
ies have often pointed out that by whatever test we choose it
simply is
not true that all humans are equal. Like it or not we must face
the fact

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Chapter 27296
that humans come in different shapes and sizes; they come with
differ-
ent moral capacities, different intellectual abilities, different
amounts of
benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others,
different abili-
ties to communicate effectively, and different capacities to

experience
pleasure and pain. In short, if the demand for equality were
based on the
actual equality of all human beings, we would have to stop
demanding
equality.
Still, one might cling to the view that the demand for equality
among
human beings is based on the actual equality of the different
races and
sexes. Although, it may be said, humans differ as individuals,
there
are no differences between the races and sexes as such. From
the mere
fact that a person is black or a woman we cannot infer anything
about
that person’s intellectual or moral capacities. This, it may be
said, is
why racism and sexism are wrong. The white racist claims that
whites
are superior to blacks, but this is false; although there are
differences
among individuals, some blacks are superior to some whites in
all of
the capacities and abilities that could conceivably be relevant.
The
opponent of sexism would say the same: a person’s sex is no
guide to
his or her abilities, and this is why it is unjustifiable to
discriminate on
the basis of sex.
The existence of individual variations that cut across the lines
of
race or sex, however, provides us with no defense at all against

a more
sophisticated opponent of equality, one who proposes that, say,
the
interests of all those with IQ scores below 100 be given less
consid-
eration than the interests of those with ratings over 100.
Perhaps those
scoring below the mark would, in this society, be made the
slaves of
those scoring higher. Would a hierarchical society of this sort
really
be so much better than one based on race or sex? I think not.
But if
we tie the moral principle of equality to the factual equality of
the dif-
ferent races or sexes, taken as a whole, our opposition to racism
and
sexism does not provide us with any basis for objecting to this
kind of
inegalitarianism.
There is a second important reason why we ought not to base
our
opposition to racism and sexism on any kind of factual equality,
even
the limited kind that asserts that variations in capacities and
abilities are
spread evenly among the different races and between the sexes:
we can
have no absolute guarantee that these capacities and abilities
really are
distributed evenly, without regard to race or sex, among human
beings.
So far as actual abilities are concerned there do seem to be
certain

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measurable differences both among races and between sexes.
These
differences do not, of course, appear in every case, but only
when aver-
ages are taken. More important still, we do not yet know how
many of
these differences are really due to the different genetic

endowments of
the different races and sexes, and how many are due to poor
schools,
poor housing, and other factors that are the result of past and
continuing
discrimination. Perhaps all of the important differences will
eventually
prove to be environmental rather than genetic. Anyone opposed
to rac-
ism and sexism will certainly hope that this will be so, for it
will make
the task of ending discrimination a lot easier; nevertheless, it
would be
dangerous to rest the case against racism and sexism on the
belief that
all significant differences are environmental in origin. The
opponent of,
say, racism who takes this line will be unable to avoid
conceding that if
differences in ability did after all prove to have some genetic
connection
with race, racism would in some way be defensible.
Fortunately there is no need to pin the case for equality to one
par-
ticular outcome of a scientific investigation. The appropriate
response
to those who claim to have found evidence of genetically based
differ-
ences in ability among the races or between the sexes is not to
stick
to the belief that the genetic explanation must be wrong,
whatever
evidence to the contrary may turn up; instead we should make it
quite
clear that the claim to equality does not depend on intelligence,

moral
capacity, physical strength, or similar matters of fact. Equality
is a
moral idea, not an assertion of fact. There is no logically
compelling
reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between
two
people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration
we give to
their needs and interests. The principle of the equality of human
beings
is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans:
it is a
prescription of how we should treat human beings.
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the reforming utilitarian school
of
moral philosophy, incorporated the essential basis of moral
equality
into his system of ethics by means of the formula: “Each to
count for
one and none for more than one.” In other words, the interests
of every
being affected by an action are to be taken into account and
given the
same weight as the like interests of any other being. A later
utilitar-
ian, Henry Sidgwick, put the point in this way: “The good of
any one
individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I
may
say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other.” More
recently the
leading figures in contemporary moral philosophy have shown a
great

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Chapter 27298
deal of agreement in specifying as a fundamental presupposition
of their
moral theories some similar requirement that works to give
everyone’s
interests equal consideration—although these writers generally
cannot
agree on how this requirement is best formulated.

It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern
for
others and our readiness to consider their interests ought not to
depend
on what they are like or on what abilities they may possess.
Precisely
what our concern or consideration requires us to do may vary
according
to the characteristics of those affected by what we do: concern
for the
well-being of children growing up in America would require
that we
teach them to read; concern for the well-being of pigs may
require no
more than that we leave them with other pigs in a place where
there is
adequate food and room to run freely. But the basic element—
the tak-
ing into account of the interests of the being, whatever those
interests
may be—must, according to the principle of equality, be
extended to
all beings, black or white, masculine or feminine, human or
nonhuman.
Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for writing the principle
of
the equality of men into the American Declaration of
Independence,
saw this point. It led him to oppose slavery even though he was
unable
to free himself fully from his slaveholding background. He
wrote in a
letter to the author of a book that emphasized the notable
intellectual

achievements of Negroes in order to refute the then common
view that
they had limited intellectual capacities:
Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I
do, to see a
complete refutation of the doubts I myself have entertained and
expressed on
the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to
find that they
are on a par with ourselves . . . but whatever be their degree of
talent it is no
measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior
to others in
understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or
persons of others.
Similarly, when in the 1850s the call for women’s rights was
raised in
the United States, a remarkable black feminist named Sojourner
Truth
made the same point in more robust terms at a feminist
convention:
They talk about this thing in the head; what do they call it?
[“Intel-
lect,” whispered someone nearby.] That’s it. What’s that got to
do with
women’s rights or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a
pint and
yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have
my little
half-measure full?
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It is on this basis that the case against racism and the case
against sex-
ism must both ultimately rest; and it is in accordance with this
principle
that the attitude that we may call “speciesism,” by analogy with
racism,
must also be condemned. Speciesism—the word is not an
attractive
one, but I can think of no better term—is a prejudice or attitude

of bias
in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and
against
those of members of other species. It should be obvious that the
fun-
damental objections to racism and sexism made by Thomas
Jefferson
and Sojourner Truth apply equally to speciesism. If possessing a
higher
degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another
for his
or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit
nonhumans for
the same purpose?
Many philosophers and other writers have proposed the
principle of
equal consideration of interests, in some form or other, as a
basic moral
principle; but not many of them have recognized that this
principle
applies to members of other species as well as to our own.
Jeremy Ben-
tham was one of the few who did realize this. In a forward-
looking pas-
sage written at a time when black slaves had been freed by the
French
but in the British dominions were still being treated in the way
we now
treat animals, Bentham wrote:
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may
acquire
those rights which never could have been withholden from them
but by
the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that

the black-
ness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be
abandoned
without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day
come to be
recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin,
or the
termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for
aban-
doning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that
should trace
the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the
faculty of
discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison
a more
rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of
a day
or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were
otherwise, what
would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can
they talk?
but, Can they suffer?
In this passage Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as
the
vital characteristic that gives a being the right to equal
consideration.
The capacity for suffering—or more strictly, for suffering
and/or enjoy-
ment or happiness—is not just another characteristic like the
capacity
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Chapter 27300
for language or higher mathematics. Bentham is not saying that
those
who try to mark “the insuperable line” that determines whether
the
interests of a being should be considered happen to have chosen
the
wrong characteristic. By saying that we must consider the
interests of
all beings with the capacity for suffering or enjoyment Bentham
does
not arbitrarily exclude from consideration any interests at all—

as those
who draw the line with reference to the possession of reason or
lan-
guage do. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a
prerequisite
for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied
before we
can speak of interests in a meaningful way. It would be
nonsense to say
that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the
road
by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it
cannot suf-
fer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any
difference to
its welfare. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is,
however, not
only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has
inter-
ests—at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A
mouse,
for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the
road,
because it will suffer if it is.
Although Bentham speaks of “rights” in the passage I have
quoted,
the argument is really about equality rather than about rights.
Indeed,
in a different passage, Bentham famously described “natural
rights”
as “nonsense” and “natural and imprescriptable rights” as
“nonsense
upon stilts.” He talked of moral rights as a shorthand way of
referring
to protections that people and animals morally ought to have;

but the
real weight of the moral argument does not rest on the assertion
of the
existence of the right, for this in turn has to be justified on the
basis of
the possibilities for suffering and happiness. In this way we can
argue
for equality for animals without getting embroiled in
philosophical con-
troversies about the ultimate nature of rights.
In misguided attempts to refute the arguments of this book,
some
philosophers have gone to much trouble developing arguments
to show
that animals do not have rights. They have claimed that to have
rights
a being must be autonomous, or must be a member of a
community,
or must have the ability to respect the rights of others, or must
possess
a sense of justice. These claims are irrelevant to the case for
Animal
Liberation. The language of rights is a convenient political
shorthand.
It is even more valuable in the era of thirty-second TV news
clips than
it was in Bentham’s day; but in the argument for a radical
change in our
attitude to animals, it is in no way necessary.
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If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for
refusing to
take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature
of the
being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be
counted
equally with the like suffering—insofar as rough comparisons
can be
made—of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering,
or of
experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be
taken into

account. So the limit of sentience (using the term as a
convenient if not
strictly accurate shorthand for the capacity to suffer and/or
experience
enjoyment) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the
interests
of others. To mark this boundary by some other characteristic
like intel-
ligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary
manner. Why
not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?
Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater
weight to
the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash
between
their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists
violate
the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own
sex. Simi-
larly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to
override the
greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is
identical
in each case. . . .
Animals can feel pain. As we saw earlier, there can be no moral
jus-
tification for regarding the pain (or pleasure) that animals feel
as less
important than the same amount of pain (or pleasure) felt by
humans.
But what practical consequences follow from this conclusion?
To pre-
vent misunderstanding I shall spell out what I mean a little more
fully.

If I give a horse a hard slap across its rump with my open hand,
the horse may start, but it presumably feels little pain. Its skin
is thick
enough to protect it against a mere slap. If I slap a baby in the
same
way, however, the baby will cry and presumably feel pain, for
its skin
is more sensitive. So it is worse to slap a baby than a horse, if
both
slaps are administered with equal force. But there must be some
kind of
blow—I don’t know exactly what it would be, but perhaps a
blow with
a heavy stick—that would cause the horse as much pain as we
cause a
baby by slapping it with our hand. That is what I mean by “the
same
amount of pain,” and if we consider it wrong to inflict that
much pain
on a baby for no good reason then we must, unless we are
speciesists,
consider it equally wrong to inflict the same amount of pain on
a horse
for no good reason.
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Chapter 27302
Other differences between humans and animals cause other
com-
plications. Normal adult human beings have mental capacities
that
will, in certain circumstances, lead them to suffer more than
animals
would in the same circumstances. If, for instance, we decided to
per-
form extremely painful or lethal scientific experiments on
normal adult
humans, kidnapped at random from public parks for this
purpose, adults
who enjoy strolling in parks would become fearful that they
would be
kidnapped. The resultant terror would be a form of suffering
additional
to the pain of the experiment. The same experiments performed

on
nonhuman animals would cause less suffering since the animals
would
not have the anticipatory dread of being kidnapped and
experimented
upon. This does not mean, of course, that it would be right to
perform
the experiment on animals, but only that there is a reason,
which is
not speciesist, for preferring to use animals rather than normal
adult
human beings, if the experiment is to be done at all. It should
be noted,
however, that this same argument gives us a reason for
preferring to
use human infants—orphans perhaps—or severely retarded
human
beings for experiments, rather than adults, since infants and
retarded
humans would also have no idea of what was going to happen to
them.
So far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and
infants and
retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this
argument
to justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask
ourselves
whether we are also prepared to allow experiments on human
infants
and retarded adults; and if we make a distinction between
animals and
these humans, on what basis can we do it, other than a bare-
faced—and
morally indefensible—preference for members of our own
species?

There are many matters in which the superior mental powers of
normal adult humans make a difference: anticipation, more
detailed …
305
Farm animals in America once grazed on open fields beside
coun-
try roads. Those days, however, are gone. Today, farm animals
live in smelly, crowded, automated warehouses. Every indepen-
dent study has found these factories to be inhumane. The
cramped
conditions are stressful and unnatural for the animals; cows
pumped full of food often experience internal abscesses;
chickens
and turkeys have their beaks cut off, and pigs and cows have
their
tails severed—all without anesthesia—to avoid the fighting that
occurs precisely because the animals are packed in so tightly.
The number of animals that suffer under these conditions is
staggering—in the billions, year after year. When people in our
culture think of a moral horror, they often think of the Holo-
caust—the campaign of genocide in which Hitler and his Nazi
thugs starved, beat, and ultimately murdered 5.7 million Jews.
They do not think of factory farming. Yet for every human
being
who suffered under Hitler’s tyranny, several thousand animals
have suffered in these farms during the past twenty years. The
Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, “In relation to
[animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal
Treblinka.”
Chapter 28

Torturing Puppies and Eating Meat
It’s All in Good Taste
Alastair Norcross
Alastair Norcross, “Torturing Puppies and Eating Meat: It’s All
in Good Taste” in Southwest
Philosophy Review, vol. 20, no. 1 (2004): 117–23. Copyright ©
2004. Used with permission
of the author.
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Chapter 28306
In this selection, Alastair Norcross asks how we can justify
treating chickens in ways that we would never treat puppies.
Despite the seriousness of the topic, Norcross’s piece contains
humor—some of it directed at my home state of Alabama, and
some directed specifically at the city of Tuscaloosa, where I
live.
We Alabamians can take the ridicule—even when it’s not in
good
taste.
Alastair Norcross is a professor of philosophy at the University
of Colorado at Boulder, where many people play the banjo.
Consider the story of Fred, who receives a visit from the police
one
day. They have been summoned by Fred’s neighbors, who have
been
disturbed by strange sounds emanating from Fred’s basement.
When
they enter the basement they are confronted by the following
scene:

Twenty-six small wire cages, each containing a puppy, some
whin-
ing, some whimpering, some howling. The puppies range in age
from
newborn to about six months. Many of them show signs of
mutilation.
Urine and feces cover the bottoms of the cages and the
basement floor.
Fred explains that he keeps the puppies for twenty-six weeks,
and then
butchers them while holding them upside-down. During their
lives he
performs a series of mutilations on them, such as slicing off
their noses
and their paws with a hot knife, all without any form of
anesthesia.
Except for the mutilations, the puppies are never allowed out of
the
cages, which are barely big enough to hold them at twenty-six
weeks.
The police are horrified, and promptly charge Fred with animal
abuse.
As details of the case are publicized, the public is outraged.
Newspa-
pers are flooded with letters demanding that Fred be severely
punished.
There are calls for more severe penalties for animal abuse. Fred
is
denounced as a vile sadist.
Finally, at his trial, Fred explains his behavior, and argues that
he is
blameless and therefore deserves no punishment. He is, he
explains, a
great lover of chocolate. A couple of years ago, he was involved
in a car

accident, which resulted in some head trauma. Upon his release
from
the hospital, having apparently suffered no lasting ill effects, he
visited
his favorite restaurant and ordered their famous rich dark
chocolate
mousse. Imagine his dismay when he discovered that his
experience
of the mousse was a pale shadow of its former self. The mousse
tasted
bland, slightly pleasant, but with none of the intense chocolaty
flavor
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Torturing Puppies and Eating Meat 307
he remembered so well. The waiter assured him that the recipe
was
unchanged from the last time he had tasted it, just the day
before his
accident. In some consternation, Fred rushed out to buy a bar of
his
favorite Belgian chocolate. Again, he was dismayed to discover
that
his experience of the chocolate was barely even pleasurable.
Extensive
investigation revealed that his experience of other foods
remained
unaffected, but chocolate, in all its forms, now tasted bland and
insipid.
Desperate for a solution to his problem, Fred visited a renowned
gusta-
tory neurologist, Dr. T. Bud. Extensive tests revealed that the
accident
had irreparably damaged the godiva gland, which secretes
cocoamone,
the hormone responsible for the experience of chocolate. Fred

urgently
requested hormone replacement therapy. Dr. Bud informed him
that,
until recently, there had been no known source of cocoamone,
other
than the human godiva gland, and that it was impossible to
collect
cocoamone from one person to be used by another. However, a
chance
discovery had altered the situation. A forensic veterinary
surgeon, per-
forming an autopsy on a severely abused puppy, had discovered
high
concentrations of cocoamone in the puppy’s brain. It turned out
that
puppies, who don’t normally produce cocoamone, could be
stimulated
to do so by extended periods of severe stress and suffering. The
research
that led to this discovery, while gaining tenure for its authors,
had not
been widely publicized, for fear of antagonizing animal welfare
groups.
Although this research clearly gave Fred the hope of tasting
chocolate
again, there were no commercially available sources of puppy-
derived
cocoamone. Lack of demand, combined with fear of bad
publicity, had
deterred drug companies from getting into the puppy torturing
business.
Fred appeals to the court to imagine his anguish, on discovering
that a
solution to his severe deprivation was possible, but not readily
avail-
able. But he wasn’t inclined to sit around bemoaning his cruel

fate. He
did what any chocolate lover would do. He read the research,
and set
up his own cocoamone collection lab in his basement. Six
months of
intense puppy suffering, followed by a brutal death, produced
enough
cocoamone to last him a week, hence the twenty-six cages. He
isn’t a
sadist or an animal abuser, he explains. If there were a method
of col-
lecting cocoamone without torturing puppies, he would gladly
employ
it. He derives no pleasure from the suffering of the puppies
itself. He
sympathizes with those who are horrified by the pain and misery
of the
animals, but the court must realize that human pleasure is at
stake. The
puppies, while undeniably cute, are mere animals. He admits
that he
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Chapter 28308
would be just as healthy without chocolate, if not more so. But
this isn’t
a matter of survival or health. His life would be unacceptably
impover-
ished without the experience of chocolate.
End of story. Clearly, we are horrified by Fred’s behavior, and
unconvinced by his attempted justification. It is, of course,
unfortunate
for Fred that he can no longer enjoy the taste of chocolate, but
that in no
way excuses the imposition of severe suffering on the puppies. I

expect
near universal agreement with this claim (the exceptions being
those
who are either inhumanly callous or thinking ahead, and wish to
avoid
the following conclusion, to which such agreement commits
them).
No decent person would even contemplate torturing puppies
merely to
enhance a gustatory experience. However, billions of animals
endure
intense suffering every year for precisely this end. Most of the
chicken,
veal, beef, and pork consumed in the United States comes from
inten-
sive confinement facilities, in which the animals live cramped,
stress-
filled lives and endure un-anaesthetized mutilations. The vast
majority
of people would suffer no ill health from the elimination of
meat from
their diets. Quite the reverse. The supposed benefits from this
system
of factory farming, apart from the profits accruing to
agribusiness, are
increased levels of gustatory pleasure for those who claim that
they
couldn’t enjoy a meat-free diet as much as their current meat-
filled
diets. If we are prepared to condemn Fred for torturing puppies
merely
to enhance his gustatory experiences, shouldn’t we similarly
condemn
the millions who purchase and consume factory-raised meat?
Are there
any morally significant differences between Fred’s behavior and

their
behavior?
The first difference that might seem to be relevant is that Fred
tor-
tures the puppies himself, whereas most Americans consume
meat that
comes from animals that have been tortured by others. But is
this really
relevant? What if Fred had been squeamish and had employed
someone
else to torture the puppies and extract the cocoamone? Would
we have
thought any better of Fred? Of course not.
Another difference between Fred and many consumers of
factory-
raised meat is that many, perhaps most, such consumers are
unaware
of the treatment of the animals, before they appear in neatly
wrapped
packages on supermarket shelves. Perhaps I should moderate my
chal-
lenge, then. If we are prepared to condemn Fred for torturing
puppies
merely to enhance his gustatory experiences, shouldn’t we
similarly
condemn those who purchase and consume factory-raised meat,
in full,
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or even partial, awareness of the suffering endured by the
animals?
While many consumers are still blissfully ignorant of the
appalling

treatment meted out to meat, that number is rapidly dwindling,
thanks
to vigorous publicity campaigns waged by animal welfare
groups. Fur-
thermore, any meat-eating readers of this article are now
deprived of
the excuse of ignorance.
Perhaps a consumer of factory-raised animals could argue as
follows:
While I agree that Fred’s behavior is abominable, mine is
crucially dif-
ferent. If Fred did not consume his chocolate, he would not
raise and
torture puppies (or pay someone else to do so). Therefore Fred
could
prevent the suffering of the puppies. However, if I did not buy
and
consume factory-raised meat, no animals would be spared lives
of mis-
ery. Agribusiness is much too large to respond to the behavior
of one
consumer. Therefore I cannot prevent the suffering of any
animals. I
may well regret the suffering inflicted on animals for the sake
of human
enjoyment. I may even agree that the human enjoyment doesn’t
justify
the suffering. However, since the animals will suffer no matter
what I
do, I may as well enjoy the taste of their flesh.
There are at least two lines of response to this attempted
defense.
First, consider an analogous case. You visit a friend in an exotic
location, say Alabama. Your friend takes you out to eat at the

finest
restaurant in Tuscaloosa. For dessert you select the house
specialty,
“Chocolate Mousse à la Bama,” served with a small cup of
coffee,
which you are instructed to drink before eating the mousse. The
mousse
is quite simply the most delicious dessert you have ever tasted.
Never
before has chocolate tasted so rich and satisfying. Tempted to
order a
second, you ask your friend what makes this mousse so
delicious. He
informs you that the mousse itself is ordinary, but the coffee
contains
a concentrated dose of cocoamone, the newly discovered
chocolate-
enhancing hormone. Researchers at Auburn University have
perfected
a technique for extracting cocoamone from the brains of freshly
slaugh-
tered puppies, who have been subjected to lives of pain and
frustration.
Each puppy’s brain yields four doses, each of which is effective
for
about fifteen minutes, just long enough to enjoy one serving of
mousse.
You are, naturally, horrified and disgusted. You will certainly
not order
another serving, you tell your friend. In fact, you are shocked
that your
friend, who had always seemed to be a morally decent person,
could
have both recommended the dessert to you and eaten one
himself, in
full awareness of the loathsome process necessary for the

experience.
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Chapter 28310
He agrees that the suffering of the puppies is outrageous, and
that the
gain in human pleasure in no way justifies the appalling
treatment they
have to endure. However, neither he nor you can save any
puppies
by refraining from consuming cocoamone. Cocoamone
production is
now Alabama’s leading industry, surpassing even banjo-making
and
inbreeding.1 The industry is much too large to respond to the
behavior
of one or two consumers. Since the puppies will suffer no
matter what
either of you does, you may as well enjoy the mousse.
If it is as obvious as it seems that a morally decent person, who
is
aware of the details of cocoamone production, couldn’t order
Chocolate
Mousse à la Bama, it should be equally obvious that a morally
decent
person, who is aware of the details of factory farming, can’t
purchase
and consume factory-raised meat. If the attempted excuse of
causal
impotence is compelling in the latter case, it should be
compelling in
the former case. But it isn’t.
The second response to the claim of causal impotence is to deny
it.

Consider the case of chickens, the most cruelly treated of all
animals
raised for human consumption, with the possible exception of
veal
calves. In 1998, almost 8 billion chickens were slaughtered in
the
United States,2 almost all of them raised on factory farms.
Suppose that
there are 250 million chicken eaters in the United States, and
that each
one consumes, on average, 25 chickens per year (this leaves a
fair num-
ber of chickens slaughtered for nonhuman consumption, or for
export).
Clearly, if only one of those chicken eaters gave up eating
chicken, the
industry would not respond. Equally clearly, if they all gave up
eat-
ing chicken, billions of chickens (approximately 6.25 billion per
year)
would not be bred, tortured, and killed. But there must also be
some
number of consumers, far short of 250 million, whose
renunciation of
chicken would cause the industry to reduce the number of
chickens
bred in factory farms. The industry may not be able to respond
to each
individual’s behavior, but it must respond to the behavior of
fairly
large numbers. Suppose that the industry is sensitive to a
reduction in
demand for chicken equivalent to 10,000 people becoming
vegetarians.
(This seems like a reasonable guess, but I have no idea what the
actual

numbers are, nor is it important.) For each group of 10,000 who
give
up chicken, a quarter of a million fewer chickens are bred per
year. It
appears, then, that if you give up eating chicken, you have only
a one in
ten thousand chance of making any difference to the lives of
chickens,
unless it is certain that fewer than 10,000 people will ever give
up eating
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chicken, in which case you have no chance. Isn’t a one in ten
thousand
chance small enough to render your continued consumption of
chicken
blameless? Not at all. While the chance that your behavior is
harmful
may be small, the harm that is risked is enormous. The larger
the num-
bers needed to make a difference to chicken production, the
larger the
difference such numbers would make. A one in ten thousand
chance
of saving 250,000 chickens per year from excruciating lives is
morally
and mathematically equivalent to the certainty of saving 25
chickens
per year. We commonly accept that even small risks of great
harms are
unacceptable. That is why we disapprove of parents who fail to
secure
their children in car seats or with seat belts, who leave their
small chil-
dren unattended at home, or who drink or smoke heavily during

preg-
nancy. Or consider commercial aircraft safety measures. The
chances
that the oxygen masks, the lifejackets, or the emergency exits
on any
given plane will be called on to save any lives in a given week,
are far
smaller than one in ten thousand. And yet we would be outraged
to
discover that an airline had knowingly allowed a plane to fly for
a week
with non-functioning emergency exits, oxygen masks, and
lifejackets.
So, even if it is true that your giving up factory raised chicken
has only
a tiny chance of preventing suffering, given that the amount of
suffer-
ing that would be prevented is in inverse proportion to your
chance of
preventing it, your continued consumption is not thereby
excused.
But perhaps it is not even true that your giving up chicken has
only
a tiny chance of making any difference. Suppose again that the
poultry
industry only reduces production when a threshold of 10,000
fresh veg-
etarians is reached. Suppose also, as is almost certainly true,
that veg-
etarianism is growing in popularity in the United States (and
elsewhere).
Then, even if you are not the one, newly converted vegetarian,
to reach the
next threshold of 10,000, your conversion will reduce the time
required

before the next threshold is reached. The sooner the threshold is
reached,
the sooner production, and therefore animal suffering, is
reduced. Your
behavior, therefore, does make a difference. Furthermore, many
people
who become vegetarians influence others to become vegetarian,
who in
turn influence others, and so on. It appears, then, that the claim
of causal
impotence is mere wishful thinking, on the part of those meat
lovers who
are morally sensitive enough to realize that human gustatory
pleasure
does not justify inflicting extreme suffering on animals. . . .
I have been unable to discover any morally relevant differences
between the behavior of Fred, the puppy torturer, and the
behavior of
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Chapter 28312
the millions of people who purchase and consume factory-raised
meat,
at least those who do so in the knowledge that the animals live
lives
of suffering and deprivation. Just as morality demands that we
not tor-
ture puppies merely to enhance our own eating pleasure,
morality also
demands that we not support factory farming by purchasing
factory-
raised meat.
NOTES

1. I realize that I am playing on stereotypes for comic effect.
Banjo-making,
of course, has never really been one of Alabama’s leading
industries.
2. Livestock Slaughter 1998 Summary, NASS, USDA
(Washington, DC:
March 1999), 2; and Poultry Slaughter, NASS, USDA
(Washington, DC: Feb-
ruary 2, 1999), 1f.
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375
In this selection, J. Gay-Williams offers several standard objec-
tions to euthanasia: that it goes against our natural instincts;
that
it violates human dignity; that it forecloses the possibility of
miraculous cures; that the critically ill, and their caretakers,
might
give up too easily if euthanasia were an option; and, finally,
that
the legalization of euthanasia might lead to horrific abuses.
“J. Gay-Williams” is a pseudonym. We are not told the author’s
real name.
My impression is that euthanasia—the idea, if not the practice—
is
slowly gaining acceptance within our society. Cynics might
attribute
this to an increasing tendency to devalue human life, but I do
not believe
this is the major factor. The acceptance is much more likely to
be the
result of unthinking sympathy and benevolence. Well-

publicized, tragic
stories like that of Karen Quinlan elicit from us deep feelings of
com-
passion. We think to ourselves, “She and her family would be
better off
if she were dead.” It is an easy step from this very human
response to
the view that if someone (and others) would be better off dead,
then it
might be all right to kill that person. Although I respect the
compas-
sion that leads to this conclusion, I believe the conclusion is
wrong.
Chapter 34
The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia
J. Gay-Williams
J. Gay-Williams, “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia” in
Intervention and Reflection, ed. Ron-
ald Munson (Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2017). Copyright
© 2008, 2012, 2017 Ronald
Munson. Used with permission.
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Chapter 34376
I want to show that euthanasia is wrong. It is inherently wrong,
but it is
also wrong judged from the standpoints of self-interest and of
practical
effects.
Before presenting my arguments to support this claim, it would
be
well to define “euthanasia.” An essential aspect of euthanasia is

that it
involves taking a human life, either one’s own or that of
another. Also,
the person whose life is taken must be someone who is believed
to
be suffering from some disease or injury from which recovery
cannot
reasonably be expected. Finally, the action must be deliberate
and inten-
tional. Thus, euthanasia is intentionally taking the life of a
presumably
hopeless person. Whether the life is one’s own or that of
another, the
taking of it is still euthanasia.
It is important to be clear about the deliberate and intentional
aspect
of the killing. If a hopeless person is given an injection of the
wrong
drug by mistake and this causes his death, this is wrongful
killing but
not euthanasia. The killing cannot be the result of accident.
Further-
more, if the person is given an injection of a drug that is
believed to
be necessary to treat his disease or better his condition and the
person
dies as a result, then this is neither wrongful killing nor
euthanasia. The
intention was to make the patient well, not kill him. Similarly,
when
a patient’s condition is such that it is not reasonable to hope
that any
medical procedures or treatments will save his life, a failure to
imple-
ment the procedures or treatments is not euthanasia. If the

person dies,
this will be as a result of his injuries or disease and not because
of his
failure to receive treatment.
The failure to continue treatment after it has been realized that
the
patient has little chance of benefiting from it has been
characterized by
some as “passive euthanasia.” This phrase is misleading and
mistaken.
In such cases, the person involved is not killed (the first
essential aspect
of euthanasia), nor is the death of the person intended by the
withhold-
ing of additional treatment (the third essential aspect of
euthanasia).
The aim may be to spare the person additional and unjustifiable
pain, to
save him from the indignities of hopeless manipulations, and to
avoid
increasing the financial and emotional burden on his family.
When I
buy a pencil it is so that I can use it to write, not to contribute
to an
increase in the gross national product (GNP). This may be the
unin-
tended consequence of my action, but it is not the aim of my
action. So
it is with failing to continue the treatment of a dying person. I
intend
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The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia 377
his death no more than I intend to reduce the GNP by not using
medical

supplies. His is an unintended dying, and so-called “passive
euthanasia”
is not euthanasia at all.
1. THE ARGUMENT FROM NATURE
Every human being has a natural inclination to continue living.
Our
reflexes and responses fit us to fight attackers, flee wild
animals, and
dodge out of the way of trucks. In our daily lives we exercise
the cau-
tion and care necessary to protect ourselves. Our bodies are
similarly
structured for survival right down to the molecular level. When
we are
cut, our capillaries seal shut, our blood clots, and fibrinogen is
produced
to start the process of healing the wound. When we are invaded
by
bacteria, antibodies are produced to fight against the alien
organisms,
and their remains are swept out of the body by special cells
designed
for clean-up work.
Euthanasia does violence to this natural goal of survival. It is
literally
acting against nature because all the processes of nature are
bent towards
the end of bodily survival. Euthanasia defeats these subtle
mechanisms
in a way that, in a particular case, disease and injury might not.
It is possible, but not necessary, to make an appeal to revealed
reli-

gion in this connection. Man as trustee of his body acts against
God,
its rightful possessor, when he takes his own life. He also
violates the
commandment to hold life sacred and never to take it without
just and
compelling cause. But since this appeal will persuade only those
who
are prepared to accept that religion has access to revealed
truths, I shall
not employ this line of argument.
It is enough, I believe, to recognize that the organization of the
human body and our patterns of behavioral responses make the
continu-
ation of life a natural goal. By reason alone, then, we can
recognize that
euthanasia sets us against our own nature. Furthermore, in doing
so,
euthanasia does violence to our dignity. Our dignity comes from
seek-
ing our ends. When one of our goals is survival, and actions are
taken
that eliminate that goal, then our natural dignity suffers. Unlike
animals,
we are conscious through reason of our nature and our ends.
Euthanasia
involves acting as if this dual nature—inclination towards
survival and
awareness of this as an end—did not exist. Thus, euthanasia
denies our
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Chapter 34378
basic human character and requires that we regard ourselves or
others

as something less than fully human.
2. THE ARGUMENT FROM SELF-INTEREST
The above arguments are, I believe, sufficient to show that
euthanasia
is inherently wrong. But there are reasons for considering it
wrong
when judged by standards other than reason. Because death is
final
and irreversible, euthanasia contains within it the possibility
that we
will work against our own interest if we practice it or allow it to
be
practiced on us.
Contemporary medicine has high standards of excellence and a
proven record of accomplishment, but it does not possess
perfect and
complete knowledge. A mistaken diagnosis is possible, and so is
a
mistaken prognosis. Consequently, we may believe that we are
dying
of a disease when, as a matter of fact, we may not be. We may
think
that we have no hope of recovery when, as a matter of fact, our
chances
are quite good. In such circumstances, if euthanasia were
permitted, we
would die needlessly. Death is final and the chance of error too
great to
approve the practice of euthanasia.
Also, there is always the possibility that an experimental
procedure
or a hitherto untried technique will pull us through. We should

at least
keep this option open, but euthanasia closes it off. Furthermore,
spon-
taneous remission does occur in many cases. For no apparent
reason,
a patient simply recovers when those all around him, including
his
physicians, expected him to die. Euthanasia would just
guarantee their
expectations and leave no room for the “miraculous” recoveries
that
frequently occur.
Finally, knowing that we can take our life at any time (or ask
another to take it) might well incline us to give up too easily.
The
will to live is strong in all of us, but it can be weakened by pain
and
suffering and feelings of hopelessness. If during a bad time we
allow
ourselves to be killed, we never have a chance to reconsider.
Recovery
from a serious illness requires that we fight for it, and anything
that
weakens our determination by suggesting that there is an easy
way
out is ultimately against our own interest. Also, we may be
inclined
towards euthanasia because of our concern for others. If we see
our
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The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia 379
sickness and suffering as an emotional and financial burden on
our
family, we may feel that to leave our life is to make their lives

easier.
The very presence of the possibility of euthanasia may keep us
from
surviving when we might.
3. THE ARGUMENT FROM PRACTICAL EFFECTS
Doctors and nurses are, for the most part, totally committed to
sav-
ing lives. A life lost is, for them, almost a personal failure, an
insult
to their skills and knowledge. Euthanasia as a practice might
well
alter this. It could have a corrupting influence so that in any
case that
is severe, doctors and nurses might not try hard enough to save
the
patient. They might decide that the patient would simply be
“bet-
ter off dead” and take the steps necessary to make that come
about.
This attitude could then carry over to their dealings with
patients less
seriously ill. The result would be an overall decline in the
quality of
medical care.
Finally, euthanasia as a policy is a slippery slope. A person
appar-
ently hopelessly ill may be allowed to take his own life. Then
he may be
permitted to deputize others to do it for him should he no longer
be able
to act. The judgment of others then becomes the ruling factor.
Already
at this point euthanasia is not personal and voluntary, for others

are
acting “on behalf of” the patient as they see fit. This may well
incline
them to act on behalf of other patients who have not authorized
them
to exercise their judgment. It is only a short step, then, from
voluntary
euthanasia (self-inflicted or authorized) to directed euthanasia
adminis-
tered to a patient who has given no authorization, to involuntary
eutha-
nasia conducted as part of a social policy. Recently many
psychiatrists
and sociologists have argued that we define as “mental illness”
those
forms of behavior that we disapprove of. This gives us license
then to
lock up those who display the behavior. The category of the
“hopelessly
ill” provides the possibility of even worse abuse. Embedded in a
social
policy, it would give society or its representatives the authority
to elimi-
nate all those who might be considered too “ill” to function
normally
any longer. The dangers of euthanasia are too great to all to run
the risk
of approving it in any form. The first slippery step may well
lead to a
serious and harmful fall.
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Chapter 34380
I hope that I have succeeded in showing why the benevolence
that
inclines us to give approval of euthanasia is misplaced.

Euthanasia is
inherently wrong because it violates the nature and dignity of
human
beings. But even those who are not convinced by this must be
persuaded
that the potential personal and social dangers inherent in
euthanasia are
sufficient to forbid our approving it either as a personal practice
or as
a public policy.
Suffering is surely a terrible thing, and we have a clear duty to
com-
fort those in need and to ease their suffering when we can. But
suffering
is also a natural part of life with values for the individual and
for oth-
ers that we should not overlook. We may legitimately seek for
others
and for ourselves an easeful death, as Arthur Dyck has pointed
out.
Euthanasia, however, is not just an easeful death. It is a
wrongful death.
Euthanasia is not just dying. It is killing.
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197
The Australian philosopher Peter Singer (1946–) is the most
widely read author in the field of ethics. In this essay, he
consid-
ers whether it is morally defensible for well-off people to spend
money on luxuries while other people starve.
As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East
Bengal

from lack of food, shelter, and medical care. The suffering and
death
that are occurring there now are not inevitable, not unavoidable
in any
fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a
civil
war have turned at least nine million people into destitute
refugees;
nevertheless, it is not beyond the capacity of the richer nations
to give
enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to very small
propor-
tions. The decisions and actions of human beings can prevent
this kind
of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the
necessary
decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few
excep-
tions, not responded to the situation in any significant way.
Generally
speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they
have
not written to their parliamentary representatives demanding
increased
government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the
streets, held
symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing
the
Chapter 19
Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Peter Singer
Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” in Philosophy
and Public Affairs, vol. 1,

no. 1 (spring 1972): 229–43. Copyright © 1972 Peter Singer.
Used with permission of the
author.
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Chapter 19198
refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At the
govern-
ment level, no government has given the sort of massive aid that

would
enable the refugees to survive for more than a few days. Britain,
for
instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to
date,
given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, Britain’s share of
the
non-recoverable development costs of the Anglo-French
Concorde
project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present
estimates
will reach £440,000,000. The implication is that the British
government
values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as highly as
it val-
ues the lives of the nine million refugees. Australia is another
country
which, on a per capita basis, is well up in the “aid to Bengal”
table.
Australia’s aid, however, amounts to less than one-twelfth of
the cost
of Sydney’s new opera house. . . .
These are the essential facts about the present situation in
Bengal. So
far as it concerns us here, there is nothing unique about this
situation
except its magnitude. The Bengal emergency is just the latest
and most
acute of a series of major emergencies in various parts of the
world,
arising both from natural and from manmade causes. There are
also
many parts of the world in which people die from malnutrition
and lack
of food independent of any special emergency. I take Bengal as

my
example only because it is the present concern, and because the
size
of the problem has ensured that it has been given adequate
publicity.
Neither individuals nor governments can claim to be unaware of
what
is happening there.
What are the moral implications of a situation like this? In what
fol-
lows, I shall argue that the way people in relatively affluent
countries
react to a situation like that in Bengal cannot be justified;
indeed, the
whole way we look at moral issues—our moral conceptual
scheme—
needs to be altered, and with it, the way of life that has come to
be taken
for granted in our society. . . .
I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack
of
food, shelter, and medical care are bad. I think most people will
agree
about this, although one may reach the same view by different
routes. I
shall not argue for this view. People can hold all sorts of
eccentric posi-
tions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that
death by
starvation is in itself bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to
refute
such positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth take this
assumption
as accepted. Those who disagree need read no further.

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Famine, Affluence, and Morality 199
My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something
bad
from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of
comparable
moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By “without
sacrificing

anything of comparable moral importance” I mean without
causing
anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something
that is
wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good,
comparable in
significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This principle
seems
almost as uncontroversial as the last one. It requires us only to
prevent
what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it requires this of
us only
when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the
moral
point of view, comparably important. I could even, as far as the
appli-
cation of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned,
qualify
the point so as to make it: if it is in 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. This
will mean
getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the
death of
the child would presumably be a very bad thing.
The uncontroversial appearance of the principle just stated is
decep-
tive. If it were acted upon, even in its qualified form, our lives,
our soci-

ety, and our world would be fundamentally changed. For the
principle
takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no
moral
difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor’s child
ten yards
from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten
thousand
miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction
between cases
in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything
and cases
in which I am just one among millions in the same position.
I do not think I need to say much in defense of the refusal to
take
proximity and distance into account. The fact that a person is
physi-
cally near to us, so that we have personal contact with him, may
make
it more likely that we shall assist him, but this does not show
that we
ought to help him rather than another who happens to be further
away.
If we accept any principle of impartiality, universalizability,
equality, or
whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely
because he is
far away from us (or we are far away from him). Admittedly, it
is pos-
sible that we are in a better position to judge what needs to be
done to
help a person near to us than one far away, and perhaps also to
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Chapter 19200
the assistance we judge to be necessary. If this were the case, it
would
be a reason for helping those near to us first. This may once
have been
a justification for being more concerned with the poor in one’s
town
than with famine victims in India. Unfortunately for those who
like to

keep their moral responsibilities limited, instant communication
and
swift transportation have changed the situation. From the moral
point of
view, the development of the world into a “global village” has
made an
important, though still unrecognized, difference to our moral
situation.
Expert observers and supervisors, sent out by famine relief
organiza-
tions or permanently stationed in famine-prone areas, can direct
our aid
to a refugee in Bengal almost as effectively as we could get it to
some-
one in our own block. There would seem, therefore, to be no
possible
justification for discriminating on geographical grounds.
There may be a greater need to defend the second implication of
my principle—that the fact that there are millions of other
people in
the same position, in respect to the Bengali refugees, as I am,
does not
make the situation significantly different from a situation in
which I
am the only person who can prevent something very bad from
occur-
ring. Again, of course, I admit that there is a psychological
difference
between the cases; one feels less guilty about doing nothing if
one can
point to others, similarly placed, who have also done nothing.
Yet this
can make no real difference to our moral obligations. Should I
consider
that I am less obliged to pull the drowning child out of the pond

if on
looking around I see other people, no further away than I am,
who have
also noticed the child but are doing nothing? One has only to
ask this
question to see the absurdity of the view that numbers lessen
obligation.
It is a view that is an ideal excuse for inactivity; unfortunately
most of
the major evils—poverty, overpopulation, pollution—are
problems in
which everyone is almost equally involved.
The view that numbers do make a difference can be made
plausible
if stated in this way: if everyone in circumstances like mine
gave £5 to
the Bengal Relief Fund, there would be enough to provide food,
shelter,
and medical care for the refugees; there is no reason why I
should give
more than anyone else in the same circumstances as I am;
therefore I
have no obligation to give more than £5. Each premise in this
argument
is true, and the argument looks sound. It may convince us,
unless we
notice that it is based on a hypothetical premise, although the
conclu-
sion is not stated hypothetically. The argument would be sound
if the
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conclusion were: if everyone in circumstances like mine were to
give
£5, I would have no obligation to give more than £5. If the
conclusion
were so stated, however, it would be obvious that the argument
has no
bearing on a situation in which it is not the case that everyone
else gives
£5. This, of course, is the actual situation. It is more or less
certain that
not everyone in circumstances like mine will give £5. So there

will not
be enough to provide the needed food, shelter, and medical care.
There-
fore by giving more than £5 I will prevent more suffering than I
would
if I gave just £5. . . .
If my argument so far has been sound, neither our distance from
a preventable evil nor the number of other people who, in
respect to
that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our
obligation to
mitigate or prevent that evil. I shall therefore take as
established the
principle I asserted earlier. As I have already said, I need to
assert it
only in its qualified form: if it is in our power to prevent
something very
bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else
morally
significant, we ought, morally, to do it.
The outcome of this argument is that our traditional moral
categories
are upset. The traditional distinction between duty and charity
cannot
be drawn, or at least, not in the place we normally draw it.
Giving
money to the Bengal Relief Fund is regarded as an act of charity
in
our society. The bodies which collect money are known as
“charities.”
These organizations see themselves in this way—if you send
them
a check, you will be thanked for your “generosity.” Because
giving

money is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought that
there is
anything wrong with not giving. The charitable man may be
praised,
but the man who is not charitable is not condemned. People do
not feel
in any way ashamed or guilty about spending money on new
clothes or
a new car instead of giving it to famine relief. (Indeed, the
alternative
does not occur to them.) This way of looking at the matter
cannot be
justified. When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm
but to
look “well-dressed” we are not providing for any important
need. We
would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to
continue to
wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By
doing so,
we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows
from
what I have said earlier that 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
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Chapter 19202
and theologians have called “supererogatory”—an act which 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. . . .
One objection to the position I have taken might be simply that
it
is too drastic a revision of our moral scheme. People do not
ordinarily
judge in the way I have suggested they should. Most people
reserve
their moral condemnation for those who violate some moral
norm,

such as the norm against taking another person’s property. They
do not
condemn those who indulge in luxury instead of giving to
famine relief.
But given that I did not set out to present a morally neutral
description
of the way people make moral judgments, the way people do in
fact
judge has nothing to do with the validity of my conclusion. My
conclu-
sion follows from the principle which I advanced earlier, and
unless that
principle is rejected, or the arguments are shown to be unsound,
I think
the conclusion must stand, however strange it appears. . . .
It has been argued by some writers, among them Sidgwick and
Urm-
son, that we need to have a basic moral code which is not too
far beyond
the capacities of the ordinary man, for otherwise there will be a
general
breakdown of compliance with the moral code. Crudely stated,
this
argument suggests that if we tell people that they ought to
refrain from
murder and give everything they do not really need to famine
relief,
they will do neither, whereas if we tell them that they ought to
refrain
from murder and that it is good to give to famine relief but not
wrong
not to do so, they will at least refrain from murder. The issue
here is:
Where should we draw the line between conduct that is required
and

conduct that is good although not required, so as to get the best
possible
result? This would seem to be an empirical question, although a
very
difficult one. One objection to the Sidgwick-Urmson line of
argument
is that it takes insufficient account of the effect that moral
standards can
have on the decisions we make. Given a society in which a
wealthy man
who gives 5 percent of his income to famine relief is regarded
as most
generous, it is not surprising that a proposal that we all ought to
give
away half our incomes will be thought to be absurdly
unrealistic. In a
society which held that no man should have more than enough
while
others have less than they need, such a proposal might seem
narrow-
minded. What it is possible for a man to do and what he is
likely to do
are both, I think, very greatly influenced by what people around
him
are doing and expecting him to do. In any case, the possibility
that by
spreading the idea that we ought to be doing very much more
than we
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are to relieve famine we shall bring about a general breakdown
of moral
behavior seems remote. If the stakes are an end to widespread
starva-
tion, it is worth the risk. Finally, it should be emphasized that
these
considerations are relevant only to the issue of what we should
require
from others, and not to what we ourselves ought to do.
The second objection to my attack on the present distinction
between
duty and charity is one which has from time to time been made
against

utilitarianism. It follows from some forms of utilitarian theory
that we
all ought, morally, to be working full time to increase the
balance of
happiness over misery. The position I have taken here would not
lead
to this conclusion in all circumstances, for if there were no bad
occur-
rences that we could prevent without sacrificing something of
com-
parable moral importance, my argument would have no
application.
Given the present conditions in many parts of the world,
however, it
does follow from my argument that we ought, morally, to be
working
full time to relieve great suffering of the sort that occurs as a
result of
famine or other disasters. Of course, mitigating circumstances
can be
adduced—for instance, that if we wear ourselves out through
over-
work, we shall be less effective than we would otherwise have
been.
Nevertheless, when all considerations of this sort have been
taken into
account, the conclusion remains: we ought to be preventing as
much
suffering as we can without sacrificing something else of
comparable
moral importance. This conclusion is one which we may be
reluctant
to face. I cannot see, though, why it should be regarded as a
criticism
of the position for which I have argued, rather than a criticism
of our

ordinary standards of behavior. Since most people are self-
interested to
some degree, very few of us are likely to do everything that we
ought
to do. It would, however, hardly be honest to take this as
evidence that
it is not the case that we ought to do it.
It may still be thought that my conclusions are so wildly out of
line
with what everyone else thinks and has always thought that
there must
be something wrong with the argument somewhere. In order to
show
that my conclusions, while certainly contrary to contemporary
Western
moral standards, would not have seemed so extraordinary at
other times
and in other places, I would like to quote a passage from a
writer not
normally thought of as a way-out radical, Thomas Aquinas.
Now, according to the natural order instituted by divine
providence, mate-
rial goods are provided for the satisfaction of human needs.
Therefore
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Chapter 19204
the division and appropriation of property, which proceeds from
human
law, must not hinder the satisfaction of man’s necessity from
such goods.
Equally, whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of
natural right,
to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is
also to be
found in the Decretum Gratiani: “The bread which you withhold
belongs
to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to the naked; and the
money
you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the
penniless.”1
I now want to consider a number of points, more practical than

philo-
sophical, which are relevant to the application of the moral
conclusion
we have reached. These points challenge not the idea that we
ought to
be doing all we can to prevent starvation, but the idea that
giving away
a great deal of money is the best means to this end. . . .
Another, more serious reason for not giving to famine relief
funds is
that until there is effective population control, relieving famine
merely
postpones starvation. If we save the Bengal refugees now,
others, per-
haps the children of these refugees, will face starvation in a few
years’
time. In support of this, one may cite the now well-known facts
about
the population explosion and the relatively limited scope for
expanded
production.
. . . I accept that the earth cannot support indefinitely a
population
rising at the present rate. This certainly poses a problem for
anyone
who thinks it important to prevent famine. Again, however, one
could
accept the argument without drawing the conclusion that it
absolves one
from any obligation to do anything to prevent famine. The
conclusion
that should be drawn is that the best means of preventing
famine, in the
long run, is population control. It would then follow from the

position
reached earlier that one ought to be doing all one can to
promote popu-
lation control (unless one held that all forms of population
control were
wrong in themselves, or would have significantly bad
consequences).
Since there are organizations working specifically for
population con-
trol, one would then support them rather than more orthodox
methods
of preventing famine.
A third point raised by the conclusion reached earlier relates to
the
question of just how much we all ought to be giving away. One
pos-
sibility . . . is that we ought to give until we reach the level of
marginal
utility—that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would
cause as
much suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve
by my
gift. This would mean, of course, that one would reduce oneself
to very
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near the material circumstances of a Bengali refugee. It will be
recalled
that earlier I put forward both a strong and a moderate version
of the
principle of preventing bad occurrences. The strong version,
which
required us to prevent bad things from happening unless in
doing so
we would be sacrificing something of comparable moral
significance,
does seem to require reducing ourselves to the level of marginal
utility.
I should also say that the strong version seems to me to be the
correct
one. I proposed the more moderate version—that we should
prevent
bad occurrences unless, to do so, we had to sacrifice something

morally
significant—only in order to show that, even on this surely
undeniable
principle, a great change in our way of life is required. On the
more
moderate principle, it may not follow that we ought to reduce
ourselves
to the level of marginal utility, for one might hold that to
reduce oneself
and one’s family to this level is to cause something
significantly bad to
happen. Whether this is so I shall not discuss, since, as I have
said, I
can see no good reason for holding the moderate version of the
principle
rather than the strong version. Even if we accepted the principle
only
in its moderate form, however, it should be clear that we would
have to
give away enough to ensure that the consumer society,
dependent as it is
on people spending on trivia rather than giving to famine relief,
would
slow down and perhaps disappear entirely. There are several
reasons
why this would be desirable in itself. The value and necessity of
eco-
nomic growth are now being questioned not only by
conservationists,
but by economists as well. There is no doubt, too, that the
consumer
society has had a distorting effect on the goals and purposes of
its mem-
bers. Yet looking at the matter purely from the point of view of
overseas
aid, there must be a limit to the extent to which we should

deliberately
slow down our economy; for it might be the case that if we gave
away,
say, 40 percent of our Gross National Product (GNP), we would
slow
down the economy so much that in absolute terms we would be
giving
less than if we gave 25 percent of the much larger GNP that we
would
have if we limited our contribution to this smaller percentage.
I mention this only as an indication of the sort of factor that one
would have to take into account in working out an ideal. Since
Western
societies generally consider 1 percent of the GNP an acceptable
level
for overseas aid, the matter is entirely academic. Nor does it
affect the
question of how much an individual should give in a society in
which
very few are giving substantial amounts.
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Chapter 19206
. . . The issue is one which faces everyone who has more money
than he
needs to support himself and his dependents, or who is in a
position to
take some sort of political action. These categories must include
practi-
cally every teacher and student of philosophy in the universities
of the
Western world. If philosophy is to deal with matters that are
relevant
to both teachers and students, this is an issue that philosophers
should
discuss.
Discussion, though, is not enough. What is the point of relating
phi-
losophy to public (and personal) affairs if we do not take our
conclu-
sions seriously? In this instance, taking our conclusion
seriously means

acting upon it. The philosopher will not find it any easier than
anyone
else to alter his attitudes and way of life to the extent that, if I
am right,
is involved in doing everything that we ought to be doing. At
the very
least, though, one can make a start. The philosopher who does
so will
have to sacrifice some of the benefits of the consumer society,
but he
can find compensation in the satisfaction of a way of life in
which
theory and practice, if not yet in harmony, are at least coming
together.
NOTE
1. Summa Theologica, II-II, Question 66, Article 7, in Aquinas,
Selected
Political Writings, ed. A. P. d’Entrèves, trans. J. G. Dawson
(Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1948), p. 171.
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369
James Rachels wrote The End of Life: Euthanasia and Morality
(1986). Here he defends the “argument from mercy.”
Euthanasia,
he thinks, is justified when death is the only way to escape
awful
pain. In Rachels’ main example, the pain is suffered by someone
dying from cancer.
Rachels himself died of cancer in 2003. At the end of his life,
nothing persuaded him to change his view of euthanasia. But he
did wonder whether the argument from mercy would require less
intentional killing than he had thought. Often a humane death
occurs via “permanent sedation.” This is when a dying patient is
given more and more pain medication for pain relief, which
causes
the patient to lose consciousness (or “go to sleep”) before

dying.
Under such circumstances, the intention to kill is unnecessary.
The single most powerful argument in support of euthanasia is
the
argument from mercy. It is also an exceptionally simple
argument, at
least in its main idea, which makes one uncomplicated point.
Termi-
nally ill patients sometimes suffer pain so horrible that it is
beyond the
comprehension of those who have not actually experienced it.
Their
suffering can be so terrible that we do not even like to read
about it or
Chapter 33
The Morality of Euthanasia
James Rachels
James Rachels, “The Morality of Euthanasia” in Philosophy and
Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1
(autumn 1971): 47–66. Used with permission.
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Chapter 33370
think about it; we recoil even from the description of such
agony. The
argument from mercy says euthanasia is justified because it
provides
an end to that.
The great Irish satirist Jonathan Swift took eight years to die,
while,
in the words of Joseph Fletcher, “His mind crumbled to pieces.”
At
times the pain in his blinded eyes was so intense he had to be
restrained
from tearing them out with his own hands. Knives and other
potential
instruments of suicide had to be kept from him. For the last
three years
of his life, he could do nothing but sit and drool; and when he
finally

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