1. pmail
Pretend there is an orphan who is healthy, but absolutely alone in this
world. Now pretend there is a sick child who is in desperate need of
a vital organ, without which she will die. This sick child is
completely healthy, except for the bad organ. Not only does this
child have preferences of her own, but she also has a large, loving
family who all have preferences that are intimately tied to the
survival of their sick relation.If I understand Singer correctly, it
would seem that it would be perfectly acceptable (and likely even
morally urgent) for the Utilitarian doctor to take the healthy organ
from the orphan (even though it would kill her and thereby
frustrate all her preferences) and transplant it into the sick child
to satisfy the greater preferences (i.e. the bundle of intertwined
preferences of the sick child and her large family). Even though
Singer's Preference Utilitarianism attempts to preserve the
"person" by focusing on preferences, it seems to view persons as
nothing more than mere preference/utility holders valuable only
insofar as they are the containers in which preferences are stored.
Both persons and preferences seem quite easily replaceable as long
as they are traded in for more persons and/or preferences.

2. pmail
Student: I think that Singer would agree with [graveyard utilitarianism]
in theory, because never having any pain is a like maximizing utility.
However, since we do exist, anything to prevent future existence
would not maximizing utility. For example, if a person wants to have
children (or an animal offspring) it would prevent them from
maximizing utility by not allowing them to do so. That is how I looked
at it at least, I was wondering what you think Singers response might
be...
DrC: Part of Benatar's argument is that we tend to underestimate the
amount of pain and suffering in our lives and the lives of others. When
we take this into account, he thinks, the case for refraining from
reproduction becomes especially strong, because it would lead to so
much more of this bad stuff. But if we refrain from doing so, no future
people will suffer, and their merely "possible pleasures" don't count. I
think Singer disagrees on this last point: his principle of utility enjoins
to maximize the translation of these possible pleasures into actual
ones. The possible pleasures do count, according to him.

3. pmail
Student: Singer states that even though we may believe that humans
form special relations, this is tying morality too closely to our affections. I
feel that humans are very social creatures and this should not be so
easily dismissed. Wouldn't it be part of equal considerations of interests
when choosing between the two that more humans will feel empathy and
sadness over having to use the human infant?
DrC: The tie between morality and the affections may be closer than Singer
allows. That said, he does acknowledge that the emotional ties between a
human infant and its parents would count against equating the human infant
to a non-human animal. However, the “tie breaking” argument is meant to
apply even when those special ties are absent. Even when there are no
emotional ties that favour the human infant, one would be justified in
systematically choosing to save the human infant’s life in tie-breaking
situations.

4. pmail
Student: the ethical life that he [Singer] advocates is compelling, and
worth pursuing even if one will, from time to time, have to admit that
they are acting unethically. I just don't think that I can really dispel of
the idea (even if I don't like it) that it is unethical (even murder) to go
to the movies when you could feed a child--surely if it was your own
child, you wouldn't choose the movies. Of course, most of us are
bound to place our comparatively petty interests above those of
starving children. Still, we could go to the movies less, eat out less,
buy less starbucks--and I think that's the point, that we can always do
better than we're now doing, putting an active effort into becoming
better people.
DrC: To the extent that that’s the point, then demi-vegetarianism is in
harmony with Singer’s theory. But if the point is that our ordinary
omissions are tantamount to murder, demi-speciesism rejects that
moral equivalence.

5. pmail
Student: I wonder whether or not there is the possibility for a universal
ethics, which could transcend cultural or national boundaries. At the
current moment in time, this doesn't seem likely, but from which points
could one try and start to construct such a system of ethics (at least in
an attempt)? What is necessary to make something universal in an
ethical (rather than metaphysical, for example) sense?
Singer's utilitarianism is to be understood as a universal ethic. Maybe
you're wondering about how to incorporate the insights of cultural
relativism into a universal ethic. Well, demi-speciesism (Decision-
value utilitarianism) does this by giving weight to the meaning of an
act as well as it consequences. These meanings are culturally
relative, but the consequences are not. Combining the two, you get a
form of utilitarianism that has relative and non-relative elements. It too
is to be understood as a universal ethic, though it incorporates rather
than transcends a culture's meanings.

6. pmail
It's easy to see that most animals can experience pain and pleasure
because they share qualities with us humans, such as eyes, a mouth,
etc, so we can TELL if they're in pain by their facial expressions and
actions. But we can't observe this as easily with other things like a
clam or a plant or a bacterium. So how come the line seems to
arbitrarily be drawn, putting plants and single celled organisms on the
non-sentient side? It has been proven that plants, when under attack,
send out chemical messengers to warn other plants of their distress
so they can prepare. . . is this not a feeling? What is a feeling? And
bacteria react to distress in an extremely similar way as all animal
cells . . . so how come they're not considered sentient?
DrC: You might study up on Jainism and the Sorites paradox to
pursue your (excellent) thought.

7. pmail
Student: The problem that I have with animals and meat is the
corporate and large-hold farmers. For them, cruelty is part of the cost-
cutting that they feel they need to impose in order to increase profits
for their share-holders and investors. Small-holders tend to be
members of PETA, and because their vestment is with the animals,
their concerns tend to be with what is best for the animal. In my mind,
Singer makes a terrific argument for the small-hold farmers against
the corporate farms. Hence, when I go out for dinner in Edmonton, I
tend to go to places like Blue Plate Diner and TheSugarbowl because
of their involvement with local producers and small-holders. The
product tastes better and is morally sound.
DrC: This looks like good demi-vegetarian practice.

8. pmail
Student: Consider the case of a super morbidly obese person. This
person consumes 4 to 5 times the amount of food that the average
person consumes and is so massive that they cannot move, severely
limiting their autonomy and utility. Vast amounts of food are consumed
by this person, food that could be used to feed starving people in third
world countries. Also, a majority of this food comes from animals
meaning that a large number of animals had to suffer just to satisfy
this person's appetite. This obese person has never felt true hunger
and all the suffering being caused stems from the short term pleasure
of eating. How would a demi-vegetarian/demi-speciesist view this
situation and how would it compare to Singer’s view?
Consider the common meaning in our culture (as opposed to an
idiosyncratic meaning) that personal autonomy is a fundamental
value. This common meaning protects the individual you are
discussing.

9. Singer 4, “What’s wrong
with killing”
Singer: The doctrine of the sanctity of
human life “is now part of a broadly secular
ethic, and it is as part of this secular ethic
that it is most influential today.” (84T)
DrC: I’m not sure this is true. How are we to
understand a broadly secular ethic? Does he
mean an ethic for “the causal nexus”, or an
ethic that includes common meanings in
cultures?

10. Singer
Singer: “I propose to use `person’ in the
sense of a rational and self-conscious being,
to capture those elements of the popular
sense of `human being’ that are not covered
by `member of the species Homo sapiens’.
(87B)
DrC: Does this help us to think clearly about
the intuition that killing a pregnant woman is
killing two people?

11. Singer
Singer: “The classical utilitarian can still
regard killing as wrong because it eliminates
the happiness that the victim would have
experienced, had she lived.” (91B)
DrC: Although Singer is talking about
classical utilitarianism here, his point would
apply as well to his own preference
utilitarianism.

12. Singer
Singer and Tooley: “Tooley argues, however,
that the retrospective attribution of an
interest in living to the infant is a mistake. I
am not the infant from whom I
developed.” (97B)
DrC: Yes you are. You were then and you are
now the person, Peter Singer. This conflicts
with the stipulative definition, but so much
the worse for it.

13. Singer
Singer: “But how do we square the prior
existence view with our intuitions about the
reverse case, when a couple are considering
having a child who, perhaps because it will
inherit a genetic defect, would lead a
thoroughly miserable life and die before its
second birthday?” (104T)
DrC: Graveyard utilitarianism resolves this
case, and also avoids the `total’ view, as it
views pleasure and pain as asymmetrical.

14. Rachels, “Egoism and
Moral Scepticism”
Rachels: “It is a measure of the weakness of
psychological egoism that these
insupportable arguments are the ones most
often advanced in its favor. Why, then, should
anyone ever have thought it a true view?”
DrC: Maybe the true view is an
approximation: people are *predominantly*
egoistic.

15. Cahn & Murphy,
“Happiness and ....”
“When I think of the man described by
Professor Cahn, I find that I *pity* him --
pity him because, with Plato, I think that he
is punished simply by being the kind of
person that he is. But why would I pity him
if I thought that he was truly happy?” (67T)
Note that preference utilitarianism can’t
account for the idea of such value sanctions.