110+ Peter Singer Quotes On Animal Rights, Euthanasia And Animals

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and bioethicist. He is known for his work on animal rights, utilitarianism, and applied ethics. He is currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Peter Singer on animal rights, euthanasia, animals.

Top 10 Peter Singer Quotes

1. All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.
2. 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 non-humans?
3. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet- for the sake of hamburgers
4. Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.
5. Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.
6. Dolphins are social mammals, capable of enjoying their lives. They form close bonds with other members of their group.
7. Of course, infanticide needs to be strictly legally controlled and rare - but it should not be ruled out, any more than abortion.
8. Those who purchase meat, fur, and leather have no right to be shielded from the sights and sounds of the slaughterhouses from which these products were produced.
9. Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics.
10. Surely there will be some nonhuman animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.

Peter Singer Short Quotes

• The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.
• To turn the other cheek is to teach would-be cheats that cheating pays.
• It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality.
• Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human.
• Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written.
• Knowing that we can control our own behaviour makes it more likely that we will.
• If you earn a lot of money, you can give away a lot of money.
• Probability is the guide of life, and of death, too.
• Bush doesn't present himself as a realpolitik politician.
• If we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist.

Peter Singer Quotes About Animal Rights

Christianity is our foe. If animal rights is to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. — Peter Singer

An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable. — Peter Singer

We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals. — Peter Singer

The prescription 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. — Peter Singer

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

There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved harm to the animal... [even if] the animal were a human being. — Peter Singer

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

If they [animals] were really to get the equal consideration that I believe they should, we wouldn't have commercial animal production in this country. — Peter Singer

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

Peter Singer Quotes About Animals

By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too. — Peter Singer

What is there about the notion of a person, at law, that makes every living member of the species Homo sapiens a person, irrespective of their mental capacities, but excludes every nonhuman animal - again, irrespective of their mental capacities? — Peter Singer

Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. — Peter Singer

Personal purity isn’t really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse – and persuading others not to support it – is. — Peter Singer

Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers — Peter Singer

The most callous, stupid things were done just because regulations required them...It was not until 1983, for example, that U.S. federal agencies stated that substances known to be caustic irritants such as lye, ammonia, and oven cleaners, did not need to be tested on the eyes of conscious rabbits. — Peter Singer

At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using. — Peter Singer

If penicillin had been judged by its toxicity to guinea pigs, it might never have been used by man. — Peter Singer

Grain that is used to feed animals that end up on our tables as turkeys and hams could have gone to feed starving people. — Peter Singer

Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Quotes About Ethics

Can we really believe that we are living a good life, an ethically decent life if we don't do anything serious to help reduce poverty around the world and help save the lives of children or adults who are likely to die if we don't increase the amount of aid we are giving. — Peter Singer

More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency. — Peter Singer

We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you're talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product. — Peter Singer

At the descriptive level, certainly, you would expect different cultures to develop different sorts of ethics and obviously they have; that doesn't mean that you can't think of overarching ethical principles you would want people to follow in all kinds of places. — Peter Singer

My work is based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues. — Peter Singer

We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves. — Peter Singer

Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values. — Peter Singer

I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it. — Peter Singer

I think ethics is always there; it's not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics. — Peter Singer

In a situation where many national leaders do the same thing and look out for national interests, and with an issue like global warming, you're likely to get no solution, so I think you have to have some kind of ethical trump on some of those issues. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Quotes About Utilitarianism

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected. — Peter Singer

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise. — Peter Singer

Somebody who eats twice as much factory-farmed products as he or she needs to is clearly doing twice as much damage to the planet. From a utilitarian point of view, that's twice as bad. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Quotes About Animalism

If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals. — Peter Singer

Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species. — Peter Singer

The newspapers do little better. Their coverage of nonhuman animals is dominated by "human interest" events like the birth of a baby gorilla at the zoo, or by threats to endangered species; but developments in farming techniques that deprive millions of animals of freedom of movement go unreported. — Peter Singer

When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain, they behave in ways suggestive of pain, and the change in behaviour may last several hours. — Peter Singer

Becoming a vegan is a sure way of completely avoiding participation in the abuse of farmed animals. Vegans are a living demonstration of the fact that we do not need to exploit animals for food. — Peter Singer

For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form of contact with nonhuman animals is at meal time: we eat them.... The use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment. — Peter Singer

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

People may hope that the meat they buy came from an animal who died without pain, but they do not really want to know about it. Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy. — Peter Singer

Why...is the hunter who shoots a deer for venison subject to more criticism than the person who buys a ham at the supermarket? Overall, it is probably the intensively reared pig who has suffered more. — Peter Singer

So, basically, my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals, and within reason, I will do what I can to avoid it, but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I'm polluted if somehow some bit of milk or cheese or something passes my lips. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Quotes About World

I don't think there's much point in bemoaning the state of the world unless there's some way you can think of to improve it. Otherwise, don't bother writing a book; go and find a tropical island and lie in the sun. — Peter Singer

We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment. — Peter Singer

The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world. — Peter Singer

In my world of the people who study war and defense issues, we simply did not talk about robotics. We do not talk about it because it's seen as mere science fiction. It's cold, hard, metallic reality. — Peter Singer

It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world; and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States. — Peter Singer

The future of the world depends on how well we meet it. — Peter Singer

Bush is morally a universalist. For instance, he says the freedom is good, the same thing is good, all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist. — Peter Singer

I honestly don't know, but if America continues to refuse to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, I see a bleak future not only for American society, but for the world as a whole. This is a global problem that is not going away, and the United States is an obstacle to solving it. — Peter Singer

Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse; this is not what Americans do, these are not our values. — Peter Singer

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

Peter Singer Quotes About Ethical

Ethics seems a morass which we have to cross, but get hopelessly bogged in when we make the attempt. — Peter Singer

The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage. — Peter Singer

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings. — Peter Singer

Every day we act in ways that reflect our ethical judgements. — Peter Singer

Ethics is inescapable. — Peter Singer

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing. — Peter Singer

If we're going to live an ethical life, it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots. … If we have enough, we have to share some of that with people who have so little. — Peter Singer

You might hold an ethical position that it's wrong to lie, but if you have plans for a war in Iraq, and you want to keep them secret for practical reasons - to reduce casualties, perhaps - and someone asks you about those plans, you may need to lie for a 'good' outcome. — Peter Singer

We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex. — Peter Singer

I don't think there's anything in the compromise that means that there's a clash of ethics. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Quotes About Book

What you could say, and what I do argue in the book, is that he doesn't have as much concern for the lives of Iraqis as he does for the lives of Americans, or even frozen American embryos. — Peter Singer

If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library. — Peter Singer

I suppose what's happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture. — Peter Singer

Peter Singer Famous Quotes And Sayings

The animal liberation movement is saying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding physical pain as an example, for it is an interest that humans clearly share with other animals - those interests are to be counted equally, with no automatic discount just because one of the beings is not human. — Peter Singer

The hope of internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information, or restrict internet access to the ruling elite and turn your back on the 21st century, as North Korea has done. — Peter Singer

Nineteen thousand children [are] dying every day. Does it really matter that we're not walking past them in the street? Does it really matter that they're far away? I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference. — Peter Singer

There are some circumstances, for example, where the newborn baby is severely disabled and where the parents think that it's better that child should not live, when killing the newborn baby is not at all wrong ... not like killing the chimpanzee would be. — Peter Singer

The Pentagon said that these prisoners were kept in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and of course I was not reassured by that, but I couldn't prove that that was wrong; so we're clearer about that. — Peter Singer

History is not going to look kindly on us if we just keep our head in the sand on armed autonomous robotics issue because it sounds too science fiction. — Peter Singer

What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it. — Peter Singer

If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant. — Peter Singer

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

Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the slippery slope: once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die. — Peter Singer

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end. — Peter Singer

I am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims. — Peter Singer

Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can. — Peter Singer

There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head. — Peter Singer

In the sense that you're not at the centre of power, like a president or prime minister of a major power, everyone is marginalised; my position doesn't isn't unique in that respect. I think there are different sorts of relevance in different contexts. — Peter Singer

There are a lot of weapons that we've developed which we've pulled back from - biological weapons, chemical weapons, etc. This may be the case with armed autonomous robotics, where we ultimately pull back from them. — Peter Singer

The new freedom of expression brought by the Internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways, posing questions about how we should respond to people when all that we know about them is what we have learned through a medium that permits all kinds of anonymity and deception. — Peter Singer

As for cages themselves, an ordinary citizen who kept dogs in similar conditions for their entire lives would risk prosecution for cruelty. A pig producer who keeps an animal of comparable intelligence in this manner, however, is more likely to be rewarded with a tax concession or, in some countries, a direct government subsidy. — Peter Singer

Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness. — Peter Singer

It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to distance ourselves from our own views, so that we can dispassionately search for prejudices among the beliefs and values we hold — Peter Singer

All the particular moral judgments we intuitively make are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past. — Peter Singer

The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true. — Peter Singer

As we realize that more and more things have global impact, I think we're going to get people increasingly wanting to get away from a purely national interest. — Peter Singer

Without in any way minimising the economic and psychological blow that people experience when they lose their jobs, the unemployed in affluent countries still have a safety net, in the form of social security payments, and usually free healthcare and free education for their children. They also have sanitation and safe drinking water. — Peter Singer

I'm not overly alarmist about it, but I do think there are some worrying signs, like the growing accumulation of wealth by a very small proportion of the population, plus elections in the US are much more dominated by money than anywhere else calling itself a democracy. — Peter Singer

Of those who die from avoidable, poverty-related causes, nearly 10 million, according to UNICEF, are children under five. They die from diseases such as measles, diarrhoea, and malaria that are easy and inexpensive to treat or prevent. — Peter Singer

Today, if you have an Internet connection, you have at your fingertips an amount of information previously available only to those with access to the world's greatest libraries - indeed, in most respects what is available through the Internet dwarfs those libraries, and it is incomparably easier to find what you need. — Peter Singer

I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real. — Peter Singer

If you go back in time you'll find tribes that were essentially only concerned with their own tribal members. If you were a member of another tribe, you could be killed with impunity. — Peter Singer

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

Well the real concept of basic needs if you cut it right down are simply the physical needs that are unavoidable for all of us. So to have enough calories to keep our bodies going. Have shelter from extreme elements. To have water that is safe to drink, So I think that's the core of it. — Peter Singer

I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things. — Peter Singer

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating. — Peter Singer

Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views. — Peter Singer

Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep. — Peter Singer

Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste. — Peter Singer

The problem is not with the athletes, but with us. No matter how blatant the drug use may be, we don't stop watching the Tour de France. Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes. — Peter Singer

So why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required - we could party our way into extinction! — Peter Singer

It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place where animals wander around freely in idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image. — Peter Singer

Capitalism is very far from a perfect system, but so far we have yet to find anything that clearly does a better job of meeting human needs than a regulated capitalist economy coupled with a welfare and health care system that meets the basic needs of those who do not thrive in the capitalist economy. If we ever do find a better system, I'll be happy to call myself an anti-capitalist. — Peter Singer

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life. — Peter Singer

It may be thought justifiable to require tests on animals of potentially life-saving drugs, but the same kinds of tests are used for products like cosmetics, food coloring, and floor polishes. Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market? Don't we already have an excess of most of these products? Who benefits from their introduction, except the companies that hope to profit from them? — Peter Singer

If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own? — Peter Singer

The only justifiable stopping place for for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains. — Peter Singer

We certainly would resolve the problems of the charities that are working in areas where they can do the most good. So if you consider that the U.S. foreign aid budget is 30 billion, yes, we could make a major contribution to reducing global poverty, start to deal much better with some of the other big environmental problems that the world faces. So I think we could solve a lot of problems. — Peter Singer

There are many cases in which gifted children have done great things without special school programs. There are also gifted kids who have been to special schools and achieved nothing that has benefited the world as a whole. Without solid evidence, I have no confidence that funding school programs for the intellectually gifted would do more good than the most cost-effective programs to help people in extreme poverty. — Peter Singer

We ought to consider the interests of animals because they have interests and it is unjustifiable to exclude them from the sphere of moral concern; to make this consideration depend on beneficial consequences for human beings is to accept the implication that the interests of animals do not warrant consideration for their own sakes. — Peter Singer

Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning. — Peter Singer

Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.) — Peter Singer

Habits of thought lead us to brush aside descriptions of cruelty to animals as emotional, for "animal-lovers only"; or if not that, then anyway the problem is so trivial in comparison to the problems of human beings that no sensible person could give it time and attention. This too is a prejudice - for how can one know that a problem is trivial until one has taken the time to examine its extent? — Peter Singer

Life Lessons by Peter Singer

1. Peter Singer's work emphasizes the importance of ethical decision making, advocating for a more compassionate and utilitarian approach to life.
2. He encourages people to think about the consequences of their actions and to act in ways that will benefit the most people.
3. He also emphasizes the need to consider the interests of animals, and to think about how our decisions affect the environment.