Friday, March 14, 2014
Peter Singer certainly made his way through his response to the critique of his work! It must be a frustrating part of creating academic works to be reviewed by others, and feel you have been misunderstood. He made the point that humans have the mental capacity that could allow them to suffer more in certain situations, compared to an animal in the same position. He also had very strong views, that morally, if you are able to stop something bad from happening, without harm (morally), then you should; I agree. One of his basic ideas was that there should be equality to all non-human animals. It seems difficult there would be equality amongst all animals, however, I fully agree with the lack of suffering. I accept some animals will be used as a food source, though I would never wish any living thing to suffer! The author also had some very strong sediments about passive Americans, not even reacting to the idea of millions of people starving, when we have the resources to make all the difference.
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Singer its trying to tell us in another word the meaning of the conscience.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Singer in the context that if you are able to stop something from happening with out moral harm than you should stop it. Why wouldn't you?! If you can stop something terrible from happening and still stick to your morals then by all means you absolutely should. I would even go as far to say that someone who has the ability to stop something bad from happening without moral harm and doesn't, is acting morally wrong.
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting conversation with a friend over spring break, the question proposed was this: "if you had 10 dollars, and you had to choose between helping a friend buy lunch or buying a meal for a small village in Africa, which would you choose?" I thought first of Jeremy Bentham's (a Utilitarian) idea of the most good for the most number of people and so I decided I would rather help the village in Africa. My friend chose otherwise and ended up convincing me that buying my friend lunch would be the more gratifying choice.... here's his justification: Since the age of cognitive complexity, community has been something extremely important to humans. Whether the community is physical or virtual, they are a source of support and safety for individuals. A network of help and care, if you will. Now, one may argue that in the current ability for us to have a global community, the small village in Africa is, in fact, a part of our community. However, similar to the instant gratification that many crave because of the advertisements in commercialism these days, seeing the gratefulness on the face of your friend, and the experience of satiating their hunger can be somewhat more powerful than imagining the village gathering around a meal that was purchased for them.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, If everyone chose to send their 10$ to a community that they were not in immediate engagement with there would be something lost about the idea of the community that exists without all of the technology bringing different countries into contact.
My friends response really made me consider what my idea of community was, and these days, the term is very flexible. Here are two definitions of community that I found on Wiki to help spark some thoughts on how we perceive community today:
1) Community can refer to a usually small, social unit of any size that shares common values. The term can also refer to the national community or international community, and 2) in biology, a community is a group of interacting living organisms sharing a populated environment.
I would also never wish any living thing to suffer but when it comes to animals sometimes its inevitable. Many animals are killed for their food either it be by us or by some other animal. This might be harsh to say but animals will always suffer when it comes to food. I love animals but they will always suffer either it be in the hands of man or by the teeth of another animal.
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