If we use goods made from raw materials that are obtained from a poor country without the proceeds being used to benefit the people of that country, we become complicit in a particularly iniquitous form of grand larceny.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the moral responsibility of consumers regarding the sources of goods and their impact on poorer nations.
Peter Singer emphasizes that when we purchase products derived from raw materials sourced from impoverished countries without ensuring that the profits support local communities, we are indirectly participating in an unjust exploitation. This raises ethical questions about global consumption and our roles as consumers in perpetuating economic inequalities. It challenges us to consider the consequences of our shopping habits and the importance of ethical sourcing.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for fair trade practices.
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.
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.
Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that.
If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate.
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.)
The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices.
There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.
If we are not represented, we are slaves.
In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on.
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