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.
Interpretation
Selfishness can lead to disastrous consequences for society and the environment.
Peter Singer's quote emphasizes the dangers of individualism and self-interest when it comes to addressing global issues, particularly the climate crisis. It underscores the need for collective action and consideration of the common good, suggesting that ignoring the welfare of others and the planet ultimately endangers our shared future.
In practice
This quote can be used in a climate change conference to highlight the importance of collective action.
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.
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.)
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.
The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue after all. Why do you need it? Donβt ever ask for the true story.
It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. "Everything went white," those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint.
Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
Reputation is favorable notoriety as distinguished from fame, which is permanent approval of great deeds and noble thoughts by the best intelligence of mankind.
Now Coraline," said Miss Spink, "what's your name?" "Coraline," said Coraline. "And we don't know each other, do we?" Coraline looked at the thin young woman with black button eyes and shook her head slowly.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.