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.
Interpretation
Pain should be minimized for all beings regardless of their nature.
This quote by Peter Singer emphasizes the moral imperative to reduce pain and suffering regardless of the source—human or animal. It highlights the equal value of suffering experienced by any being, proposing a universal ethic that calls for the prevention of harm across species lines.
In practice
In a speech advocating for animal rights, this quote can illustrate the moral need to address suffering universally.
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.
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.)
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.
Let man be true and every god a liar.
The magic of America is that we're a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs.
There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you.
We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more.
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