http://www.boundless.org/2000/features/a0000185.html
He's the only professor at Princeton — perhaps anywhere in the U.S. — who teaches in a classroom surrounded by guards.
Probably, he doesn't really need them. After all, most of those who object to his presence hold a fairly high view of human life, which presumably covers even the man they call "Professor Death." But the bioethicist who became famous for advocating the murder of disabled babies has lately become the target of death threats.
On Peter Singer's first day of teaching (a class called "Questions of Life and Death"), some 200 protesters arrived on the Princeton campus, some of them waving signs comparing Princeton to Auschwitz. Some 30 wheelchair-bound disability-rights advocates managed to barricade all the entrances to Princeton's Administration building; 14 of them were subsequently arrested. Campus police circled the building where Singer actually taught, checking identification to make sure that the only students who got into the building were Singer's.
Singer is a moral utilitarian, who believes that the morality of any action should not be judged by any transcendent moral standard. Instead, it should be judged by how much it will increase the world's sum total of happiness. It all sounds rather friendly. After all, who could be against happiness? But on closer inspection, "happiness" can turn out to mean horror. Consider:
Singer teaches that babies less than a month old have no human consciousness and thus do not have the same rights as older people. That it's "more valuable" to save the lives of 10 strangers than to save the life of one's own child. That it may be more "compassionate" to use human embryos — or even disabled infants — than healthy rats in medical experiments. (You don't think rats enjoy being experimented on, do you?) That "non-persons" — the handicapped, senile or terminally ill — are not "self-conscious, rational or autonomous," and we should not "squander" money on them, as they would be better off dead. (The disabled-rights group Not Dead Yet disagrees). He's enthusiastic about the Chinese practice of killing infant girls — even healthy ones — because newborns are "clearly not" people in "the ethically relevant sense." He's also one of the world's foremost advocates of animal rights, comparing "discrimination" against animals with racism and sexism.
In a nutshell, Singer believes that none of us is born with rights: We have to earn them. We must be able to reason and be self-aware. In his mind, this definition excludes all healthy newborns — but includes sheep, pigs, dogs and cattle. Never mind that human infants, if left in peace, will shortly acquire self-awareness in far greater measure than any animal.
An Overdose of Candor
Though Singer has stirred great controversy, the irony is that he has merely taken the logic of abortion to its natural conclusions — and has been honest about it.
Professor Robert George, a political philosopher in Princeton's department of philosophy and a devout Catholic, has debated Singer on his controversial opinions. Although George is often put forth as Singer's principle opponent, George himself doesn't see it that way.
"At a certain level, Singer's fundamental difference is not with me, but with our liberal, mainstream colleagues," George says. "Both Singer and I see very clearly that abortion and infanticide are the same thing. They're both the killing of a human being in the early stage of that human being's development. We both see that if abortion is justified, then infanticide is justified. And we both see that if infanticide is unjustified, then abortion is unjustified."
To put it another way, George says, "if it's morally wrong for a husband to beat his wife outside the house, then it has to be morally wrong for the same husband to beat up his wife inside the house. By the same token, if it's morally wrong to kill a baby outside the womb, then it's morally wrong to kill a baby inside the womb. Location, as Singer and I both see, is of no moral relevance to the justifiability of taking the victim's life — or injuring the victim.
"Of course, he believes both are justified and I believe both are unjustifiable. But what we both see very clearly seems entirely obscured to my mainstream, liberal colleagues, who want to say that while abortion is justified, infanticide is unjustified." These colleagues don't want to throw their hat into George's ring, he adds, but neither do they want to throw it into Singer's.
George believes the most interesting debates at Princeton will not be between Singer and his conservative critics, but between Singer and prochoice liberals — "people who think they can have it both ways. It will be interesting to watch them explain to Professor Singer, in the face of his logic, why they're against infanticide if they're for abortion."
In fact, Singer may well be the abortion movement's worst nightmare, George believes, "precisely because he's willing to say where the logic of their position leads, and embrace that logic." Prochoicers should fear Singer because he comes right out and says what they're privately thinking.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Interestingly, Singer’s willingness to follow his philosophy does have limits when it comes to putting it into practice. Singer, you see, has a mother. Her name is Cora Singer, and she suffers from Alzheimer's. This means she has become, as the London Daily Mail put it, "a 'non-person' and candidate for the 'non-voluntary euthanasia' that Singer advocates."
But instead of advocating her death, Singer is taking the best of care of her. In fact, he's "squandering" tens of thousands of dollars to make sure she's comfortable.
Singer the philosopher would say that the money would be better spent feeding hundreds of starving Africans. Singer the philosopher would say his mom should take the place of laboratory rats. But Singer the son will have none of it. Not for his mother laboratory experiments or the morgue. To heck with the world's starving masses. After all, this is his mother! Suddenly moral utilitarianism goes out the window.
The clash between his Ivory Tower beliefs and his feelings as a son were a revelation to Singer. "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult," he admits. "Perhaps it is more difficult than I thought, because it is different when it's your mother."
Professor Death, it seems, cannot live with his own philosophy, and that's good news for his opponents. As BreakPoint commentator Chuck Colson put it, "The truth of any worldview is authenticated by how well it depicts reality." Singer's worldview "flunks the reality test" because his own actions "demonstrate how unworkable secular humanistic ideas about human life really are," Colson notes.
Perhaps Singer would likely find even more difficulties with his moral utilitarianism if he spent some time getting to know other people whose lives he has deemed not worthy to be lived: Handicapped people who are living happy and productive lives. Down's Syndrome children who are a joy to their families. The other sick, elderly people who now make up his mother's nursing home companions.
As Singer debates issues of life and death at Princeton, Princetonians who value all human life should trumpet the truth: They should let their fellow classmates know how Singer spends his own money. He's not increasing the world's total happiness by feeding the starving millions of Sudan, but "wasting" it on his own sick, useless, mom.
Disabled-rights advocates call Singer "the most dangerous man in the world today." But his treatment of his own mother shows how dangerous he really is.
"It is different when it's your mother," Singer says.
Cut the bull, Peter. If your philosophy doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment