Monday, August 13, 2012

Peter Singer on Q&A tonight

Tonight's Q&A Panellists


Thought I would blog a quick post mentioning that Peter Singer will be on ABC's Q&A tonight. If you live in Australia, you will be able to catch up on ABC iView if you miss it.

As you are probably aware, I have written a few too many essays about Peter Singer's views on various ethical issues. These essays have included my comparison of Singer and Rawls on International Justice. In this essay I was cautiously supportive of Singer's views on most international relations issues like increased foreign aid. However, I was sceptical about his ideas on refugee issues - and I'm hoping this will be talked about tonight.

I have other concerns with his work. Singer's views on equality have some serious problems. As Singer is a committed preference utilitarian, he places the fulfilment of one's preferences over and above any idea of rights-based moralities. Sometimes these two ideas overlap, but in other scenarios they clash. You can read more about it in my essay Singer and the Principle of Equality.

This isn't even his controversial stuff though. You'll find that in his papers on abortion, infanticide, and bestiality. While I tend to disagree with his writings surrounding bioethics, I can't help but admit that many of his views represent the natural outcome of morality without God.

While I disagree with Singer in many areas, I find his work in books such as The Life You Can Save to be inspiring, challenging, and incredibly important. You can find my essay entitled The Case For Foreign Aid.

Please post all your comments about tonight's show below. I'm sure topics such as asylum (which I wrote about here) and religion will be covered. Do you agree with the panellists? Do you agree with my essays on these issues?

And while you're here, why not plus-one or like a post, or follow my blog :)

*UPDATE* 14/8/12 4:21PM

As expected, when pressed about his thoughts on 'boat people' by Tony Jones, Singer conceded that off-shore processing of refugees is the best way to address this 'issue' according to his moral framework. Kudos for consistency.

Perhaps this is the natural outcome of utilitarianism - a theory that allows an individual to be treated as a means to an end if a greater good can be maximised. I incredibly disappointed that Phillip Blonde didn't call Peter Singer up on this.

1 comment: