The reasoning of Peter Singer

Peter Singer is well known for his logic by which humans are about as valuable as you arbitrarily decide they are, which then allows him to logically argue for abortion, infanticide, euthanasia — though he’s mighty concerned about animals.

It’s been interesting to see Singer’s statements twist and turn from time to time, and now he’s out there cautioning us against trusting our intuition. That is, intuition to protect life. It sets up with this question: “Would you kill one person to save five others?” and expounds on Singer’s own reasoning.

For most of our evolutionary history, human beings have lived in small groups, in which violence could be inflicted only in an up-close and personal way, by hitting, pushing, strangling, or using a stick or stone. To deal with such situations, we developed immediate, emotionally based intuitive responses to the infliction of violence on others…But the fact that our moral intuitions are universal and part of our human nature does not mean that they are right.

This is Peter Singer, Princeton Professor of Bioethics, who teaches on the same faculty with Princeton’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Robert P. George, one of the best minds in America on the morality of life and death issues. How I would love to hear the two of them debate these issues in a forum. So would George. 

The question was never whether I would engage Singer in serious intellectual exchanges about the profound matters on which we disagree. The question was how our exchanges would be structured to ensure that they were truly academic enterprises, and not entertainments, exhibitions of rhetorical skill, or partisan contests.

Singer had some impulse to publish an insinuation that George would not engage him in public debate. That would be laughable if it were not so deceitful. George tried, in all civility and with considerable eagerness.

I explained that given the depth of our differences and the gravity of issues such as killing newborn babies, I did not think much was to be gained by a one-shot gladiatorial debate of the sort that had been proposed by student groups.

Excellent reasoning, given the nature of these gladiatorial debates.

I proposed what I regarded as a far superior approach, namely, that we teach a seminar together, preferably a graduate seminar…This would give us the opportunity to engage each other in intense discussion every week for the twelve weeks of the semester, as students pressed us and probed the foundations of our arguments. Each of us would be able to assign works that would help the other (and our students) to understand more fully the intellectual bases of the arguments we were advancing on, say, the nature of human dignity and the moral norms pertaining to the taking of human life. Each of us would also, I suggested, assign some of our own writings so that our arguments (stated as reflectively and carefully as possible) could be subjected to critical scrutiny.

Brilliant idea. But it hasn’t happened yet because of…scheduling problems. Since Singer misrepresented the whole thing and painted himself the more threatening intellect, George responded, and the true intellectual is clear.

I agree with Singer that great universities thrive on the contest of ideas. That is why I proposed teaching a seminar with him. That is why I am teaching a seminar with Cornel West. That is why I have frequently appeared in classes and seminars taught by liberal and left-wing colleagues such as Paul Sigmund and Maurizio Viroli to present views that differ from theirs and engage them and their students in serious arguments.

…which is the ultimate task of academic inquiry and the arena that teaches critical thinking skills. Or should, anyway. 

That is why I have served on panels at academic meetings and forums around the country with people who reject my positions on the great questions of law and morality of our day but share my belief in the free and open exchange of ideas as the best path to truth…

That is why I have always sought to structure such exchanges to ensure that they are true academic enterprises, not entertainments or point-scoring contests. But a precondition of the fruitful engagement of ideas in any context is intellectual honesty and fairness. Without it, there is no bond uniting scholars who otherwise fundamentally disagree.

Amen to that.

Every scholar must tell the truth as he sees it and never fail to disclose crucial facts in order to mislead listeners or readers. When someone omits part of the truth in order to induce his listeners or readers to draw a conclusion that he knows to be false, he breaks the bond and alienates himself from the enterprise of truth seeking that is the defining mission of scholars. This is what Peter Singer has done.

And now he’s telling us not to trust our intuitive sense in trying to save life. We shouldn’t be surprised.