Top 180 Peter Singer Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real.”

— Peter Singer

102. “I think ethics is always there; it’s not always a very thoughtful or reflective ethics.”

— Peter Singer

103. “There are some things that, once lost, no amount of money can regain. Thus to justify the destruction of an ancient forest on the grounds that it will earn us substantial export income is problematic, even if we could invest that income and increase its value from year to year; for no matter how much we increase its value, its could never buy back the link with the past represented by the forest.”

— Peter Singer

104. “Grain that is used to feed animals that end up on our tables as turkeys and hams could have gone to feed starving people.”

— Peter Singer

105. “We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves.”

— Peter Singer

106. “We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you’re talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.”

— Peter Singer

107. “To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.”

— Peter Singer

108. “If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness itself still eludes us.”

— Peter Singer

109. “I don’t think there’s anything in the compromise that means that there’s a clash of ethics.”

— Peter Singer

110. “Ethics is inescapable.”

— Peter Singer

111. “The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone’s advantage.”

— Peter Singer

112. “If you go back in time you’ll find tribes that were essentially only concerned with their own tribal members. If you were a member of another tribe, you could be killed with impunity.”

— Peter Singer

113. “Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong.”

— Peter Singer

114. “Marx portrays religion as a response to the oppression and heartlessness of the world; but an inadequate response because instead of challenging the oppression itself, it merely numbs the pain.”

— Peter Singer

115. “If we have learned anything from the liberation movements, we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of the ways in which we discriminate until they are forcefully pointed out to us. A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable.”

— Peter Singer

116. “If you’re buying animal products and can go to the farm and actually see how the animals are looked after, yes, that’s an important point. That’s definitely the best way of assuring yourself that the animals are being well treated.”

— Peter Singer

117. “For nomadic societies, there was no point in owning anything that one could not carry, but once humans settled down and developed a system of money, that limit to acquisition disappeared.”

— Peter Singer

118. “Christian magazine Sojourners, likes to point out that the Bible contains more than three thousand references to alleviating poverty – enough reason, he thinks, for making this a central moral issue for Christians.”

— Peter Singer

119. “Will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible?”

— Peter Singer

120. “There is no humane slaughter requirement for wild fish caught and killed at sea, nor, in most places, for farmed fish.”

— Peter Singer

121. “Everyone has boundaries. If you find yourself doing something that makes you bitter, it is time to reconsider.”

— Peter Singer

122. “If it is so easy to help people in real need through no fault of their own, and yet we fail to do so, aren’t we doing something wrong? At a minimum, I hope this book will persuade you that there is something deeply askew with our widely accepted views about what it is to live a good life.”

— Peter Singer

123. “The Pentagon said that these prisoners were kept in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and of course I was not reassured by that, but I couldn’t prove that that was wrong; so we’re clearer about that.”

— Peter Singer

124. “We may feel the pain of falling back from a level of affluence to which we have grown accustomed, but most people in developed countries are still, by historical standards, extraordinarily well off.”

— Peter Singer

125. “I don’t understand the notion that modern farming is anything do to with nature. It’s a pretty gross interference with nature.”

— Peter Singer

126. “Every profession will have its rogues, of course, no matter what oaths are sworn, but many health care professionals have a real commitment to serving the best interests of their clients.”

— Peter Singer

127. “We have no obligation to assist countries whose governments have policies that will undermine the effectiveness of our aid.”

— Peter Singer

128. “I don’t think nationalism is alone holding the field; it’s in contention with a lot of different things.”

— Peter Singer

129. “Voluntary euthanasia occurs only when, to the best of medical knowledge, a person is suffering from an incurable and painful or extremely distressing condition. In these circumstances one cannot say that to choose to die quickly is obviously irrational.”

— Peter Singer

130. “The point of this, as Marx explains, is to show that according to classical economics the worker becomes a commodity, the production of which is subject to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. If the supply of workers exceeds the demand for labour, wages fall and some workers starve. Wages therefore tend to the lowest possible level compatible with keeping an adequate supply of workers alive.”

— Peter Singer

131. “Should one break in and free the animals? That is illegal, but the obligation to obey the law is not absolute. It was justifiably broken by those who helped runaway slaves in the American South, to mention only one possible parallel.”

— Peter Singer

132. “It’s also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America’s reputation and prestige around the world; and that’s just starting now to hit home in the United States.”

— Peter Singer

133. “Helping is not, as conventionally thought, a charitable act that is praiseworthy to do but not wrong to omit. It is something that everyone ought to do.”

— Peter Singer

134. “An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.”

— Peter Singer

135. “When we eat plants, food takes on a different quality. We take from the earth food that is ready for us and does not fight against us as we take it.”

— Peter Singer

136. “Many people who think nothing of buying factory-farmed ham or chicken from a supermarket are quick to condemn hunting; yet hunting is more defensible than factory farming.”

— Peter Singer

137. “If doing the most you can for others means that you are also flourishing, then that is the best possible outcome for everyone.”

— Peter Singer

138. “Whatever the theoretical possibilities of rearing animals without suffering may be, the fact is that the meat available from butchers and supermarkets comes from animals who were not treated with any real consideration at all while being reared. So we must ask ourselves, not: Is it ever right to eat meat? but: Is it right to eat this meat?”

— Peter Singer

139. “Laws and a settled decision procedure to generate them are a good thing. This gives us one important reason for obeying the law. By obeying the law, I can contribute to the respect in which the established decision procedure and the laws are held. By disobeying, I set an example to others that may lead them to disobey too.”

— Peter Singer

140. “The problem is not with the athletes, but with us. No matter how blatant the drug use may be, we don’t stop watching the Tour de France. Maybe we should just turn off the television and get on our own bikes.”

— Peter Singer

141. “Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one’s own happiness is self-defeating.”

— Peter Singer

142. “People may hope that the meat they buy came from an animal who died without pain, but they do not really want to know about it. Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.”

— Peter Singer

143. “The new freedom of expression brought by the Internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways, posing questions about how we should respond to people when all that we know about them is what we have learned through a medium that permits all kinds of anonymity and deception.”

— Peter Singer

144. “If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn’t it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another’s prospects of survival at the cost of their own?”

— Peter Singer

145. “We need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do. Silent giving will not change a culture that deems it sensible to spend all your money on yourself and your family, rather than to help those in greater need – even though helping others is likely to bring more fulfillment in the long run.”

— Peter Singer

146. “The big corporations and those who must compete with them are not concerned with a sense of harmony among plants, animals, and nature.”

— Peter Singer

147. “I would like us to think about it more explicitly, and not take our intuitions as the given of ethics, but rather to reflect on it, and be more open about the fact that something is an ethical issues and think what we ought to do about it.”

— Peter Singer

148. “A majority of people in these surveys also said that America gives too much aid – but when they were asked how much America should give, the median answers ranged from 5 percent to 10 percent of government spending. In other words, people wanted foreign aid ‘cut’ to an amount five to ten times greater than the United States actually gives!”

— Peter Singer

149. “In my world of the people who study war and defense issues, we simply did not talk about robotics. We do not talk about it because it’s seen as mere science fiction. It’s cold, hard, metallic reality.”

— Peter Singer

150. “Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years.”

— Peter Singer