What motivates Singer’s position isn’t a range of empathetic concern that’s stunted in comparsion to people who favour the universal sanctity of human life. Rather it’s a different conception of the threshold below which a life is not worth living.
By this logic most of the people from the past who Singer and Pinker cite as examples of less empathic individuals aren’t less empathic either. But seriously, has Singer made any effort to take into account, or even look at, the preferences of any of the people who he claims have lives that aren’t worth living?
I disagree with Peter Singer here. So I’m not best placed to argue his position. But Singer is acutely sensitive to the potential risks of any notion of lives not worth living. Recall Singer lost three of his grandparents in the Holocaust. Let’s just say it’s not obvious that an incurable victim of, say, infantile Tay–Sachs disease, who is going do die around four years old after a chronic pain-ridden existence, is better off alive. We can’t ask this question to the victim: the nature of the disorder means s/he is not cognitively competent to understand the question.
Either way, the case for the expanding circle doesn’t depend on an alleged growth in empathy per se. If, as I think quite likely, we eventually enlarge our sphere of concern to the well-being of all sentience, this outcome may owe as much to the trait of high-AQ hyper-systematising as any widening or deepening compassion. By way of example, consider the work of Bill Gates in cost-effective investments in global health (vaccinations etc) and indeed in: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Features/Future-of-Food (“the future of meat is vegan”). Not even his greatest admirers would describe Gates as unusually empathetic. But he is unusually rational—and the growth in secular scientific rationalism looks set to continue.
But Singer is acutely sensitive to the potential risks of any notion of lives not worth living.
I’m not sure what you mean by “sensitive”, it certainly doesn’t stop him from being at the cutting edge pushing in that direction.
Either way, the case for the expanding circle doesn’t depend on an alleged growth in empathy per se. If, as I think quite likely, we eventually enlarge our sphere of concern to the well-being of all sentience, this outcome may owe as much to the trait of high-AQ hyper-systematising as any widening or deepening compassion.
By way of example, consider the work of Bill Gates in cost-effective investments in global health (vaccinations etc) and indeed in: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Features/Future-of-Food (“the future of meat is vegan”). Not even his greatest admirers would describe Gates as unusually empathetic. But he is unusually rational—and the growth in secular scientific rationalism looks set to continue.
You seem to be confusing expanding the circle of beings we care for and being more efficient in providing that caring.
Cruelty-free in vitro meat can potentially replace the flesh of all sentient beings currently used for food.
Yes, it’s more efficient; it also makes high-tech Jainism less of a pipedream.
By this logic most of the people from the past who Singer and Pinker cite as examples of less empathic individuals aren’t less empathic either. But seriously, has Singer made any effort to take into account, or even look at, the preferences of any of the people who he claims have lives that aren’t worth living?
I disagree with Peter Singer here. So I’m not best placed to argue his position. But Singer is acutely sensitive to the potential risks of any notion of lives not worth living. Recall Singer lost three of his grandparents in the Holocaust. Let’s just say it’s not obvious that an incurable victim of, say, infantile Tay–Sachs disease, who is going do die around four years old after a chronic pain-ridden existence, is better off alive. We can’t ask this question to the victim: the nature of the disorder means s/he is not cognitively competent to understand the question.
Either way, the case for the expanding circle doesn’t depend on an alleged growth in empathy per se. If, as I think quite likely, we eventually enlarge our sphere of concern to the well-being of all sentience, this outcome may owe as much to the trait of high-AQ hyper-systematising as any widening or deepening compassion. By way of example, consider the work of Bill Gates in cost-effective investments in global health (vaccinations etc) and indeed in: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Features/Future-of-Food (“the future of meat is vegan”). Not even his greatest admirers would describe Gates as unusually empathetic. But he is unusually rational—and the growth in secular scientific rationalism looks set to continue.
I’m not sure what you mean by “sensitive”, it certainly doesn’t stop him from being at the cutting edge pushing in that direction.
You seem to be confusing expanding the circle of beings we care for and being more efficient in providing that caring.
Cruelty-free in vitro meat can potentially replace the flesh of all sentient beings currently used for food. Yes, it’s more efficient; it also makes high-tech Jainism less of a pipedream.