The Public Intellectual

Peter Singer

The world is changing at a fast pace. It is compelled with new ideas, on everything surrounding that, and what we criticize about. The openness of new perspectives is helping us develop this world, and for that we have to thank the many public intellectuals that help us understand their concepts of philosophy. As new ideas has brought this country and the world to undergo much change under the past century, one of the biggest modification of our standard of living was the act of our animal treatment. Today, animal rights have been upgraded in degrees of importance in which the public perceive the animals. It is not only personal, for example in the way that we actually eat their meat, but also the fact that we see how much the animals suffer in the territories of where they are slaughtered.

Many of us enjoy eating a steak sometimes, but the satisfaction we receive out of that slice of stake does not outweigh the suffering and the frustration the animals have to go through as they are bred, transported, and slaughtered. The US meat and dairy industry plays a huge role in the community and has overpowered the people in the way they thought was right for the animals. Today, the animal rights movement has started a revolutionary view of paying attention to animals’ rights, votes like animals rights ballot and California Proposition 2 in 2008 have gone through, and has truly changed the way we handle them. It has set up standards for animals in confinement to be able to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs, and turn around freely in their enclosures.

The public intellectual, Peter singer, is the animal movement’s most important philosopher and author of the vegan and animal activists’ Bible, “Animal Liberation”. In his work, Singer states that there is no ethical argument to why the human beings on this earth should continue to ignore the suffering we see that the animals go through in the meat industry. Singer wants that all suffering animals should be recognized with principle rights. This has been recognized in many articles, one of the most flattering is the one in New York Times from 2009.

Singer, as a utilitarian, practices the theory of what is good and what is right, he wants to do the optimal alternative to increase the good. As a leftist, standing with his both feet on the earth for social change with equality for everyone, Singer’s ethics is built upon what the common people should do to minimize the suffering in the world. He strongly believes that life is about creating the good, and he does that though engaging in questions like animal- and global rights. Giving one example: as the meat you eat has been produced by the aggressive industry that tries to produce meat as cheap as possible, that industry use the animals like non-living creatures and does not pay any attention to their health, which is why you should not promote this by purchasing it.

Singer describes his work as: “based on the assumption that clarity and consistency in our moral thinking is likely, in the long run, to lead us to hold better views on ethical issues.” It is a world where Singer strongly believes in a utilitarian environment where ethics will guide us to a better world, between people, as of animals. He has strong belief that humans shouldn’t be treated better or more privileged than animals. To deeper understand the explanation, Singer describes the ethical system that animals have the ability to feel pain and will be suffering when treated badly. Humans and animals can both feel “pleasure, happiness, and fulfillment” and should therefore be treated as equals.

Treated as equals

Part of the ethics is his global-awareness focus of living in a better world and minimize the poverty in the world. The global rights he talks about focuses on the individuals’ role and the organizations’ roles to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. To make this happen, he says that it is not necessary to live in luxury when people in other parts of the world can barely eat, that is why people should donate some of their earnings to organizations that help out with this issue. Singer himself donates 25% of his earnings to organizations that help starving societies, and he urges everyone to do the same.

Although life should self-fulfilling and happiness-striving, some people’s lives have more capability of experiencing “pleasure, happiness, and fulfillment”, Singer states that the lives that do not fit in to these should not be lived at all. For example, a parent who discovers that they are having a disabled child should be able to judge whether they want to keep a child as it is an infant or unborn. For many, and for me, here is where the red flag pops up! The contrast that can be seen between the more religious and political forces, they are very apparent and create controversial debates, more of a religious “no-no” and a politicial “scared-ness”.

The religious aspect classifies this as abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and "central argument against abortion" is saying: "it is wrong to kill a an innocent human being, a human fetus is an innocent human being, and therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus." The argument is very sturdy, while Singer’s ethic theories of self-fulfillment says: "Any disabled person should be supported in trying to live the best possible life that he or she can, as long as he or she wants to. It's certainly nothing against people with disabilities that motivate my position. It's rather a desire to avoid suffering." And that is, as against Singer would say, to kill people without giving the child a chance of life and the parents do as they want or whether they feel for it or not, and might use it for the wrong reasons. He defends himself in is book “Practical Ethics” saying

“As we have seen, euthanasia is non-voluntary when the subject has never had the capacity to choose to live or die. This is the situation of the severely disabled infant or the older human being who has been profoundly intellectually disabled since birth. Euthanasia or other forms of killing are also non- voluntary when the subject is not now but once was capable of making the crucial choice, and did not then express any preference relevant to her present condition.
The case of someone who has never been capable of choosing to live or die is a little more straightforward than that of a person who had, but has now lost, the capacity to make such a decision. We shall, once again, separate the two cases and take the more straightforward one first. For simplicity, I shall concentrate on infants, although everything I say about them would apply to older children or adults whose mental age is and has always been that of an infant.”

Here you see the religious and political, and ethical discussion comes in to power and the beliefs, like religious, believes that this may lead to a discourse of many lives being killed with no reason, and who is there to stop it? Also, who would determine whether it is right or wrong? The Christian belief has a strong say against this, as they classify this as abortion or killing of a human being, as life for Christianity as sacred.

As life, religion and politics interact with today’s choices and living, this revolutionary view that has been sparked by Peter Singer, has made the public to see the “self-transcendence” and has not only overcome the political and the religious issue, but has dug even deeper to realize what obligations we have in the world that are, but not limited to, animal liberation movement and “practical ethics”. These are two issues that the Australian born public intellectual, Peter Singer, has focused his academic life upon to share with the public as a public intellectual.

The interesting part with his reasoning, and so other public intellectuals, is that a strong logic and way of thinking can get many opposing and criticizing voices. Singer has nice ethics in his animal rights and global ethics argument, as he wants no one to suffer in the world, and his choices in his way of living makes me feel a little selfish, but is sparking an urge to help. How will I be able to use my education and dedication to build up wealth to donate such high percentage of my salary to other people, and don’t other people in the world rather work for their own wealth and success?

Singer’s theory has clearly stirred my mind, and I sadly believe it will take a long time before Singer’s utopia will come true. But, as the text “the ‘decline’ of public intellectuals?” mention how the public intellectual is a means for important views to be hear, Singer does this by putting his work as an public intellectual into his many books and academic aspects, as he teaches at for example Melbourne- and Princeton University, agreeing or against him, he has a spark to his ideas. A public intellectual is the importance from the public that they are listening to what he has to say, and that it affects the public, which he has through the animal rights movements and minimizing the poverty percentage.