ipl-logo

Peter Singer Utilitarianism

919 Words4 Pages

Peter Singer is considered a utilitarian which is one who believes that an action is right that it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the main concern. Singer states in his piece, “All Animal Are Equal”, speciesism is defined as a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of other species. There is a lot of small objection towards Singers thought process, but I think the issue lies in structure of his thinking. Singers definition of what an “interest” is can be confusing and misleading. Singer defines an “interest” as a something one shows favoritism towards. His definition is called preference utilitarian and the problem is that it treats interests and desires to be equal to each other.
Envision two people that are in an intimate relationship. Mary wants to have intercourse with Ted. Her wants would be defined as a personal desire and preference which needs to be satisfied. Jill without knowledge has no idea that Ted has AIDs. Thus, if Mary has sex with Ted she will contract AIDs which is bad for her self-interest and would be caused by her desire for intercourse with Ted. Resulting in a conflict …show more content…

This causes a contradiction amongst desires and interests, between opinion and fact. Humans can have interest that cause good and bad things to happen. Death would be defined as a bad thing and not in a human’s interest. Living in most case would be considered an interest of most animals and humans. Certain situations may arise where suicidal people may want to take their life where death might be an interest for that individual. When it comes to organism like bacteria to live or die, the living would be in its interest. That bacteria’s lack of mental capacity to decide whether living or dying is in their interest and we can assume that death is never in their

Open Document