# The Most Influential Philosopher Alive



## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 2, 2004)

The most influential philosopher alive
Marvin Olasky 

December 2, 2004

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Republicans are winning elections, but the long-term problem of the left dominance within academia remains. Consider, for example, the influence of Princeton professor Peter Singer. 

Many readers may be saying, "Peter who?" -- but The New York Times, explaining how his views trickle down through media and academia to the general populace, noted that "No other living philosopher has had this kind of influence." The New England Journal of Medicine said he has had "more success in effecting changes in acceptable behavior" than any philosopher since Bertrand Russell. The New Yorker called him the "most influential" philosopher alive. 

Don't expect Singer to be quoted heavily on the issue that roiled the Nov. 2 election, same-sex marriage. That for him is intellectual child's play, already logically decided, and it's time to move on to polyamory. While politicians debate the definition of marriage between two people, Singer argues that any kind of "fully consensual" sexual behavior involving two people or 200 is ethically fine. 

For example, when I asked him recently about necrophilia (what if two people make an agreement that whoever lives longest can have sexual relations with the corpse of the person who dies first?), he said, "There's no moral problem with that." Concerning bestiality -- should people have sex with animals, seen as willing participants? -- he responded, "I would ask, 'What's holding you back from a more fulfilling relationship?' (but) it's not wrong inherently in a moral sense." 

If the 21st century becomes a Singer century, we will also see legal infanticide of born children who are ill or who have ill older siblings in need of their body parts. 

Question: What about parents conceiving and giving birth to a child specifically to kill him, take his organs and transplant them into their ill older children? Singer: "It's difficult to warm to parents who can take such a detached view, (but) they're not doing something really wrong in itself." Is anything wrong with a society in which children are bred for spare parts on a massive scale? "No." 

When we had lunch after our initial interview and I read back his answers to him, he said he would be "concerned about a society where the role of some women was to breed children for that purpose," but he stood by his statements. He also reaffirmed that it would be ethically OK to kill 1-year-olds with physical or mental disabilities, although ideally the question of infanticide would be "raised as soon as possible after birth." 

These proposals are biblically and historically monstrous, but Singer is a soft-spoken Princeton professor. Whittaker Chambers a half-century ago wrote that, "Man without God is a beast, and never more beastly than when he is most intelligent about his beastliness," but part of Singer's effectiveness in teaching "Practical Ethics" to Princeton undergraduates is that he does not come across personally as beastly. 

C.S. Lewis 61 years ago wrote "That Hideous Strength," a novel with villainous materialists employed by N.I.C.E. (the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments). Their offices were to be in a building that "would make quite a noticeable addition to the skyline of New York." But Singer sits in an unostentatious office at Princeton's Center for Human Values, which is housed in a small and homey grayish-green building with a front yard that slopes down the street. The center even has a pastoral-sounding address: 5 Ivy Lane. 

C.S. Lewis's N.I.C.E. leaders are totalitarian. They use media control and a police force to push opponents into submission. Singer says he's not totalitarian because he accepts debate and says that "people can draw the line anywhere." But, within Singerism, should they? He scorns attempts to set up standards of good and evil that go beyond utilitarianism, and hopes to convince people willingly to do it his way. 

The challenge for conservatives during the next several decades will be not only to win elections, but to win the intellectual battles. 

Marvin Olasky writes daily commentary on Worldmagblog, a Townhall.com member group.

Source: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/mo20041202.shtml


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## Peter (Dec 2, 2004)

Sickening. But at least he is consistent.


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## hhtuck (Dec 2, 2004)

*The Irrational Peter Singer*



> Sickening. But at least he is consistent.



He's not consistent. He has a moral absolute which he thinks other people should conform to without any grounding for it. He's the oppotsite of consistent. He's a fool.

It's times like this when I simply can't believe that this is the same school that called Jonathan Edwards to be their President.


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## alwaysreforming (Dec 2, 2004)

This is really sad. This guy is a monster. If he truly is as influencial as the article says he is, then I'd hate to grow old under a society that has adopted his mindset; who knows WHAT they'd do with me; I better keep myself productive!

Be this as it may, WE are also raising up an influencial philosopher to fight our cause: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Paul Manata!"

(Dancing banana at this point would be overkill, I suppose)


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## SmokingFlax (Dec 2, 2004)

If I'm not mistaken Peter Singer has already been influencing our culture in his perverse way. Isn't he the same guy that was so instrumental in regards to the modern animal rights movement with its deranged view that animals are morally equivalent to humans ("specieism" - the view that man is superior to/more important than the animals, I believe, was coined by Singer). He's the patron saint of PETA.

This is a good demonstration that the most intellectual are not always the most intelligent.

[Edited on 3-12-2004 by SmokingFlax]


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## SmokingFlax (Dec 2, 2004)

Why not if pleasure is the highest virtue?


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## Presbyrino (Dec 3, 2004)

> _Originally posted by Paul manata_
> 
> 
> > For example, when I asked him recently about necrophilia (what if two people make an agreement that whoever lives longest can have sexual relations with the corpse of the person who dies first?), he said, "There's no moral problem with that." Concerning bestiality -- should people have sex with animals, seen as willing participants? -- he responded, "I would ask, 'What's holding you back from a more fulfilling relationship?' (but) it's not wrong inherently in a moral sense."
> ...



I have a feeling he would discover his "moral sense" right away.


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## Peter (Dec 3, 2004)

He's consistent because most heathen make consent between adults their ethical standard yet they arbitrarily denounce incest, polygamy, necrophilia, etc. while he has no qualms about these things. On the other hand he is inconsistent b/c if you examine his metaphysical beliefs you'll probably discover he has no room to claim an absolute invariant immaterial, yata yata..


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## MICWARFIELD (Dec 28, 2004)

Singers book "Animal Liberation" inspired Ingred Newkirk to start PETA, and every new PETA member receives an abridged copy of it.


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## Ivan (Dec 28, 2004)

> _Originally posted by MICWARFIELD_
> Singers book "Animal Liberation" inspired Ingred Newkirk to start PETA, and every new PETA member receives an abridged copy of it.



Why an abridged copy?


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## MICWARFIELD (Dec 28, 2004)

Ivan - I was wondering the same thing.

Mike


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## Ivan (Dec 28, 2004)

> _Originally posted by MICWARFIELD_
> Ivan - I was wondering the same thing.
> 
> Mike



I smell a rat!


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## bigheavyq (Dec 29, 2004)

how about ravi zacharias?


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## Ex Nihilo (Dec 29, 2004)

So if animals are morally equivalent to humans and it's okay to use people for their body parts, why can't we do the same to animals? 

Unless he's saying animals are more valuable than humans and thus espousing "speciesism"?


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## Ex Nihilo (Jan 1, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Paul manata_
> Evie,
> 
> I don't think he'd care, except for pragmantic reasons, i.e., what *use* would we get from the animals (but then, on what basis is there to accept pragmaticsm unless you know all the facts and the future), because he said this:
> ...



Oh, I agree, rationally speaking, but I was referring to SmokingFlax's post:



> If I'm not mistaken Peter Singer has already been influencing our culture in his perverse way. Isn't he the same guy that was so instrumental in regards to the modern animal rights movement with its deranged view that animals are morally equivalent to humans ("specieism" - the view that man is superior to/more important than the animals, I believe, was coined by Singer). He's the patron saint of PETA.



This certainly seems inconsistent with his pragmatic view of human beings.


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## turmeric (Jan 1, 2005)

New vegetarian children's story; PETA & The Wolf, in which the wolf eats everybody!


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