Intelligence no guarantee of goodness

Boston Globe ^ | March 4, 2009 | Jeff Jacoby

[MartinaMisc]

PETER SINGER has written a new book. The prominent Australian philosopher, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, argues in "The Life You Can Save" that residents of the affluent West have it within their power to eradicate extreme Third World poverty and its attendant suffering. By donating money to charity instead of spending it on things we don't really need, he writes, everyone can save lives - and when you fail to do so, he suggests, "you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved."

Singer told the Wall Street Journal last week that he tries to practice what he preaches by giving one-third of his income to "Oxfam and other organizations working in the field." Few of us can give away that much of our earnings, but Singer urges most people to donate between 1 percent and 5 percent of what they make to help the destitute, with those who earn more digging even deeper.

You don't have to be a disciple of Singer's philosophy to admire his commitment to charity. I hope his new book prompts many readers to do more for the needy than they have ever thought about doing before.

And yet I can't help wondering which will ultimately prove more influential - Singer's efforts to save lives through charity, or the role he has played as an intellectual enabler for the modern culture of death.

In 2005, Foreign Policy marked its 35th anniversary by asking several thinkers to speculate on what ideas or values taken for granted today will vanish in the next 35 years. "The sanctity of life," answered Singer, looking forward to the day when "only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct."

[RU88]

Well Pete, put your money where your mouth is. I’m sure you’re getting a nice stipend from Princeton. Let’s see you give all your money away to charity and I’ll consider cutting a check.

[LearsFool]

This sociopath needs to be removed from American shores (if any other nation will have him) for inciting to murder: describing unborn babies as parasites demanding sustenance from their unwilling hosts, warranting their own extermination. Amidst his abominable, uncaring, unfeeling, unnatural, inhuman philisophy, and his rhetorical manipulations (of himself as well, apparently), he has lost his mind and become a danger to civilized society.

[MarkL]

Gee, Pete. It’s good to see you addressing something other than murdering newborn children for once...

Interesting thing about giving money to “the poor.” If you just give it to them, you might as well just bundle it up and set it on fire. At least someone will get some warmth from the flames. Take a look at all the dollars spent in “the war on poverty.” Or sent by the US, and to a lesser extent, the other civilized nations of the world, to the poorest countries.

The thing people like Singer don’t seem to understand (since more government is always the answer) is that the problem is a political one. Why is there starvation in Africa? It’s not that there isn’t potential to feed themselves and far more. No, the problem is due to civil wars, governments using starvation and poverty as a weapon, and incredible mismanagement and corruption.

How many impoverished countries have remained “basket cases,” which the political class becomes rich beyond avarice. Gee, isn’t that just what’s happening here in the USA as well?

Mark

[McGavin999]

Hmm, interesting. Save the lives of children in the third world, but kill the children of the western world. Boy has this guy got his wires crossed.

Stupid man.