Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

conversationswithtyler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 134 posts

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#11

Post by comice »

airgapstopgap wrote: post #4

The most important of Singer's writings, in my opinion, is "Secrecy in Consequentialism"[0], mentioned in this podcast too, though not the crucial part, which I will present without further comment except that this paper should make any utterance from Singer or any of his followers (for example, SBF) inherently untrustworthy. > There are acts which are right only if no one – or virtually no one – will get to know abo…

just going from your own quotes here, he describes the cases in which one might "apparently unacceptably" as "rare", and the example he gives has lots of conditions. and he believes you could never recommend the action to others.

so I don't think "any utterance" of his or his followers is inherently untrustworthy no.

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#13

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #9
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #3

> why he might side with aliens over humans, He's sitting on the fence about being a species traitor?

Aliens I find hard to stomach as well, but I'm probably gonna be team AGI when we get there.

Everyone thinks that until the Boltzman Brain from 980 quintillion years in the future bootstraps itself back into our early universe, makes 10^894532367821002 copies of their soul, and decides to experiment on which eternal hells are the most agonizing.

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#14

Post by philosopher1234 »

airgapstopgap wrote: post #4

The most important of Singer's writings, in my opinion, is "Secrecy in Consequentialism"[0], mentioned in this podcast too, though not the crucial part, which I will present without further comment except that this paper should make any utterance from Singer or any of his followers (for example, SBF) inherently untrustworthy. > There are acts which are right only if no one – or virtually no one – will get to know abo…

I thought this was interesting and it didn't make me distrust him at all. I can't really tell why it should.

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#15

Post by nxpnsv »

benatkin wrote: post #10
simonh wrote: post #2

I’m disappointed he projects some sort of idealised aloof moral superiority on anything non human, as though humans are obviously morally inferior to any possible other species. That our failings are somehow objectively inexcusable. He chooses dolphins. The primary reproductive strategy of many dolphins is to gang up on a female, beat her into submission and gang rape her. They also routinely murder the infants of ri…

> Given the right context of communication it’s a likely a group of dolphins would side with us to exterminate another group to take their territory and females, as condemn us for anything. Uh... Okay. The Industrial Revolution to me is just like a story I know called "The Puppy Who Lost His Way." The world was changing, and the puppy was getting... bigger. So, you see, the puppy was like industry. In that, they were…

Dolphins don’t read much, and aren’t likely to engage with a moral philosopher. So it should be no surprise that Singer reaches out to a more receptive human audience…

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#16

Post by barry-cotter »

tomcam wrote: post #12

In his book “Practical Ethics” he recommends infanticide up to 2 years old as a logical extension to abortion.

Yes. Do you have a point to add to that? Do you feel there’s some reason he’s obviously wrong for example?

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#17

Post by simonh »

imjonse wrote: post #6
simonh wrote: post #2

I’m disappointed he projects some sort of idealised aloof moral superiority on anything non human, as though humans are obviously morally inferior to any possible other species. That our failings are somehow objectively inexcusable. He chooses dolphins. The primary reproductive strategy of many dolphins is to gang up on a female, beat her into submission and gang rape her. They also routinely murder the infants of ri…

> as though humans are obviously morally inferior to any possible other species maybe with great brains should come more responsibility/morality ?

Yes, absolutely. We must strive to do much better. I said as much in my comment. That doesn’t make his naive projection of child like innocence and purity on anything non human credible.

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#18

Post by archon1410 »

avgcorrection wrote: post #5

A vegan+animal activist being a misanthrope is really the perfect bullseye when it comes to stereotypes.

It is difficult to not be a misanthrope once one realises the scale of evil that is being (banaly) perpetrated every single day. Not everyone can be a Gandhi or MLK Jr.

Re: Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

#19

Post by yossarian1408 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #16
tomcam wrote: post #12

In his book “Practical Ethics” he recommends infanticide up to 2 years old as a logical extension to abortion.

Yes. Do you have a point to add to that? Do you feel there’s some reason he’s obviously wrong for example?

Relevant context. Singer has a lot of clout because people read some of his stuff in a first year philosophy class. For those who didn't get the memo that the man is a crazy misanthrope, him taking the idea of infanticide seriously is a pretty good indicator of what his specific grift actually is.
Post reply on HN