This is the first section of the paper I presented to the the Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting in Milwaukee two weeks ago. Several people have asked me to post it on MandM. It will appear as a two-part post series.
Christian theism has traditionally taught that human beings have equal dignity and worth, a moral status that separates them from non-human animals. Peter Singer has famously rejected this teaching, holding that human beings are not any more special than animals and doctrines of human dignity are indefensible. He contends that killing a new-born infant is, in and of itself, no more problematic than killing a non-human animal such as a cow or a pig and defends the permissibly of infanticide under certain conditions.
This paper will critically assess one important part of Singer’s position: his understanding of why it is wrong to kill. In I I will sketch Singer’s “desire account” of killing and its relationship to his own preference utilitarianism and project of animal equality. Following Don Marquis, I will argue in II, that this “desire account” is subject to important counter examples. In III I note Singer’s attempts to modify his position so as to avoid these counter examples and suggest that these modifications are problematic. In IV, I will suggest that, despite this, there is an important truth in Singer’s critique, one that Christian thinkers can appropriate in developing moral arguments for Christian theism.
I. Preference Utilitarianism and the desire account of the wrongness of killing
Classical Utilitarianism conjoins three theses. First, the maximisation thesis; an action is right if and only if it maximises overall net benefit: net benefit being the total amount of benefit accruing to individuals as a consequence of the action, minus any harms resulting. An action maximises net benefit when the consequences of performing it constitute a higher net benefit than that associated with any alternative action.
Second, , the thesis of equal consideration: a benefit or harm to any one individual is counted as having equal weight to a similar sized benefit or harm to any other individual.
Third, the thesis of hedonism: on this account, benefits and harms are understood in terms of pleasure and pain. Something benefits an individual or is good if it causes him pleasure and harms him if it causes pain.
Peter Singer is a preference utilitarian. Preference utilitarians accept both the maximisation and equal consideration theses however reject hedonism in favour of a desire fulfillment or preference satisfaction view of the good. Something is good for an individual if he desires or prefers it, and it is bad if contrary to his preferences or desires.
Singer uses preference utilitarianism to reject the doctrine that human beings have equal dignity and worth, a moral status that separates them from non-human animals. Sentient animals clearly have desires; they can suffer and feel pain and desire not to. The equal considerations thesis entails that in so far as these desires are similar to those of human beings the suffering of an animal must be considered equal with that of a human being.
However, in terms of actual as opposed to potential psychological capacities, some human beings have a comparable mental life to that of animals. A new born human infant’s psychology is primitive. David Boonin notes “by any plausible measure dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks are more intellectually developed than a new born infant.” [1] This means that the desires of a new born infant are similar to those of other animals.
Singer illustrates this point in a discussion of animal experimentation. [Read more →]
Tags: David Boonin · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Human Dignity · Infanticide · Milwaukee · Peter Singer14 Comments
I learned very quickly that there was a lot more to what I was doing than the formal activity of giving lectures; in fact, most of the more important work was the informal stuff that went on behind the scenes. In addition to presenting lectures, there was often an equally important informal component. Often I would meet with students before the lecture and discuss the challenges they were facing as Christian students in a secular campus. I would offer advice, counsel, support, etc. On other occasions I would, in addition to giving the lectures, meet with the supporters and financiers of the people running student ministries and discuss with them the importance of Apologetics and of developing an intellectually robust faith among students. I found that the most important and constructive engagement and interaction with people typically occurred in these informal contexts.
Second, in addition to my major task of giving lectures, on the weekends I gave instruction in churches. After my first week I was part of a missions team that spent a weekend teaching at a church in a nearby Cherokee Reservation. The weekend after that I taught an adult education class in a Community Fellowship Church of North Carolina. The following weekend I preached from the pulpit. One Sunday evening I attended a service at a Slavic Baptist church where almost the entire service was in Russian and we needed a translator to follow what was being said. After the service I was one of a team of people who spoke to the youth group; I spent several hours fielding their very astute and intelligent questions about the Christian faith.
In the afternoon, Madeleine and I were on a panel discussing the book Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life along with 
If you tuned in to Radio Rhema at 11:45am (NZ time) on 21 November 2012 you would have heard this blog’s Matthew Flannagan and 
Hear Matthew Flannagan preach on 
I have just bought my tickets to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. I leave New Zealand on Tuesday 13 November 2012 to meet Matt who will be leaving Charlotte, North Carolina on the same day.
