Peter Singer on artificial life: Scientists playing God will save lives

Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer provides his take on the recent synthetic life breakthrough:

Patenting life was taken a step further in 1984, when Harvard University successfully applied for a patent on its "oncomouse", a laboratory mouse specifically designed to get cancer easily, so that it would be more useful as a research tool. There are good grounds for objecting to turning a sentient being into a patented laboratory tool, but it is not so easy to see why patent law should not cover newly designed bacteria or algae, which can feel nothing and may be as useful as any other invention.

Indeed, Synthia's very existence challenges the distinction between living and artificial that underlies much of the opposition to "patenting life" – though pointing this out is not to approve the granting of sweeping patents that prevent other scientists from making their own discoveries in this important new field.

As for the likely usefulness of synthetic bacteria, the fact that Synthia's birth had to compete for headlines with news of the world's worst-ever oil spill made the point more effectively than any public-relations effort could have done. One day, we may be able to design bacteria that can quickly, safely, and effectively clean up oil spills. And, according to Venter, if his team's new technology had been available last year, it would have been possible to produce a vaccine to protect ourselves against H1N1 influenza in 24 hours, rather than several weeks.

Hmmm, now who else recently said we shouldn't patent sentient life and use it as a laboratory tool? Oh, yeah—that was me at the Humanity+ Summit at Harvard last week.

Singer: Religion's regressive hold on animal rights issues

Peter Singer wonders how we can promote the need for improved animal welfare when battling ancient religious views.

The chief minister's [Mohamad Ali Rustam of Malacca] comment is yet another illustration of the generally regressive influence that religion has on ethical issues – whether they are concerned with the status of women, with sexuality, with end-of-life decisions in medicine, with the environment, or with animals. Although religions do change, they change slowly, and tend to preserve attitudes that have become obsolete and often are positively harmful.

"Go forth and multiply" was a reasonable idea when the world had a few million humans in it. Now, unrestricted multiplication of our species has become a grave risk to the environment of our planet, and a significant cause of infant mortality and poverty. Yet some religious leaders continue to condemn not only abortion, but also contraception, and their condemnation of homosexuality also has the same roots in the non-reproductive nature of same-sex relationships.

In the same way, there has been great progress, worldwide, in attitudes to animals over the past century, but some religious believers, such as Mohamad Ali Rustam, remain stuck with attitudes that were formed many centuries ago.

Independently of the problems of reactionary religious belief, the trend to establish animal testing facilities in countries with weak or no regulations is an extremely worrying one. As regulations improve in Europe, North America, Australia and other countries, it seems that unscrupulous entrepreneurs are engaged in a race to the bottom.

If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals. At present, the only hope of reversing this trend seems to be pressure on companies not to test their products in countries without good animal welfare regulations, and pressure on research institutions not to have links with such countries. But to unravel the connections and make them clear to consumers is, unfortunately, going to be a difficult task.

Singer: Should this be the last generation?

Philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer asks, is a world with people in it better than one without?

Excerpt:

Put aside what we do to other species — that’s a different issue. Let’s assume that the choice is between a world like ours and one with no sentient beings in it at all. And assume, too — here we have to get fictitious, as philosophers often do — that if we choose to bring about the world with no sentient beings at all, everyone will agree to do that. No one’s rights will be violated — at least, not the rights of any existing people. Can non-existent people have a right to come into existence?

I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings?

Peter Singer: To defame religion is a human right

The UN human rights council recently adopted a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation. As the text of the resolution reads, "Defamation of religion is a serious affront to human dignity" that leads to "a restriction on the freedom of [religions'] adherents."

As a supporter of the UN this came as both a shock and a disappointment. It's a step in the wrong direction as we work to protect and improve the integrity of the world's cultural health. It's also a punch in the face for freedom of speech advocates.

But leave it to Princeton's Peter Singer to tell it like it really is. In a recent article for the Guardian, Singer argues that defaming religion is hardly a human rights violation. On the contrary, says singer -- it's actually a human right. We must defend the right to cause offense to believers, argues Singer, but only when it's not meant to stir up hatred.

Sounds reasonable to me.

More.

Peter Singer: Of great apes and men

Peter Singer says that, as Spain takes one great step forward for animal rights and liberty, activists elsewhere are persecuted:

If we regard human rights as something possessed by all human beings, no matter how limited their intellectual or emotional capacities may be, how can we deny similar rights to great apes? To do so would be to display a prejudice against other beings merely because they are not members of our species - a prejudice we call speciesism, to highlight its resemblance to racism. The Spanish resolution marks the first official acceptance of that view. The use of the term "slavery" in relation to animals is especially significant, for it has been assumed that animals are rightly our slaves, to use as we wish, whether to pull our carts, be models of human diseases for research, or produce eggs, milk, or flesh for us to eat. Recognition by a government that it can be wrong to enslave animals is a significant breach in the wall of exclusive moral significance we have built around our own species. -- Peter Singer

Entire article.

William Crawley interviews Peter Singer

Peter Singer on the 'Ashley Treatment'

Influential bioethicist Peter Singer has waded into the Ashley X debate and, as usual, is not afraid to plunge head-first into controversy. In addition to the now-familiar arguments in favour of the so-called Ashley Treatment, Singer questions the whole issue of 'dignity' and how it applies to this debate. He goes even further by posing the difficult but necessary question of dignity and the value of non-human persons.

Here's an excerpt from Singer's NYT article, A Convenient Truth:

Finally, there is the issue of treating Ashley with dignity. A Los Angeles Times report on Ashley’s treatment began: “This is about Ashley’s dignity. Everybody examining her case seems to agree at least about that.” Her parents write in their blog that Ashley will have more dignity in a body that is healthier and more suited to her state of development, while their critics see her treatment as a violation of her dignity.

But we should reject the premise of this debate. As a parent and grandparent, I find 3-month-old babies adorable, but not dignified. Nor do I believe that getting bigger and older, while remaining at the same mental level, would do anything to change that.

Here’s where things get philosophically interesting. We are always ready to find dignity in human beings, including those whose mental age will never exceed that of an infant, but we don’t attribute dignity to dogs or cats, though they clearly operate at a more advanced mental level than human infants. Just making that comparison provokes outrage in some quarters. But why should dignity always go together with species membership, no matter what the characteristics of the individual may be?

What matters in Ashley’s life is that she should not suffer, and that she should be able to enjoy whatever she is capable of enjoying. Beyond that, she is precious not so much for what she is, but because her parents and siblings love her and care about her. Lofty talk about human dignity should not stand in the way of children like her getting the treatment that is best both for them and their families.