September 29, 2021 - 1:41pm
Peter Singer is a world famous moral philosopher and bioethicist. Today, he’s due to speak at an online event hosted by the philosophy department at Rhodes College.
However, other academics at the college are outraged. It’s not topic of the event — pandemic ethics — they object to, but the involvement of Singer himself.
The Daily Nous website quotes from one of the protest emails, which accuses Singer of advancing “philosophical arguments that presume the inferiority of many disabled lives.”
This is presumably a reference to Singer’s longstanding and highly controversial argument in favour of euthanising profoundly disabled infants.
His Rhodes critics say that his views are “dehumanising and dangerous” and therefore “urge the college to withdraw the invitation.” They add that they “cherish and advocate for freedom of speech and expression as long as it does not deny others their humanity.”
The question, of course, is who gets to apply this condition on free speech? Pro-life campaigners would argue that abortion denies humanity to a category of “others”, in this case the unborn child or ‘foetus’. So would a group of Catholic academics, say, be justified in demanding that a pro-choice speaker be cancelled?
If the decision ultimately comes down to how influential the no-platformers are, then the real condition that’s applied to free speech is who’s got the power (and is sufficiently offended and censorious to use it). That’s something that advocates for the powerless might want to think about.
When he was interviewed for UnHerd back in June, Peter Singer declared himself to be “an advocate of freedom of speech” adding that free speech “has been something that the Left traditionally has championed.”
The irony is that an ultra-liberal like Singer now finds himself under attack from his fellow progressives. This was his explanation for that:
They see themselves as defending people who are underprivileged, marginalised, disadvantaged. They want to extend that defence, not just to improving their social and economic position and preventing discrimination against them, but also making sure that they’re not offended by remarks that are made.
- Peter Singer, UnHerdTV
Meanwhile, it looks like the Rhodes philosophers are defying the no-platformers.
On the Leiter Reports philosophy blog, the event organisers are quoted as saying that “serious intellectual exchange about matters of significance cannot avoid sometimes causing anger, offense, and pain and no one should be cavalier about that fact.” Nevertheless, to cancel speakers on this basis would be “incompatible with our mission to teach students how to engage in productive dialogue even, and indeed especially, with thinkers with whom they vehemently disagree.”
On this occasion at least, free speech has prevailed.
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SubscribeHis views are “dehumanising and dangerous”, I find many of them repulsive. He should still be allowed to speak.
One would have thought Peter Singer would be regarded as at the forefront the woke movement. His book Animal Liberation suggests a future where woke Animal Liberationists want to tear down virtually all statues on the basis that they depict men and women who ate animals. Ironically, if there were statues to Hitler they might survive as a professed vegetarian – although he didn’t seem to practice vegetarianism consistently. Of course there are no statues largely because Hitler disapproved of statues of himself rather than because they were destroyed post-war.
Indeed Peter Singer apparently gives away an admirable 40% of his income to good causes – although that may simply reflect a large enough income to make charitable deductions from income tax.
His views on the ethics of parents killing their disabled offspring would certainly fit in well with National Socialist programs but he is not really in the same league as Julius Streicher and Pol Pot etc.
At the end of the day all these cancellation efforts are reminiscent of heresy hunters where religious and semi-religious beliefs are enforced by punishments and silencing because the beliefs can’t be upheld on grounds other than belief itself.
I guarantee that most/all of his critics have not read much of his work – and they should have the decency to stay quiet until they have (as any intelligent person should) !
I agree entirely. I find most of what he says repulsive, but by silencing people like him, two things happen.
Firstly we never know what he thinks.
Secondly, without voices like his we are never forced to think through our own views or are challenged as to why we hold them.
I agree that many of his ideas seem extreme and unacceptable. But unless you are prepared to debate them you will end up with a ‘nice’ middle of the road philosophy determined by those with the most emotional voices. An anodyne philosophy too frightened to address real world issues.
Let Singer speak. And let Catholics recite the Rosary outside abortion factories.
This is a good example to decide where we want the limits on freedom of speech to go. I am not sure what the right answer is myself. Which of the following, if any, would you deny a platform? And on what grounds?
Streicher is an especially interesting comparison, since was not involved in carrying out genocide or war, but only in inciting it.
Yes, it’s a good question and I don’t know the answer.
You don’t deplatform these people, you arrest them. But not because they have ideas which are repugnant, but because they are dangerous violent criminals who comitted or ordered mass-murder. (Aside from Singer. And if he starts murdering babies with disabilities, we can arrest him for murder then.)
Also — how am I going to go around convincing others that Utilitarianism is a terrible basis for ethics and morality if I don’t have some people like Peter Singer to point at, and say ‘see what it gets you?’.
The others were all guilty of actual murder, true, but Streicher neither committed nor ordered mass murder either. He was executed for crimes against humanity, purely “For his 25 years of speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews“. Would you deplatform him – or execute him – for that?
Only because the Jews actually got murdered. Figuring out who is responsible for a genocide is never going to be an easy job. The people at the time thought he was responsible; it is possible they were mistaken about that, but that is why we have trials about such things. It is particularly difficult in such cases because what we are talking about is ‘collective responsibility’. Normally you do not have to worry about this, because normally bad actors act alone and are individually responsible for their actions. But that wasn’t the case here. The trials were all about the collective responsibility of the National Socialists.
Should we get to the tragic point where we need to find out who is collectively responsible for the mass murder of disabled infants, Peter Singer may well find himself arrested and held to account. But, in the meantime, it is by confronting the Peter Singers of the world for their abhorrent beliefs that we avoid ever going there. Secrecy only allows them to flourish.
Fair enough. So, free speech to say whatever you like, and you only start considering getting people deplatformed to the extent that others are acting on what they say? There are some historical parallels: people were quite tolerant of left-wing parties advocating revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat – until the Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof etc. suddenly made the whole thing less theoretical. And, as it happens, I am rather against hate-speech legislation myself. Still, would you give people a free-speech right to agitate for the euthanasia of certain groups (be it of jews, homosexuals, handicapped children or whatever) as long as nobody was doing any actual killing?
I am not trying to trip you up here – I am just interested in anybody willing to propose a clear limit to free speech, since I do not have a good one myself at the moment.
I wouldn’t say ‘free speech to say whatever you like’ — inciting violence, for instance, is inciting violence — a crime. The problem with Danish anti-Muslim politician Rasmus Paludan isn’t that he has the unwelcome (in some circles) belief that Denmark would be a better place with fewer Muslims in it, or that these beliefs hurt the feelings of Muslims. The problem is that he thought coming over to Malmö, Sweden in order to have a rally where his supporters burnt a Koran would be a wonderful idea, and would radicalise the Swedes. The police stopped him at the border, but the rally went ahead anyway, and the Koran got burnt and we had a large disturbance/riot.
Rasmus Paludan is a disgusting individual who makes unnecessary trouble, and I am very much in favour of shutting him up. But just what is your argument for banning him, exactly? He is not telling anyone to do anything violent, he is just burning a book he does not like. You could even argue that it is a piece of performance art, and that the offence he is causing is just part of the artwork. The reason this might lead to violence is that the people who revere that same book are known to react with violence against anyone who insults it. Which means that when we prevent people from burning their book, we are rewarding them for their violence by giving police backing to their sensibilities. Should we similarly prevent people from giving insult to the group symbols of motorcycle gangs? Or (God forbid) could Christian communities re-introduce the blasphemy laws by systematically rioting whenever God’s name was taken in vain?
Just to avoid misunderstandings, I am against Koran-burnings (though not against the Muhammed cartoons) but by what principle do you justify the distinction?
Inciting violence is real. People who incite violence, on purpose, (as opposed to, say, accidentally burning a Koran) are dangerous violent criminals. A lot of the violence they provoke is perpetrated by other dangerous violent criminals, those ‘on the other side’. But I don’t care about the sides. Or the beliefs. I care about the violence.
That’s an honest admission – and I concur, it is difficult to set a limit. But this difficulty may be itself unveiling a truth – there is no limit, we just have to learn to listen to bad ideas and expose them to the logical fallacy or moral outrage that renders them fringe ideas in the minds of the majority of rational people.
Shutting down debate only invites speculation of conspiracy and ambiguity surrounding what is and isn’t right (morally or empirically, depending on the subject) and this leads to problems.
For instance, I’ve always said we don’t have a misinformation problem in this country; we have a presumed authority to censor problem. Things that are earnestly believed need to be heard and – if having ramifications for others – challenged. Shutting people down does absolutely nothing.
Surely the point is, waiting for actual mass murder to occur is leaving it a bit late? Moreover, by that point an authoritarian regime might be installed making legal interventions impossible.
Which is why you always have to work against having authoritarian regimes installed. You know, the sort that won’t let people with deeply unpopular views present them, and get them challenged.
The bit that I find intriguing about Singer’s views on the topic of disabled babies is that there’s a hairbreadth between what he says & the guidance issued to doctors who perform late term abortions on the grounds of disability.
In fact the guidance goes to some length to ensure that the subject of the procedure (the baby) must not be born alive because then it will be impossible to kill it.
However a few moments before, while in the birth canal it seems it’s ok to extinguish the same life.
Singer shines a light on things we’d rather not talk about, because they’re profoundly uncomfortable.
I guess that’s why liberals don’t like him very much.
Bang on – he attempts to bring sane rational arguments to a world of limited resources , and thereby think rather much deeper than the simplistic emotional knee jerk reactions of most. Most of us just cant get outside our little ego wants and needs to check out the big picture. Effective altruism vs ‘that which makes me feel good or virtuous”. Which is why I am somewhat disturbed about the vehemence here – I thought Unherd was about NOT necessarily kneejerk attitudes/?? hITLER, Stalin, Polpot WTF
I would not deny a platform to any of them.
Even the war crimes tribunal let Streicher speak, which shows how low our standards of tolerance have fallen since.
Good point
Putting Singer in with that group is ridiculous !! A severely disabled child’s care relies on thousands of person hours and millions of dollars over a lifetime-surely money and hours better spent ?? I knew a couple who had a child with spina bifida who chose to have the child out of moral/spiritual reasons. it pretty much destroyed them and they looked back at their naivity in wonder. We are not talking about mongol kids here.
In short you are saying that it is ridiculous to compare Peter Singer with Julius Streicher, because severely disabled children obviously do deserve to die, whereas the mentally retarded, gays and Jews do not? It all depends on who the untermenschen are – or rather, on who have the right to decide?
I do not claim it is easy to draw the line between the Peter Singers, the Julius Streichers, and the Pol Pots. But if you are that sure you know who ought to be killed and who not, I sincerely hope you and your friends never get into power.
As I said it requires huge resources over many years to provide the care for one these kids ie a comparatively affluent country. If parents could provide much of that support well and good , but usually they cant and often relationships break up with the stress of all that. In the real world there is a huge need for way more effective use of resources – unless you assume that there is so much wealth in your world that it is all affordable etc.- just keeping the world’s kids fed and vaccinated against a myriad of bugs is a losing battle and I dont see Singer’s critics leaping up and down about that. Maybe you need some more persective-as Singer would advocate – or have you not read much of his stuff either ??
Zero. The last few years have revealed to me that I am a free speech extremist.
It looks like if he suggested that the infants were euthanised while inside the mother’s womb this would be a celebrated woke cause – his main falling out with the woke seems to be more about the timing of the killing.