Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Peter Singer embracing moral objectivity?

I recently mentioned a conference at Oxford designed to cultivate a dialogue between Peter Singer and Christian ethicists.  Here is the Guardian's coverage, which is fascinating and, dare I say, promising:

[Singer] described his current position as being in a state of flux. But he is leaning towards accepting moral objectivity because he now rejects Hume's view that practical reasoning is always subject to desire. Instead, he inclines towards the view of Henry Sidgwick, the Victorian theist whom he has called the greatest utilitarian, which is that there are moral assertions that we recognise intuitively as true. At the conference, he offered two possible examples, that suffering is intrinsically bad, and that people's preferences should be satisfied. He has not yet given up on preference utilitarianism. Neither is he any more inclined to belief in God, though he did admit that there is a sense in which he "regrets" not doing so, as that is the only way to provide a complete answer to the question, why act morally? Only faith in a good God finally secures the conviction that living morally coincides with living well.

What difference does this make to climate change? Tim Mulgan, professor of moral and political philosophy at the University of St Andrews, explained why ethical objectivism may be vital to making a robust ethical case against environmental degradation. Only a doctrine of creation can affirm that we are fundamentally linked to the natural order manifest on Earth. The fantasy of fleeing this planet, or disappearing into virtual reality, won't actually do. Our island home matters because the lives of human beings go well only when her natural systems go well too.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/06/peter-singer-embracing-moral-objectivity.html

Vischer, Rob | Permalink

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So let me see if I have this straight:

Peter Singer is rethinking some of his most basic philosophical commitments because he's discovered they lead to a truly grotesque conclusion....a lack of clarity about climate change.

Where is our Jonathan Swift?