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From: Washington Weekly <>
To: Undisclosed-recipients:;
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 12:09:12 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Human Values in the Ivy League
HUMAN VALUES IN THE IVY LEAGUE
By J. Peter Mulhern
Many of Peter Singer's genetic relations lost their lives in the
holocaust. This is painfully ironic because Professor Singer's
intellectual relations perpetrated the holocaust.
For those who don't follow appointments to the Princeton faculty
with bated breath, Professor Singer may need some introduction.
He is an ethicist principally known for constructing arguments in
favor of animal liberation and against the proposition that human
beings have an intrinsic right to life. Princeton University has
honored Singer with appointment as Ira DeCamp Professor of
Bioethics at its "Center for Human Values." This story is simply
dripping with irony.
Singer doesn't think infanticide is always wrong. Newborn
infants, he observes, are not fully self-aware. They do not,
therefore, share the characteristics he finds precious in human
beings. According to Singer we are valuable only to the extent
we exhibit the characteristics of "rationality," "autonomy" and
"self-awareness."
In Singer's ethical universe, it is immoral to destroy an animal
that displays those characteristics. On the other hand, a human
being who lacks those characteristics can properly be destroyed
if some suitable end is served by the destruction.
Singer's argument suggests that the killing of a newborn is never
a matter of great moral significance. He doesn't stress this
point. But he does argue that infants with certain disabilities
should be subject to summary execution any time before the 28th
day following their birth. The abortion culture the Supreme
Court bequeathed to us in Roe v. Wade, is ripe for this argument.
Americans are thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that
inconvenient life is disposable.
A few conservatives have expressed outrage about Princeton's
decision to welcome Singer into its academic community. Most of
the coverage that decision has received in the press, however,
has been agnostic. Journalists report both that Professor Singer
sees no problem with killing babies and that some critics take
issue with his moral reasoning. They write in bland, non-
judgmental language, as if this were just another meaningless
tiff among eggheads competing for grant money and the adoration
of nubile grad students.
The term academic has become a synonym for trivial. But now and
then, academic disputes reflect the most important issues facing
civilization. The controversy over Peter Singer's Princeton
appointment is a case in point.
The good guys paid a hideous price to win World War II. If
Singer's views are truly respectable in our great universities,
it was all for naught. The Nazis will be well on the way to
conquering us from within.
The term "Nazi" is often used as an all-purpose political insult.
It has been worked to near the point of exhaustion. But it is
not overstatement to observe that Singer's life work is to
promote the same evil idea that lay at the core of Adolf Hitler's
worldview.
Hitler believed that people were not precious simply because they
were people. Rather than valuing humanity for its own sake, he
and his followers valued particular physical and mental
characteristics that they associated with a particular ethnic
group. People who did not share those characteristics were to be
exploited and, if inconvenient, exterminated.
Singer's work is simply a warmed over version of this same bad
idea. The claim that people are only valuable when they are
"rational," "autonomous" and "self-aware" is extremely vague. It
can justify almost any atrocity. A strong case can be made for
the proposition that, in the age of Clinton, one cannot be a
Democrat without abandoning rationality and autonomy, if not
self-awareness.
It is usually self-evident that our enemies are human. We can
always deny that they are rational, autonomous and self-aware.
If the idea that we don't value humanity for its own sake takes
root, there's no telling where it may lead. Self-awareness is
just one of many incidental characteristics that people may or
may not possess. People who feel free to slaughter those who are
not self-aware are only a very short step from slaughtering those
with too much melanin.
The root of Christian ethics has always been that human beings
are precious because they are human. Humanity itself is the most
valuable characteristic a creature can possess. That is why it
is wrong to kill a baby for food but not a pig. The pig may be
self-aware, he may be intelligent, he may even play chess but he
isn't human.
Grounding our ethics in a profound respect for humanity has
served us well. Our civilization is the kindest and gentlest in
history. For the most part, we protect human dignity and allow
people to thrive. More than any mad scientist, Professor Singer
threatens our achievements; his ideas are a social disease.
A culture that welcomes and encourages such a disease is acting
out a death wish. We need a strong social immune response that
will expel Singer and those like him from our cultural
bloodstream.
Instead Princeton welcomes him and its President makes the usual
fatuous noises about academic freedom, which is apparently
defined as an absolute right to get paid for spewing poisonous
nonsense.
We live in marvelous times.
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