c. 2000 Religion News Service

PRINCETON, N.J. _ Ethicists aren’t rock stars or politicians. Outside academia, they rarely arouse much passion. This decidedly isn’t the case, however, with Peter Singer, the 53-year-old DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

Singer, best known as an animal rights advocate, questions the conventional wisdom _ especially in religious communities _ that human life is sacred.

His views outrage some religious leaders. Demonstrators in wheelchairs protested his appointment to Princeton, where he began teaching last fall. Editorial writers have said he’s Nazi-like.

Yet Singer is a natural hero to followers of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group, and many ethicists _ even those who disagree with him _ say he is a moral man.

Singer reaches a popular audience through the books he has written on such topics as “Animal Liberation” and “Rethinking Life and Death.”

The most contentious of his views, however, center on euthanasia. He believes euthanasia should be an option for terminally ill people and supports it, in some instances, for severely disabled infants.

The Judeo-Christian belief in the “sanctity of human life,” he says, is a “medieval” concept. He questions whether life is necessarily of value just because it’s human in an age when technology can keep people alive after they’ve irrevocably lost consciousness. To him, an animal life could be just as valuable as that of a human being.

During an interview at his Princeton office, Singer was soft-spoken and courteous. He discussed his view of ethics and responded to criticism leveled against him.

Singer, a native of Melbourne, grew up in Australia. His parents, Viennese Jews, fled Austria in 1938 and three of his four grandparents perished during the Holocaust. He studied philosophy at Melbourne University and later at Oxford University in England.

Like many students during the late 1960s, Singer didn’t want learning to be merely academic.

“I was influenced by the Vietnam War, which spurred student activism,” he said, adding that at Oxford, “students challenged me to justify what I was eating. I found I couldn’t do it.”

The experience, he said, convinced him ethics must relate to practical issues, whether poverty, animal rights or bioethics.

Most philosophers did not share Singer’s view of ethics at the time he entered the field, said Dale Jamieson, professor of philosophy at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

“By mid-20th century, philosophers had lost track of issues which people think are important. With the coming of age of the baby boomers, there was a shift in philosophy toward moral issues like civil rights,” said Jamieson, editor of “Singer and His Critics” (Blackwell Publishers).

Singer, Jamieson said, was instrumental in creating the shift. He compares Singer to the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill.

“Mill wrote on issues affecting society like the subjugation of women. Peter is the Mill of our time. Peter’s revered for his role in founding practical ethics.”

Singer holds a view of ethics known as preference utilitarianism, an ethic that judges right or wrong by the long-term consequences of actions.

“What I think ought to be maximized is the preferences of all those beings who are affected by your actions,” he said. “What I think ought to be minimized is the frustrations of those preferences.”

Singer uses his utilitarian theory of ethics to probe euthanasia, animal rights and other issues.

“My interest in life and death issues goes back to my undergraduate days,” he said. “I have an interest in trying to change situations that cause … needless suffering where no one benefits from it.”

Euthanasia in the case of terminally people “seemed to be one of these situations,” he said. “They’re in pain. They don’t want to go on living for whatever time’s left to them. So why do they have to?”

To Singer simply being human isn’t what makes life valuable. A being can be human, he says, but have no “self-awareness.” Such a being wouldn’t be aware of “pain or its surroundings.” Certain animals like chimpanzees or dolphins could be self-aware, he said.

“I put value on life that has certain characteristics,” he said. “It’s morally worse to take the life of a being who’s self-aware without that being’s consent than it would be to take the life of a being who did not have any self-awareness.”

More controversially, Singer argues some animals are more “self-aware” than some severely disabled infants. To him, it might be humane to euthanize a severely disabled infant, but wrong to experiment on some kinds of animals.

Aware that many abhor his views, Singer tries to outline his positions carefully and with nuance. He said he started thinking about infanticide and severely disabled newborns some years ago “when I learned about some cases where doctors had decided that it was not in the best interest of a newborn baby for it to live.”

Two things disturbed him about these cases, he said.

“The doctors stopped treating these infants but did nothing to hasten their death. So many died from pain because they weren’t treated for infections or illnesses.” Singer said he also felt that the infants’ parents should be involved in these decisions. In such cases, he said, he believes it would be better to “hasten the baby’s death” by euthanizing the infant than letting the newborn “die in pain.”

“I’m concerned about the suffering of the infant,” he said. “If the infant can have a life where he or she isn’t going to suffer a great deal … if there are people who will look after it, that’s fine.” Then, he said, “parents should be persuaded” to raise the infant.

But, in instances when an infant would suffer unbearably and no one could care for it, Singer believes euthanasia should be an option. “Parents and doctors should make the decision as soon after birth as possible.”

Richard Doerflinger, of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for many who find Singer’s views horrific.

“Singer sets aside the religious tradition of the sanctity of life for his own dogma,” he said. “He thinks rights depend on cognitive ability, on the ability to experience pleasure or pain.

“This demeans the disabled, the elderly, the comatose, the unborn healthy infants,” he added. “It’s against not only the Judeo-Christian tradition but the democratic tradition of human rights.”

Singer, however, suggests his critics are their own worst enemies.

“A lot of people say what I’m saying is terrible,” he said. “That every life is precious. But most people aren’t doing anything to help these infants.”

Singer labels himself an atheist but says, “I have religious friends.”

“The only God I could believe in would be a bumbler,” he said. “How could an omnipotent, omniscient being permit there to be so much suffering in the world?”

DEA END WOLFE