as small as a world and as large as alone, (1) hey woah now on peter singer. im vegan bc i...

7:25pm January 22, 2014

Anonymous asked: (1) hey woah now on peter singer. im vegan bc i read his book 'animal liberation' (u should read it if u havent- its responsible for bringing animal rights to the public and he fantastically argues w scientificfacts and ethical logic against using animals for clothing, experimentation, and food). the sheflish thing he said in an interview "hypotheticly" but as far as i kno he's vegan (btw yea his other ethics r messed up but for animals he is spot on).

thegreenanole:

pitter—patter:

fighting-for-animals:

thegreenanole:

fightingforanimals:

pls dont diss him for his work on animal rights i strongly urge u to read his book. he actually argues AGAINST speciesism and he actually is one of the first ppl to popularise the term. He never said shelfish r okay he said “if research were to prove that shelfish=plants then he would have to think about it” but he doesnt condone eating animals/animal products. anyway i HIGHLY recomend reading ‘animal liberation’ its fantastic, especially for fighting against animal testing/experimentation!!

I’m sure he does great work, but he is problematic and I’m not going to pretend he isn’t.

I will never support someone who is pro animal rape. Enough said.

I will not take a vegetarian claiming to care about animal rights seriously. He says himself he is vegetarian, and sometimes a ‘flexible vegan’.

He cannot be against speciesism while contributing to dairy and egg abuse, and any other abuse he decides to support when he is busy being a ‘flexible vegan’.

He obviously does condone eating animal products because he says himself that if he goes to a friend’s house or whatever he’ll eat dairy and egg, so.

In short, no, I do not respect him.

Not to mention his eugenic views on disabled people!

are you fucking serious

i’m googling that shit

THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

WHY CAN’T THERE BE ONE FUCKING GOOD FAMOUS VEGAN ACTIVIST

JUST ONE

PLS

It just occurred to me that people don’t know these things about Peter Singer. Head to Google if you want to find out more.

Which is strange to me because in the disability rights realm, of course we focus so much on his horrible eugenicist attitudes that his thoughts on animals rights (and rightly so!) get lost.

I think this is an example of someone who can have very progressive views in one area having the complete opposite of progressive views in other area.

Although I should Google the whole animal rape bit. I get squeamish when my mom and her dog breeding colleagues talk about breeding procedures which, at one point I got so uncomfortable I left the room, saying I couldn’t see what they were describing as anything but facilitating rape.

Anyway. Yes.

He’s not ‘problematic’ he WANTS IT OKAY TO KILL DISABLED NEWBORN BABIES because they’re not persons yet, and he BELIEVES IT IS OKAY TO KILL MANY COGNITIVELY DISABLED PEOPLE, because he thinks there are human beings that are not persons, and that is actually the entire basis for his animal rights views: cognitive ability. So there are nonhuman persons and nonperson humans in his view. This is what’s wrong with mental widgetry taken to the extreme. He basically thinks that if you’re not aware of yourself existing through time, you’re not a person and it’s okay to do whatever others want to do for you because you have no actual experiences of the world. (I beg to differ, from experience, fuck him.)

Also go figure that some vegans would think nobody could be for animal rights unless they’re a total complete vegan. That’s just MORE widgetry of the sort that gets Peter Singer into trouble. Actually many people who do a lot of good work for the rights of animals aren’t even vegetarians let alone “flexible vegans” let alone vegans. And many of them do more work for animal rights than many total extreme-vegans will ever do. (Especially ones who sit around bickering about what constitutes being vegan enough.)

But anyway, Peter Singer’s views on animals probably harm the animals a great deal, actually, given that he privileges cognitive ability (as presumed by humans) so highly in determining which animals have more rights. But his views on humans are nothing short of atrocious eugenical horrorshows, problematic doesn’t even cover it. And his views on animals are built on the exact same foundation as his views on humans:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.html

(I’ve been hearing about him since before he was even appointed as a Princeton professor, and I wish disability activists had managed to avoid the horribleness that his professor position created. And I bet Harriet McBryde Johnson was turning in her grave when the NYT made the horrible decision of letting him write her eulogy. I don’t know what they were thinking. Actually I do, and what they were thinking was completely horrible and patronizing and damaging.)

But holy crap the problem with him is NOT that his views on animals aren’t extreme enough.