The following website may be of interest to those who wish to know more about the subject. It gives an extensive bibliography at the end of the article:

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1985----.htm
Ethics by Peter Singer
In Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago. 1985, pp.627-648

Hi Lexi

I looked it up and found this:

//A modern theist might say that since God is good, he could not possibly approve of torturing children nor disapprove of helping neighbours. In saying this, however, the theist would have tacitly admitted that there is a standard of goodness that is independent of God.//

He is right.. MIGHT but a thinking Theist knows that "good" is defined BY God...not man..and thus there is no separate standard of right or wrong.

So...that's why we don't say it :)

What we DO say is....

1/ Love God with all our heart (according to his self revelation)
2/ Love/do for your neighbour as you would have them do for you.

That pretty much covers all ethical behavior.

Foyle
You have not shown that any of my points are in any degree self-contradictory - only that you don’t agree with them. But your own argument is impossible, illogical and unethical for the following reasons.

It is common ground that man is factually unequal and cannot be made equal.

Some say we should strive for equal opportunity. However this is no less impossible. People inherit and receive greater opportunity from their families. Equal opportunity would require abolition of the family.

But even that would not suffice. One has a greater inherited mathematical ability than another. There is no reason why someone with a naturally and permanently low aptitude at mathematics should receive a forcibly confiscated unequal allocation of resources to try to get him to the same level.

And even with all the tuition in the world, it will still *not be possible* to provide equal opportunity. It could not be provided without equal incomes but that also cannot be achieved either voluntarily or by force without destroying human economy and society.

But even if equal *money* income could be achieved – which it can’t - people could still not enjoy *real* equal opportunity. You - where you are - do not and cannot have equal opportunity to enjoy the sight of the Ganges river, compared to the Indian now there; nor he your view. And so on for *all* the variegations of planet Earth and individual characteristics.

One person can have his potential “fully developed” only at the expense of another – as you yourself assume. But there is *no such thing* as the ethical right to someone else’s efforts taken by coercion – it is ethically indistinguishable from slavery.

Nor have you even begun to show why, ethically speaking, society should not meet the obligation your assert by *voluntary* instead of *coercive* means.

Thus your proposal:
1. requires treating people unequally as to inputs – how *the state* (not “society”) get the money
2. requires treating people unequally as to outputs – actively exploiting some and privileging others
3. requires aggressive violence to realize it...

4. …cannot possibly be successful even in its own terms
5. relies on a double standard – “I’m allowed to hit you but you’re not allowed to hit me”
…and all this to try to achieve greater equality!

It is therefore illogical, impossible, unethical, and self-contradictory.

AGIR
Solomon, and the inherently conflicting interests of man, show that ethics is needed, not that it’s not.

“Peter's idea of complete freedom is nice in theory, but who will 'enforce' the 'no harm' idea ?”

The job of a theory of ethics is to show how we should judge right from wrong. The job of a theory of practice is to say how to make it happen.

As to the ethics, even if we knew beforehand that robbery and rape could not be eliminated in practice, that would not be any refutation of our ethical reasons for condemning them, nor provide any ethical vindication of these abuses.

As to practice, the main thing each of us can do is to *stop believing and propagating unethical beliefs*: stop advocating the sacrifice of virgins to increase crop fertility, and stop advocating socialism and unprovoked aggression of any kind – legal or not - as a means to get what we want.

The faith in the state to do ethical or economical good is rationally indefensible. It is always – repeat always – built on demonstrable ethical, factual or logical falsehoods, as I have shown with Foyle.

We need to recognize that the belief that forced confiscations and forced redistributions
a) are morally superior, or
b) make society economical better off
are completely and totally FALSE.

It is true that in practice, man will try to get what he wants by plunder if he can get away with it safely. The state is just a machine for making it safe, and even worse, prestigious, that is all. But that is not an ethical justification of it.

Peter Hume, I certainly do disagree with you. I cannot find the full quote or the author but I recall part and it stated ".. there is nothing more contemptible than the smug acceptance of the inevitable shortcomings of society."
J K Galbraith did say, "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
I can add a comment from my own experience. For several years, through a community service group, I have assisted a now legally blind mother, forty years my juniour, who has been diagnosed with Wolfram syndrome, a serious health problem resulting from a recessive gene fault inherited from both parents. Her children are not afflicted but may carry the defective gene. Her health problem is not her fault and, in the age before genome analysis, no one else's!
Should not society attempt to help those children reach their full potential and overcome the learning difficulties and other disadvantages they suffer as the result of their mothers serious health problems. Blindness is only one but the most obvious symptom; but others are diabetes and bipolar.
The children have plenty of potential but the mother who is quite bright cannot even check if they have done the school work required or help with set work in text books. The children need free home supervision and tutoring after school.
You called Singer a fascist in an earlier comment. Dear me, what is it about glass houses.

AGIR:

You are merely expressing your opinion. To which you are entitled. But not your facts. Go back and re-read the context in which the quote was made.