Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Is Peter Singer's life worth his living it?

No, seriously. "If we could see our lives objectively," he says, "we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone." So, you first Pete -- be objective and disinflict yourself.

A bit sillier than average, perhaps, but this is the kind of sophomoric, emo exudation that passes for Deep Thought among the more earnest and impressionable Greenies these days -- and in the pages of the NY Times:
Here is a thought experiment to test our attitudes to this view. Most thoughtful people are extremely concerned about climate change. Some stop eating meat, or flying abroad on vacation, in order to reduce their carbon footprint. But the people who will be most severely harmed by climate change have not yet been conceived. If there were to be no future generations, there would be much less for us to feel to guilty about.
So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!

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