Critique of Peter Singer's 'Practical Ethics'

(Note: Before reading this critique, I recommend that you read my critique of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, which can be found here: http://thinkingabouthumansociety.blogspot.ca/2014/01/critique-of-john-stuart-mills.html)

Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics[1].

Chapter 1: About Ethics

Singer: “From an ethical point of view, the fact that it is I who benefit from, say, a more equal distribution of income and you who lose by it, is irrelevant. Ethics requires us to go beyond ‘I’ and ‘you’ to the universal law, the universalizable judgment, the standpoint of the impartial spectator or ideal observer, or whatever we choose to call it.” 12

Brian: Ok, but why care about the opinions of ghostly ‘impartial spectators’ or ‘ideal observers’? The only good reason to do so is if it is in your own, personal interest, which in many cases it is when humans are living in a society together, as I explained in the preface to my critique of J.S. Mill’s Utilitarianism.   

Chapter 2: Equality and Its Implications

Singer: “There is a popular belief that if we did not pay people a lot of money to be doctors or university professors, they would not undertake the studies required to achieve these positions. I do not know what evidence there is in support of this assumption, but it seems to me highly dubious. My own salary is considerably higher than the salaries of the people employed by the university to mow the lawns and keep the grounds clean, but if our salaries were identical I would still not want to swap positions with them – although their jobs are a lot more pleasant than some lowly paid work. Nor do I believe that my doctor would jump at a chance to change places with his receptionist if their salaries did not differ.” 42

Brian: So many things are wrong with this passage. First, if all jobs were paid the same, people would decide their career paths based on non-monetary, psychic considerations alone. In other words, people would decide their career paths more based on how much they like the job, rather than on how useful the job is to others, which monetary considerations in a free-market order lead them to do. In rare cases these things might line up, as in the cases of some doctors and some university professors (the cases which Singer cherry picks), but in most cases they would not. Let’s just say that if salaries were equal, there would be a heck of a lot more ‘freelance writers’, ‘artists’, ‘photographers’, ‘journalists’, and yes, ‘university professors’.

Secondly, differential salaries allow business owners to entice the labor supply that they need by offering higher pay. Their ability to offer this higher pay most likely signifies that the person would be more useful to the consumers being employed by this employer, rather than by his former employer. Mandating equal salaries for all would obliterate this highly useful labor allocation mechanism.

Thirdly, people aren’t paid a specific salary just to do ‘a job’, they are paid a specific salary to do a job at a specific level of quality. If skill in a position doesn’t lead to a higher salary as it does in a free-market system, than why bother becoming particularly skillful? Lousy gardeners would be paid the same as great gardeners. Chefs that make disgusting food would be paid the same as chefs that make great food. University professors that deliver terrible lectures and that publish useless research would be paid the same as professors that deliver great lectures and that publish highly relevant and groundbreaking research. I could go on at length but it would start getting tedious.

Fourthly, how about non-salaried people such as business owners and investors, would they all be allocated the same salary as everyone else for their activities as well? If yes, the forces that make the market economy’s businessmen and capitalists responsive to the desires of the consumers would cease to operate, and the market economy would be destroyed. If no, and these classes of people were allowed to make all that they could on the market, then too many intelligent salaried people would rush to become entrepreneurs and day traders because of the greater monetary rewards that would exist in these fields.

Finally, this egalitarian scheme would almost certainly result in less savings-investment and more consumption spending, as poorer people in most industrial economies, empirically, tend to devote a higher portion of their income to consumption than richer people do. The result would be less capital accumulation and probably even capital consumption, which would reduce the living standards of everyone.

You would think that Singer, who professes to be a utilitarian, would be more careful before making proposals that have fairly obvious and significant negative consequences for everyone in society, in the name of some egalitarian ideal not really grounded in utilitarianism.

Chapter 3: Equality For Animals?

Singer: “The argument for extending the principle of equality beyond our own species is simple, so simple that it amounts to no more than a clear understanding of the nature of the principle of equal consideration of interests. We have seen that this principle implies that our concern for others ought not to depend on what they are like, or what abilities they possess (although precisely what this concern requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of those affected by what we do). It is on this basis that we are able to say that the fact that some people are not members of our race does not entitle us to exploit them, and similarly the fact that some people are less intelligent than others does not mean that their interests may be disregarded. But the principle also implies that the fact that beings are not members of our species does not entitle us to exploit them, and similarly the fact that other animals are less intelligent than we are does not mean that their interests may be disregarded.” 56

Brian: I have tolerated working with the ‘principle of equal consideration of interests’ until this point because it is basically the universalist utilitarian principle, which can be useful to the egoist decision-maker in certain circumstances (as I discussed in my critique of J.S. Mill’s Utilitarianism). Now that it is being absurdly applied to animals though, I must object. The only reasons to work with the principle of equal consideration of interests are: 1. Because of any sympathy that you might have for members of the human race in general. 2. In order to convince others to support laws and policies which you approve of. 3. In order to identify and help preserve rules of conduct that must be followed if a peaceful and prosperous human society is to be maintained.

Let us see how these three apply to animals: 1. Some have a lot of sympathy for ‘cute’ animals such as dogs and dolphins, most have little to no sympathy for ‘ugly’ animals such as mosquitoes, slugs, and bacteria. Some (such as I) have sympathy only for animals with whom they have a personal connection, such as pets. I suspect that the majority of humans have more sympathy for the average human than they do for the average animal. 2. Animals cannot be convinced to support your favoured laws and policies, and will not ‘revolt’ if laws and policies which don’t serve their interests are foisted on them. Thus, this reason doesn’t apply when talking about animals. 3. Treating animals well is not necessary to maintain a peaceful and prosperous human society. In fact, the general practice of ‘exploiting’ animals for the benefit of humans leads to more prosperity for humans than would exist otherwise.

Thus, unless you have a large amount of sympathy for animals in general (which is rare), it is better to just treat them as economic commodities, or occasionally as friendly pets. For the animal lovers out there, they may feel free to be nice to all the animals that they come across, but if they start trying to use force to make others do the same, they should be ready to meet violent opposition in response.

Chapter 6: Taking Life: The Embryo And The Fetus

Singer: “Birth is the most visible possible dividing line (between non-human life and human life), and the one that would suit liberals best. It coincides to some extent with our sympathies – we are less disturbed at the destruction of a fetus we have never seen than at the death of a being we can all see, hear and cuddle. But is this enough to make birth the line that decides whether a being may or may not be killed?” 138-139

Brian: In fact, in this case, it is enough. As was the case with animals, the less sympathy those with power have with a being, and the less the being in question can defend its interests itself or have sympathetic champions defend its interests (like children have), the less worth will be placed on its interests in the calculations of decision-making actors. The fetus obviously does still have some sympathetic champions, but far less than the already born human. In addition, protecting the interests of fetuses is not necessary to maintain a peaceful and prosperous society. In fact, allowing abortion allows people to pre-empt the harmful economic drain of unwanted children. It also allows people to better plan their reproductive lives, which will most likely result in a more economically suitable societal population level than if abortion were not allowed and unwanted children simply had to be endured, whether the parents were ready for them or not.

Chapter 8: Rich And Poor

Singer: “So why are people hungry? Poor people cannot afford to buy grain grown by farmers in the richer nations. Poor farmers cannot afford to buy improved seeds, or fertilisers, or the machinery needed for drilling wells and pumping water. Only by transferring some of the wealth of the rich nations to the poor can the situation be changed.” 221

Brian: Really? And how many countries have gone from poor to rich because of free wealth transfers from richer countries? That’s right, none! Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, none of these countries went from poor to rich because of egalitarian wealth redistributions from the richer countries. Residents of the richer countries did help them to become wealthier faster than they would have without them though. This was not through wealth redistribution, but through investment of capital.

In order for the standards of living of residents of a country to improve, capital must be invested in that country so that its residents can produce with more and better production tools. Singer mentions this when he says that poor farmers don’t have access to much-needed machinery and other production-enhancing tools. Either this capital must be accumulated domestically through domestic savings, as Britain was forced to do in order to enable its Industrial Revolution period, or access to this capital can be had through foreign investment in the country. For the impoverished countries of today, living in a world containing quite affluent countries, foreign investment is the quickest and most straightforward way of getting access to this capital.

Foreign investors will usually be happy to invest in poorer countries, due to their relatively abundant labor supplies and hence lower wage levels. But there are certain things that the government of the poorer country must ensure before this investment will happen: 1. That burdensome restrictions are not put on the investments. 2. That the investments are not sabotaged through government taxation or excessive regulation. 3. That the country is a place where property rights are generally protected. If one examines the governments of the most impoverished countries, one will find that these conditions are rarely met to a sufficient degree to encourage foreign investment.

The great thing about foreign investment, as opposed to free wealth redistribution, is that the investors are led by their own financial self-interests to engage in these activities that are so beneficial to poorer countries. In the case of free wealth redistribution, supposedly obligatory based on woolly ‘moral duties’, most residents of the affluent countries will try to get out of this burdensome ‘duty’ whenever possible. This is because wealth redistribution is a winner-loser policy, while foreign investment is a winner-winner policy, the latter always being more sustainable and beneficial in the long-run than the former.

Singer: “if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it. This principle seems uncontroversial.” 229

Brian: Then allow me to controvert it. The principle assumes a scale of objective ‘goodness/badness’, and a scale of objective ‘significance/insignificance’. In fact, no such scale exists. Good or bad, significant or insignificant, will depend on the goals and subjective valuations of the individual actor.

For instance, if Singer were to tell me, as he probably would, that rather than buy a new computer with $2000, I ought to use that $2000 to prolong the lives of starving people in Africa instead, thus preventing a ‘bad’ that is greater in ‘moral significance’ then the ‘good’ of buying the computer, I would disagree with him.  I would be more than happy to help out the residents of impoverished countries by recommending what economic policies they should support for their countries. If they listened, both they and I, now living in a more generally prosperous world, would be benefitted. But to ask me to give up something  personally valuable in exchange for a very partial, short-term alleviation of a problem that needs long-run, fundamental policy and attitude changes to solve, is to ask too much of my sympathy. The fact is that I care substantially more about my own interests than I do about the interests of unknown people in countries that I have never even visited. If this makes me a ‘bad’ person, than I suspect that the vast majority of the world’s population must also be classified as ‘bad’.   

Singer: “No doubt we do instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us. Few could stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore a famine in Africa. But the question is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations.” 232

Brian: Perhaps there is no ‘sound moral justification’ for this standard procedure, but there certainly is an egoistic justification. Most people care more about those closer to them, whether geographically or in terms of personal relations. This translates into a stronger sympathetic bond with the closer people, which in turn translates into a willingness to take their interests more into consideration when deciding upon courses of action. There is no need to justify this phenomenon; it’s just how it is. Any moralistic call to disregard this natural phenomenon is a call for self-sacrifice, a call to sacrifice what you value more (helping yourself or those closer to you) for the sake of something that you value less (helping those further away from you). If all moralistic schemes call for this self-sacrifice, it is a good reason to reject all notions of morality and embrace egoism instead.

Chapter 10: The Environment

Singer: “Now consider again for a moment the issue of damming the river described at the beginning of this chapter. If the decision were to be made on the basis of human interests alone, we would balance the economic benefits of the dam for the citizens of the state against the loss for bushwalkers, scientists, and others, now and in the future, who value the preservation of the river in its natural state. We have already seen that because this calculation includes an indefinite number of future generations, the loss of the wild river is a much greater cost than we might at first imagine. Even so, once we broaden the basis of our decision beyond the interests of human beings, we have much more to set against the economic benefits of building the dam. Into the calculations must now go the interests of all the non-human animals who live in the area that will be flooded.” 274-275

Brian: Let’s start with the decision from the perspective of present generations. Here, on a free-market, the decision is made based on monetary considerations, which in turn takes into account the interests of all the expected consumers of the resource in question. Will the expected monetary revenue, as present income and as future income embodied in the capital value of the land, be higher if the rights to the river are acquired and then a dam is built, or if the rights to the river are acquired and it is preserved as a nature sanctuary? Owners or purchasers of the resource have a personal, financial interest in making the correct decision from the perspective of the present values and desires and expected future values and desires of the consumers.

How about future generations, how can we take into account their interests? The only non-arbitrary way is through the mechanism of the capital value of the resource in question: determined by the future expected income flow of the resource, discounted by the societal rate of time-preference/general interest rate. Land is a very durable resource, hence the expected desires of future generations of consumers will be factored into its capital value/market price, although discounted by the societal rate of time-preference. Some, like Singer, may not be satisfied with this procedure for taking the interests of future generations into account, but it is really the only non-arbitrary one available.

If, for whatever reason, one rejects the free-market method of resource allocation, the only real alternative is governmental resource allocation. Thus, government is to be tasked with weighing the interests of future generations against those of present generations. Firstly, it is unclear why governments would take this ‘responsibility’ seriously. After all, future generations don’t vote, and democratic politicians are notorious for their short-term outlooks. Secondly, even if the government did take this responsibility seriously, how on earth would they know what the interests of future generations will be? Can government officials accurately predict the future and the inner subjective states of mind of unborn people? In reality, what will happen is that the valuations of the present consumers will be replaced by the valuations of the relevant government officials when it comes to resource allocation. If pushed far enough, this would constitute socialism. If not, it would mean a number of, largely arbitrary, bureaucratic restrictions on private business.

In addition, for some reason, Singer assumes that if the hydro-electric plant were built, it would be a more present-oriented decision, while if the river were preserved, it would be a more future-oriented decision. This is unjustifiable though. Preserved natural resources are by no means the only, or even the main, material heritage passed down from generation to generation. Our present standard of living is due largely to the capital accumulation accomplished by earlier generations, capital accumulation which included large investment projects such as hydro-electric dams. If those investments had not been made in the past, our present standard of living would not be the same. Economic progress builds off of the economic progress made by previous generations, it does not take place in a vacuum. For all we know, the hydro-electric investment could be more future-oriented than preserving the river, and an automatic assumption to the contrary is not justified.

And then, of course, we have the animals. I think that I have addressed this issue already in my critique of Singer’s position on animal rights. Suffice it to say that, for me at least, disrupting animal habitats would be a pretty minor cost of the proposed policy.   

Singer: “We must re-assess our notion of extravagance. In a world under pressure, this concept is not confined to chauffeured limousines and Dom Perignon champagne. Timber that has come from a rainforest is extravagant, because the long-term value of the rainforest is far greater than the uses to which the timber is put. Disposable paper products are extravagant, because ancient hardwood forests are being converted into wood-chips and sold to paper manufacturers. ‘Going for a drive in the country’ is an extravagant use of fossil fuels that contributes to the greenhouse effect.” 286-287

Brian: Arbitrary value judgments based on environmentalist dogma are not ‘ethical pronouncements’, they are just opinions based on some pretty questionable science. Why must rainforests and ancient forests be preserved at all costs? It is unlikely that humanity will ever run out of its major natural resources, trees least of all. Trees can actually be planted and grown, and are best considered as a long-term agricultural crop, not as some precious, irreplaceable natural resource. Why is preserving these trees necessarily more important than timber used to build people’s homes or paper used to do business or to make life easier? Singer may have his own, subjective opinion on the subject, but others will also have theirs, which may well differ. No subjective opinion like this can be ‘better’ or ‘more ethical’ than another.

As for using fossil fuels ‘extravagantly’, what is so extravagant about pleasurable activities? Should humans be forced to live a dreary life where they only get ‘necessities’? Moreover, the ‘fossil fuels cause disastrous global warming’ hypothesis is based on some pretty shaky and uncertain science. At best, this eventuality should only be a probabilistic, very long-run consideration for humans deciding whether to use fossil fuels or not, not considered as if it were a scientific certainty of known magnitude.

Chapter 12: Why Act Morally?

Singer: “When I stand back from my day-to-day ethical decisions and ask why I should act ethically, I should seek reasons in the broadest sense, and not allow Kantian preconceptions to deter me from considering self-interested reasons for living an ethical life. If my search is successful it will provide me with reasons for taking up the ethical point of view as a settled policy, a way of living. I would not then ask, in my day-to-day ethical decision making, whether each particular right action is in my interests. Instead I do it because I see myself as an ethical person. In everyday situations, I will simply assume that doing what is right is in my interests, and once I have decided what is right, I will go ahead and do it, without thinking about further reasons for doing what is right. To deliberate over the ultimate reasons for doing what is right in each case would impossibly complicate my life; it would also be inadvisable because in particular situations I might be too greatly influenced by strong but temporary desires and inclinations and so make decisions I would later regret.” 326

Brian: This seems to come very close to my own view, which is that egoism is the ultimate foundation of decision-making but that thinking from a universalist utilitarian perspective can often be useful. Our difference is that Singer thinks it advisable to take up ‘ethical decision-making’ as a very ‘settled policy’ indeed, whereas I think that it would be better, for their own interests, if actors were more flexible. Many of my critiques of Singer up to this point have been based on this difference.

Singer seems to think that if an actor considers so-called ‘ethical thinking’ to be useful in some regards, it would be advisable for him to settle on an ‘ethical way of living’ altogether, and to be bound by ethical tenets forever more. I say that this would be to fall victim to a fixed ideal, and that more harm than benefit to the actor will result from this decision to be ethically inflexible. Singer’s own discussion of his preferred ethical system illustrates why: if a person has convinced himself to ‘think ethically’ and agrees with Singer, he will have resolved to substantially sacrifice his interests to lower-paid workers, animals, unrelated people in poorer countries, ghostly future generations, non-valued ‘environmental goods’, and others. In the face of such ‘ethical demands’, I think that being flexible about ethical pronouncements is without a doubt the more sensible policy for individuals.

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[1] Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).