PHIL 140 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Peter Singer

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 140
• Professor: Aliyev

Document Summary

I pledge on my honor that i have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination. Peter singer, a moral philosopher and professor at princeton university, has an interesting view on animal rights. His main theses are that our species has interests of equal importance to those of members of other species and that our interest in avoiding suffering has the same weight as the interest in avoiding suffering of other animals. Singer"s argument consists of six premises and a conclusion. The first premise is that a being has interests if and only if it is capable of suffering. The second premise is that humans and many animals are capable of suffering (phil 140 summer. Premises one and two thusly lead to premise three: that humans and many animals have interests. According to singer, we can use this basic principle of equality to best explain why practices like racism and sexism are wrong.