Some practical insights from The New Haven Register: Make the new year a clean, fresh start.
And, credit where credit is due, Peter Singer also advises Aristotelian practicality and realism, as opposed to Platonic mind games.
This may be the last time you ever see me recommend anything by Peter Singer, whose sole virtue seems to be his logical consistency. But, being the main voice of the “personal consent as the sole criterion of goodness” camp, I cannot respect his premises. The good is not something I make up in my mind, or that I simply “prefer”. What is good is based on what is. Being precedes goodness, and defines goodness. A rock and a snake and a woman and an angel, because they have different natures – different ways of being – have different goods; but they all share the fundamental good of fulfilling their actual objective nature.
In other words, a diet of all ice cream all the time will make you fat and miserable, no matter how much you “like” ice cream. And murder kills, not only another human being, but your ability to relate to other people – no matter how “worthy of death” you may deem your victim.
Wow, how can a dude (Peter Singer) so committed to making sure animals get their “due” write such a coherent article?
It’s my fault I’m afraid. After all of my health problems on vegetarian diet, I basically have zero respect for someone who advocates the diet on a moral basis. Factory farming is bad but without it the meat I require to prevent my suffering would be unaffordable.
Also, watching through most of the episodes of Dirty Jobs (okay, not an authority, but still) suggests that factory farming is not quite the concentration camps suggested by animal lovers. (If you think about it, something close to okay conditions have to be provided in order for the animals in question to make it to the slaughter house.)
Also, basically, the guy has lived a very sheltered life, never ever straying out of the ivory tower of academia. People in those positions very rarely appreciate how much a steady paycheck and not being asked to produce something practical or risky affects their viewpoints on life.
And on a more positive note: I just read the “Now” Habit and I loved it. It models the only thing I’ve found to really work in terms of achieving things. I’d highly recommend putting it on your reading list.