What would Peter Singer do?
Just prior to assuming his new post at Princeton University in 1999, Psychology Today published an interview with Peter Singer. Singer’s controversial ethical views expressed in this interview merit revisiting as the debate rages over the fate Terri Schiavo and the profound ethical questions it raises. Introducing the interview Psychology Today cites Singer’s assertion that “religion’s 2000-year domination of morality ended early this decade, specifically in 1993, when British law ruled that a comatose man named Anthony Bland could be killed by his doctors. That decision, he maintains, dealt a “mortal” blow to the unquestioned sanctity of human life. “Psychology Today: One of the aspects of your philosophy that is most galling to some people is that you don’t view human life as sacred. According to you, since a person in a vegetative coma is a being without self-awareness, he or she should be accorded fewer rights than a fully-aware chimpanzee. Needless to say, you’ve enraged a bunch o
