Bioethicist Peter Singer Devalues Human Life and Supports Euthanasia

Richard Weikart
Professor emeritus, Department of History
California State University, Stanislaus

Peter Singer (left) Richard Weikart (right)

Richard Weikart published the book: Unnatural Death: Medicine's Descent from Healing to Killing (Order from Amazon).

In 2016, after my book The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life appeared, I had a radio debate with Peter Singer, one of the thinkers I discussed in my book. The question for our debate was: “Is human life intrinsically valuable?” Singer argued that no, human life is not intrinsically valuable.

When the radio host asked Singer what would make a human more valuable than some other being, Singer responded that certain capacities that humans have give them value. In this interview, Singer specifically mentioned the ability for humans to make plans for the future, especially the long-range future. In his writings, Singer claims that a person must be “a rational and self-conscious being” in order to have a right to life. Singer overtly argues that humans who do not have the requisite rationality or ability to plan the future are not really “persons” and thus have no right to life. On the basis of this view, he believes it can be morally justifiable to kill infants, even after they are born, and to provide euthanasia to those with dementia.

While many euthanasia proponents insist that they only support voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide, Singer is not so circumspect. His “personhood” theory provides justification for involuntary euthanasia when people no longer have a certain level of rationality or ability to plan the future.

One of the big problems with Singer’s philosophy is that he never provides any reason why rationality, self-consciousness, and the ability to plan the future have any value. In our debate I pressed him on this issue, asking why he chose those particular capacities, and I was stunned that he could not provide an answer. He stated, “I think that’s a discussion we should be having. This discussion needs to be an open one. We need to think about these things and perhaps we’ll eventually reach some kind of consensus on what’s important.” Thus Singer bases his whole conception of what gives value to human (and animal) lives on these traits, but he cannot provide a reason why they have value.

This problem is compounded by the fact that Singer’s own worldview undermines his own view that these traits confer value on (some) humans. Indeed in his many writings Singer argues forcefully that human life has no meaning and purpose, because biological life began “in a chance combination of gasses; it then evolved through random mutation and natural selection. All this just happened; it did not happen to any overall purpose.”[i] According to Singer’s worldview, human life is just a cosmic accident without any real significance.

Singer has continually campaigned against the idea that human life has value, meaning and transcendent significance. Thus the title of one of Singer’s books: Unsanctifying Human Life. In a 2004 interview Singer claimed that there is nothing special about humans, and then stated, “All we are doing is catching up with Darwin. He showed in the nineteenth century that we are simply animals. Humans had imagined we were a separate part of Creation, that there was some magical line between Us and Them. Darwin’s theory undermined the foundations of that entire Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe.”[ii]

Now here’s the contradiction: If both human life and the cosmos in general have no transcendent purpose or meaning, as Singer clearly believes, then how can rationality or self-consciousness or the ability to plan the future have more value than anything else in the cosmos? In Singer’s worldview, they are just as much the product of blind, chance processes as anything else in the cosmos. From my vantage point, it seems that Singer’s choice about what gives humans (and/or other animals) value is arbitrary (though Singer has obviously chosen traits that place himself within the ranks of “persons” who have a right to life).

But that’s not all. How much rationality or self-consciousness or ability to plan the future counts? These are not traits that one either has or doesn’t have. They exist on a continuum. Singer is often very cagey about this problem and doesn’t like to be pinned down about where to draw the line. In one of his earlier books he argued that a one-month-old baby may be killed, because it does not have the requisite rationality to be a “person.” However, more recently he tries to avoid drawing any line.

Where to draw the line is a huge problem, not only for Singer, but also for euthanasia proponents in general. When does a person’s life no longer have value? Different jurisdictions that allow assisted suicide and euthanasia draw the lines in different places. For those promoting euthanasia there doesn’t seem to be any logically consistent place to draw the line, so it becomes completely arbitrary.

A much better approach—and one that is not arbitrary—is to regard all human beings—regardless of their mental capacity—as persons with an inherent right to life. Thus we should value and protect the lives of all our fellow humans.

End Notes:

[i] Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 331.

[ii] Peter Singer, interview with Johann Hari, “Peter Singer—On Killing Disabled Animals, Saving Animals, and the Dangers of Superstition,” at www.johannhari.com/2004/07/01/peter-singer-on-killing-disabled-babies-saving-animals-and-the-dangers-of-superstition, accessed November 18, 2009.