Peter Singer Is Back
Peter Singer is back, this time endorsing the rationing of health care to deny treatment to those for whom treatment will be too expensive and will extend life by too short of an amount. Singer, an tenured professor of bioethics, has built his exalted career on an odd mixture of outrageous positions, refusal to engage in actual debate about their bizarre implications, and bald hypocrisy when the opportunity arises to apply his “ethics” demands to himself. For example, along the way of presenting a moral justification for abortion (not just a morally neutral choice, the actual advocacy of abortion as a morally good act), Singer went overboard and also endorsed the killing of infants up to the age of two due to their alleged lack of sentience. And his early-career position stating that everyone had a moral obligation to give their money away to the poor until they were on the brink of poverty magically disappeared down the memory hole once Singer himself received an endowed chair with a six-figure salary.
On this newest foray into Singer’s ethical bizarro world, Singer insists that some lives are simply too expensive to extend and that medical care should just be cut off. Given his tendency to overreach and then flee from the duty to defend the implications of his position, it is left to the reader to wonder exactly how low the bar might go in seeking savings through financial triage. Of course, the point that we already have what amounts to cost-based rationing of health care is valid, but from that acknowledgment does not follow Singer’s claim that financial triage should be made mandatory for everyone. Singer’s position is a worst-common-demonimator travesty of ethical reasoning — if one person anywhere is too poor to receive the treatment, Singer would ban everyone from receiving it. Death is the default position in Singer’s world (though presumably not for Singer himself, who has what I am certain would be a very robust health care plan in his cushy university position).
The health care debate that looms in the United States is both important and difficult. There are serious problems and genuine dilemmas to grapple with. It would go easier without the contributions of an exalted ethical poseur.
What is Singer other than a modern-day Eugenicist?
“Singer went overboard and also endorsed the killing of infants up to the age of two due to their alleged lack of sentience.”
Having a son that is just turning 2, this makes me “lump in my throat” angry.
Peter Singer has argued that the term “person” applies only to those “entities” who actively express “rational attributes” and “sentience”
Singer argues that apes, gorillas, monkeys, dogs, chickens, pigs, etc., are “persons” because they actively exercise rational attributes and sentience – while adult human beings such as the comatose, the frail elderly, the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, drug addicts, alcoholics, paraplegics, etc., are not “persons” – and therefore they do not have the same moral and legal rights and protections as real “persons”.
When are we going to see that progressives are not painting themselves as the “caring, compassionate” people they want us to think they are when they sit idle and don’t say a peep about Singer and his ilk, where is the seething outrage from the left against this guy? I’d like to know…is this the opinion of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, N.O.W., and those opposed to affirming the personhood of all humans?
First of all — it isn’t the case that I agree with Singer’s positions…. but, I also think that he’s using hyperbole and other kinds of exaggeration to make his point.
Perhaps the real objection you have is to his underlying utilitarianism? It’s simply a fact that utilitarianism leads to Singer’s positions. It is certainly the case that a good dontologist or virtue ethicist couldn’t consistently hold those positions AND agree with Singer.
Also, Singer isn’t the first to make such an argument, a less obstreporous ethicist made the same argument at least 15 years ago — essentially, he was saying that if you don’t have the funds to provide for your own well-being, you have a duty to die and not become a burden on others. Singer is just better at getting publicity… so, perhaps Singer’s real value isn’t in his arguments but in the strong reaction he provokes??
If he is just trying to get attention, I hardly consider that a point in his favor.
Perhaps the real objection you have is to his underlying utilitarianism?
As far as I’m concerned, yes, that’s it in a nutshell. Human beings have an inherent worth beyond their usefulness to other human beings.
Beyond being a provacateur, I think he does serve some usefulness by showing where those philosophies do logically lead. And if we are about to shift all healthcare cost burden to society instead of on individuals, I think it is important to think of how and where society (or our political class) will seek to pare down that burden when it is unsustainable. Right now, proponents of socialied medicine argue that rationing according to inability to pay is unfair- and it’s likely that at some point, they will also argue that any necessary rationing done according to the cost:benefit ratio to society is more fair than our current system. Before we get there, we ought to have that debate.
As long as Singer’s philosophical firebombs are treated by the great majority of people as nothing more than the products of twisted parlor games, then he’s ideas are relatively harmless. Unfortunately, as Trenton Hansen points out, ideas similar to Singer’s have entered into “progressive” ideology in the past. When philosophy/ideology becomes disconnected from natural law, traditional morality, and the belief that every human life has intrinsic value, the result is usually horrific. I would prefer that impressionable young students not come under the spell of the Peter Singers of the world, but that is unavoidable in a free society.
I agree with Jason that applying Singer’s (un)ethical positions to government-based rationing of health care would be a moral travesty. To go further, though, I do not accept the premise that cost-based “rationing” and government-based rationing are morally equivalent. There’s a big difference between families having to make difficult, even agonizing decisions about the health care of loved ones, and the government making those decisions for them. Moreover, when you put the government in charge of making those decisions, the implications extend far beyond the realm of health care (see: Hayek, The Road to Serfdom).
“essentially, he was saying that if you don’t have the funds to provide for your own well-being, you have a duty to die and not become a burden on others. Singer is just better at getting publicity…”
I see a double standard here in his “utilitarinaism”, the left doesn’t decry this guy for what he says above, yet they feel it is horrible for us to say that those who choose live off the Government tip (those who can work, but chose instead to drain the system dry instead), and don’t have the funds to provide for their own well-being should suck it up and act like adults and get a job. My usual caveat: I realize that there are people out of work (I was one of them up until next week) that can’t find a job, and are looking, or those who have disabilities and cannot work, I am talking about the illegals that drive up our insurance premiums, and those that would rather sit at home, rather than trying to find a job)
He conveniently leaves out that although imperfect, the current system we have is by far the best health system (and by that I mean best private innovation, most people that are happy with their coverage, and best doctors and hospitals) in the world, and we have people from around the world that pay extra (on top of their own countries socialized medicine taxes) to get their procedures done here. (Name me a few other countries that have the better overall criteria in all categories).
I would like to make the case against Singer that rationing is happening already. It’s called price increases based on supply and demand, and they have been happening for a long time (since many created the marketplace) those who can’t afford it, (or those that don’t have insurance to get it) don’t get it. He just wants to change the rules as to who the government determines should receive this drug. So, let me see, Sutent for the senators, the autoworkers and the bureaucrats, certain minority groups, and illegal aliens — but none for anyone else. (Even though mostly those not in the groups above would not be paying for it) Sounds a lot less fair to me.
Singer is sure, though, that the United States will not be NICE and will withhold Sutent from most people. He wrote: Will Americans allow their government, either directly or through an independent agency like NICE, to decide which treatments are sufficiently cost-effective to be provided at public expense and which are not? They might, under two conditions: first, that the option of private health insurance remains available, and second, that they are able to see, in their own pocket, the full cost of not rationing health care.
Interesting, he puts money ahead of human life.
This article completely misrepresents Peter Singer’s positions and arguments.
He is a form of “utilitarian,” in the he argues that preventing suffering ought to be the most important goal of ethics, and all of his other ethical arguments and conclusions follow logically and consistently from that premise.
He did NOT change his view on our obligation to assist those in poverty once he was hired at Princeton. In fact, he wrote a cover article for the New York Times Magazine and published a book about it. A good formulation of his view is in an order NY Times article available for free here:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/19990905mag-poverty-singer.html
Will you take the time to read and consider it?
And Singer certainly does not “flee from the duty to defend the implications of his position.” He discusses and debates his positions openly and honestly all over the world. This especially includes his view of actively euthanizing born with severe injuries who would otherwise, for instance, live for a few months on a respirator in terrible pain.
Even in this NY Times article, Singer does not conclude that government plans should be mandatory for everyone. He specifically suggests the continuation of private options.
Singer’s reasoning does not prevent good discussion of this topic; ad homonym arguments and misrepresentation of opponents views is the problem.
I read the New York Times. I had a higher opinion of Peter Singer before I read it. The man is a complete imbecile. and…. he is suppose to be a great thinker? Simpleton! No wonder Princeton hired him. Still even though he’s not the brightest he is surely one of the cleverest. So clever he has managed to fool himself. He thinks he is a nice person. He doesn’t fool anyone. Shudder! Even Hitler was nice to dogs.