Bless Peter Singer's Soul

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Rabbi Avi Shafran writes how radical devaluers of human life like Peter Singer show us how central morality is to human life.

Bless Peter Singer's immortal soul (whether he acknowledges it or not).

Singer, of course, is the Princeton philosopher who has become well-known for his advocacy of euthanasia for severely handicapped infants and elderly and, most recently, for endorsing the idea of meaningful human intimate relations with animals -- what Slate writer William Saletan deems "the love that dare not bark its name."

...Recent decades have not been kind to the bedrock-concept of morality - the idea that human beings are inherently special, that we carry a spark of holiness within. It has been unceremoniously dumped out the window - like some handicapped baby in a Singerian world - with the bathwater of intolerance.

...Singer's gift to us is his - intentional or not - forcing of those issues, his identification of the crux of the matter: morality.

Read the complete article at the the Jewish World Review website.