Should Peter Singer Be De-Platformed?

At the Byron Writers Festival last week, I overheard a conversation between two writers in the shuttle bus. “I’m going to the Peter Singer session ,” said one. The other, an Indigenous woman, replied, with some bitterness: “I’ve no interest in listening to him, he’s a eugenicist.” I turned to hear more, and she went on to say she didn’t know why writers festivals keep inviting him.

That this opinion was expressed by an Indigenous person lent it particular force because, as is well known, white colonial culture was steeped in eugenicist ideas. Coercive birth control and sterilisation to “breed out the colour” persisted into the 1960s as did the taking of Aboriginal children to raise them white.

Indigenous communities have not forgotten this history. We heard its echo recently when Gina Rinehart cancelled a sponsorship deal with the Australian netball team after the team backed Noongar player, Donnell Wallam, when she expressed discomfort about wearing the Hancock Prospecting logo. Rinehart has never distanced herself from the views of her father, Lang Hancock, who said that sterilisation would “solve the Aboriginal problem”.

Peter Singer has always firmly opposed racism in all its forms. Yet his views about the killing of disabled children are unnerving for those familiar with the use of eugenicist ideas to “purify” a nation, culminating in the murder of some 300,000 people with disabilities and chronic illnesses by the Nazis.

Singer has generated a heated backlash to his repeated argument that parents should be allowed to kill babies born with severe disabilities. Foetuses identified with severe disabilities such as Down syndrome and spina bifida are often aborted, he argues, so there is no logical reason to prevent them being killed after birth. His reasoning is based directly on his utilitarian philosophy, one in which moral decisions are those that maximise the happiness of all concerned. If a disabled baby is killed then the suffering of the baby through life will be avoided and the parents will live a happier life.

So everyone would be better off if the “defective” baby were eliminated, and the parents tried again for a “normal” one (Singer has used those terms). For me, the most disturbing element of Singer’s position is the remorseless logic used to justify the killing of infants. Rather than gazing at their newborn with a tangle of excruciating emotions, Singer’s parents are expected, in consultation with a doctor and within 28 days of birth, to rationally weigh up the costs and benefits of keeping versus killing their baby, taking into account the likelihood of being luckier next time.

Whose lives count?

Singer’s use of words such as “defective” and “replaceable” is consistent with the consumer logic of exchanging a damaged good for an intact one. His utilitarianism is the same cold calculus embedded in free-market economics. He reminds me of Larry Summers who, as chief economist at the World Bank, infamously argued that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable” because lives are worth less in poor countries. Within the frame of neoclassical economics the logic is impeccable, but the conclusion remains immoral.

Consistent with the unsettling absence of empathy in Singer’s philosophy, the lifelong anguish and guilt that might haunt a parent who has killed their baby are set aside. In the same way, Singer is dismissive of the anxieties of many disabled people about what his public advocacy may lead to. He is not persuaded by accusations of “speech harm” and claims that his work is “obviously not a threat to any person with a disability who is capable of understanding anything about my position”, which is little comfort to those who cannot understand his philosophy.

The rights and the dignity of the baby, disabled or otherwise, are not relevant. That’s because, for Singer, ethics is not about rights or virtues but about satisfying the preferences of persons. He believes that newborns, disabled or otherwise, are not “persons”, since they lack the qualities required for personhood—self-awareness, rationality and possession of preferences. Some animals, on the other hand, possess personhood and that’s why Singer can place an animal’s interests before those of certain humans. Killing an infant, Singer reasons, “cannot be equated with killing normal human beings or any other self-aware beings.”

When Singer argues that the lives of chimps, pigs and dogs may be “more valuable than the lives of some humans”, such as some with disabilities, it is no wonder that disability rights activists have demonstrated angrily at his public events. Chanting “We love our crippled lives”, activists from Not Dead Yet staged a mass wheelchair blockade at Princeton University when he was appointed to a prestigious professorship in 1999. They later called for him to be sacked.

Singer is unrepentant. In 2009 he argued for assigning a lower value to the lives of people with disabilities and denying them healthcare, prompting a stinging response from disability rights organisations. (It sounds outlandish, but in 2017 he argued that it may be justifiable to have sex with a severely disabled person even when they cannot give consent.) Progressive people mostly do not realise how reactionary it is to characterise people with disabilities as defective, as not normal, rather than as a natural part of every society with rights like everyone else.

Australian disability advocate Stella Young has pointed out that her friend Kurt Fearnley, a Paralympics gold medallist and NSW Australian of the Year, was born with spina bifida and may have warranted killing as a baby in Singer’s moral world. (Fearnley was awarded an AO while Singer boasts the much rarer AC, Australia’s highest symbol of official esteem.)

Those who admire Singer for his animal rights advocacy and effective altruism might be dismayed to know that it is the very same philosophical system that leads him to advocate infanticide, or eugenics according to the Indigenous writer. I’m guessing few defenders of animal welfare arrive at their commitment via Singer’s route. His is a purely logical consequence, followed step by step, from his original decision to grant personhood to animals while denying it to some humans.

Most of those who share his commitment to animal rights do so because they feel the pain of suffering animals. PETA’s campaigns appeal to our compassion and disgust at animal cruelty; they don’t mobilise tight sequences of syllogisms concerning the definition of personhood and maximising utility. Singer himself has said that he doesn’t much like animals.

A man of influence

Indigenous people know how arbitrary the distinction can be between “normal” and “defective” human beings, how outsiders (like boat people) can be dehumanised and assigned a lesser moral worth. That’s why Singer’s arguments have been described by disability rights activists as callous, inhuman, and even “monstrous.” They fear a society in which those considered undesirable or defective are eliminated.

Singer rejects any spill-over from his arguments about humans with disabilities to race and gender, arguing in 2018 that, unlike race and gender, disabilities come with intrinsic suffering. Locked into a medical model of disability, he seems unmoved by testimonies from the disabled community that they can live rich and fulfilling lives and that their disability can give them special capacities and insights. In other words, disability and its suffering is as much, if not more, due to how society treats people with disabilities rather than the failures of their bodies or minds.

Singer is rightly regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of recent times. He actively promotes his opinions on animal rights, altruism and disability hoping to change the world. His campaigning for animal liberation and effective altruism appeals to progressives and his words are lapped up at writers festivals. Those who go to listen to him, especially younger people, are often unaware of his eugenicist arguments. Older ones set them aside as ancient history.

At the Byron Writers Festival (which was, by the way, superbly organised and one of the best I have been to), I noticed several people in wheelchairs. I wondered what they felt about Peter Singer playing a prominent role. I should have asked them.

Although Peter Singer has been cancelled a number of times—he’s had an especially torrid time in Germany where memories of eugenic programs are still raw—I would not want to see him de-platformed. His views should be heard and challenged, although he is such a skilled debater with well-crafted replies to every criticism that any effective opponent must be exceptionally well prepared.

Even so, his presence at writers festivals does raise some troubling questions. Does featuring him add to his celebrity and allow him to win over more fans for his views on animal rights and altruism, fans who buy his books and praise him while unaware of his views on disability? Aren’t festivals marginalising the deeply-held sensibilities of those like my Indigenous friend who see him promoting ideas harmful to them? I don’t know the answers. But I think those who feel victimised should be asked.

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