“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”

—  Peter Singer

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral…" by Peter Singer?
Peter Singer photo
Peter Singer54
Australian philosopher 1946

Related quotes

“[I]f suffering is bad for animals when we cause it, it is also bad for them when other animals cause it. That suffering is bad for those who experience it is not a human prejudice; nor is an effort to prevent wild animals from suffering a moralistic attempt to police the behavior of other animals. Even if we are not morally required to prevent suffering among animals in the wild for which we are not responsible, we do have a moral reason to prevent it, just as we have a general moral reason to prevent suffering among human beings that is independent both of the cause of the suffering and of our relation to the victims. The main constraint on the permissibility of acting on our reason to prevent suffering is that our action should not cause bad effects that would be worse than those we could prevent.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" The Meat Eaters http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters/", The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2010

“1. We are morally obligated to alleviate unjustified animal suffering that it is in our power to prevent without occasioning as much or more unjustified suffering.
2. Innocent animals suffer when they are preyed upon by other animals.
3. Therefore, we are morally obligated to prevent predation whenever we can do so without occasioning as much or more unjustified suffering than the predation would create, and we are also morally obligated to attempt to expand the number of such cases.”

Steve F. Sapontzis (1945)

"Saving the Rabbit from the Fox", p. 247
Morals, Reason, and Animals (1987)

Felix Adler photo

“There may be, and there ought to be, progress in the moral sphere. The moral truths which we have inherited from the past need to be expanded and restated.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: There may be, and there ought to be, progress in the moral sphere. The moral truths which we have inherited from the past need to be expanded and restated. In times of misfortune we require for our support something of which the truth is beyond all question, in which we can put an implicit trust, " though the heavens should fall." A merely borrowed belief is, at such time, like a rotten plank across a raging torrent. The moment we step upon it, it gives way beneath our feet.

Isaac Asimov photo

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Part IV, The Traders, section 1; originally published as “The Wedge” in Astounding (October 1944)
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

Felix Adler photo

“There may be, and there ought to be, progress in the moral sphere. The moral truths which we have inherited from the past need to be expanded and restated. In times of misfortune we require for our support something of which the truth is beyond all question, in which we can put an implicit trust, " though the heavens should fall."”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

A merely borrowed belief is, at such time, like a rotten plank across a raging torrent. The moment we step upon it, it gives way beneath our feet.
Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Life and Destiny (1913)

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Podkayne of Mars

There must be a flaw in that, since I’ve always been taught that it is wrong to take the law in your own hands. But I can’t find the flaw and it sounds axiomatic, self-evident. Switch it around. If something is wrong for one person to do, can it possibly be made right by having a lot of people (a government) agree to do it together? Even unanimously?
If anything is wrong, it is wrong—and vox populi can’t change it.
Source: Podkayne of Mars (1963), Chapter 13 (p. 169)

George Bernard Shaw photo

“… a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.”

George Bernard Shaw Caesar and Cleopatra

Source: Caesar and Cleopatra

Peter Singer photo

“When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called "supererogatory"”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so. <br class="br"> Famine, Affluence, and Morality http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm, 1972.

Charles Darwin photo

“The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive, is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter III: &quot;Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued&quot;, page 101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=114&amp;itemID=F937.1&amp;viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871)

David Hume photo

“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals

Related topics