You beat my office pool by an hour and 13 minutes.

I predicted the wingnuts would invade by noon.

I second John Sousa, Mr. Singer seems to have a poor understanding of the geography of California. Not to mention, most of that Bangladeshi rice is not shipped into Oakland, but the larger ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, then trucked past the rice growing regions to San Franscisco.

Someone must have shared this with the veggie crowd. Here come all the same, sad letters from the same sad folks that posted lick-spittle diatribes when Salon ran the articles on eco-terrorists.

Well, at least this will be entertaining while I eat my lunch.

Even though I've studied anthropology and know how peoples' foodways define them, and even though I've witnessed first-hand time and time again how people react to having their food criticized, it never ceases to amaze me how irrational and worked up people get when someone tells them that the food they eat might have something wrong with it.

I find Peter Singer's work challenging, uncomfortable, stimulating and basically everything that a philosopher should be. When he makes an argument, it's extremely hard to refute. When you read his books, you simply can't accuse him of being overly emotional or anything but highly, clinically rational. Arguing against a utlitiarian with emotions is a non-starter.

Generally, when someone says something that makes us feel really uncomfortable, it means they've hit on something important. Agree or disagree, but dismiss at the peril of our species.

By the way, I'd like to clear up one thing. Human beings are omnivores. We don't require meat to live, though part of the success of our species is that we are able to eat and digest the more-bang-for-buck foods derived from animals. Living on the Serengeti, this was a helpful adaptation. But it can't really be justified by that standard for a middle class American or European. Humans are capable of doing all sorts of things. For one thing, we are able to mate and conceive any old time. Not all animals can claim this, most go into some sort of "season". But, that doesn't mean that we haven't put moral restrictions upon when, where, and with whom mating is appropriate. Just because we are able to do something, doesn't mean we should. That's sort of what makes us different from most non-human animals. If you're going to claim that humans are really special and different, it is this very ability that makes us different. We make choices and do not just go with instinct or biological imperitives to determine our actions.

As the parent of a child with disabilities, I can't reconcile Singer's exquisite concern with the lives and feelings of animals with his oft-stated view that my daughter should have been killed at birth. In this case, it's neither hyperbole nor melodrama to remind your readers that Hitler was also a vegetarian, and that Hitler's program of executing the disabled, carried out with enthusiasm in the late 1930's, is indistinguishable in principle from Singer's.

Singer may be an ethicist and a philospher in theory, but in power he'd be Dr. Mengele.

Yes, you can argue with it.

You just have to be a little smarter than, well, you.

It's cute how you set up little illogical traps that say a lot and mean nothing. I remember your silly letters back when the eco-terrorists articles were drawing lots of commentary.

Keep posting. It's fun to read.

I read a report by Richard Neuhaus on a debate he had with Singer some years ago (this can be Googled, I think). Apparently, Singer spent a fair bit of cash some years ago on treatment for his ill mother, but didn't want to talk about this in the debate: Neuhaus's point was that Singer's philosophy would surely preclude him spending more money on his mother that could save more lives spent elsewhere.

Singer still seems to espouse this philosophy in this interview (when he says two strangers are probably worth saving over one daughter). I'd be interested to see him challenged over his attitude to his mother's health. (I'm not criticising his reported actions...just wondering how he squares what Neuhaus reports with his own ethical ideas).

"Humans have a natural tendency to eat meat. While Vegan/Vegetarian lifestyles may be morally appealing, all of the hardware and physiology contained in our bodies demonstrates that we are made to eat other animals..."

Actually, our physiology does not lean one way or another. Some traits seem to suggest that they developed for eating meat (sharp teeth) while others seem to be better suited for eating plants and other vegetarian matter (molars, very long digestive tract as opposed to the short tracts in carnivores).

This would suggest that humans have a choice and actually do not have a natural tendency to eat meat or not. Since we (most of us anyway) do have a natural tendency to develop awareness and the ability to make choices in our lives, that would leave it up to each one of us to decide what to eat individually. Equally healthy diets exist for both vegetarians and meat-eaters so that is not an issue.

Once this is established, we need to evaluate our eating just like any other action in our lives. There are boundaries to everything. Like Singer says, it's all about setting boundaries. I bet none of the people who have posted here are going to go home an enjoy human meat for dinner. What Singer is saying, basically, is: why not extend the courtesy that we extend to other humans to animals? Since you're not going to go home an eat your brother why go home and eat a chicken?

In fact, why not extend to animals such as chicken, pigs, cows, etc. the courtesy you extend to your cat or dog? Since you're (probably) not going to go home and eat your cat or dog, how do you justify going home an eating a pig, chicken, cow, etc?

"Why should we do good to others?" person: the goal is simple, and stated simply in the interview (you did read it, didn't you?). The idea seems to be to reduce the amount of suffering within the realm of creatures which can experience suffering in ways which we can define.

You did carefully read my response, didn't you? You've simply avoided my question by slightly rephrasing it. I ask, "Why should we do good to others?" I can just as easily ask, "Why should we reduce suffering?"

My point is, those questions cannot be answered by Utilitarianism, which purports to be a strictly logical, objective ethical system. It simply assumes we should do so. The problem with Singer and other Utilitarians is that they smuggle in concepts (do not harm others, reduce suffering) that rely on assumptions outside of the Utilitarian calculus.

In short, Utilitarianism is not the objective moral system they think it is. It is just as weighed down by assumptions as any other system. They just fail to see that.