Princeton’s utilitarian bioethicist Peter Singer is one of the world’s most influential “moral philosophers,” a favorite of the New York Times and often quoted by progressive pundits. Among other “enlightened” opinions, he advocates the propriety of infanticide because babies are not “persons,” the non-voluntary euthanasia of people with dementia, medically experimenting on profoundly disabled people in place of animals with higher mental capacities, and, notoriously, blessing bestiality as just two different animals rubbing sensitive body parts.
Now, he is defending the global warming hysterics who have protested climate change by attacking great art — because the cause is so urgent. He even compares the vandalism to Martin Luther King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” What nonsense.
Singer claims that the paintings were protected by glass, so no harm, no foul. But there is no guarantee that glass would protect the paintings adequately. Moreover, not all art targeted was so shielded. Singer conveniently forgot to mention that global warming hysterics also vandalized a car painted by Andy Warhol by having soup and flour poured on it directly.
Singer claims the attacks are worthy because of the supposed righteousness of the cause.
From “In Defense of Art-Targeting Climate Activists:”:
The activists used the Girl with a Pearl Earring to challenge our values, asking the shocked onlookers how they felt when they saw the beautiful painting apparently being ruined. “Do you feel outraged?” they asked – and then answered their own question: “Good. Where is that feeling when you see the planet being destroyed before your very eyes?”
We value art, but what we stand to lose from climate change is incomparably more significant. Everything we value on this planet is at stake, including the continuity of both human and non-human life.
Is “everything we value” really at stake, including “the continuity of both human and non-human life”? That seems overblown. Moreover, the severity of climate change is highly contested, with knowledgeable experts, such as Bjorn Lomborg, acknowledging that the problem is real but not dire.
Besides, what makes Singer think that attacking great art will convince people of the need for drastic action? I submit it actually turns people away from the cause, just as protests blocking freeways don’t convince people of anything but that the protestors are jerks.
Singer also justifies protest vandalism because democracy is supposedly failing the young, whose lives will be most impacted. We don’t let 16-year-olds vote — horrors! — and young adults are underrepresented in democratic legislatures. He even decries the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that members of the House be at least 25, and 30 in the Senate.
Thus:
Eco-activists can properly claim that their non-violent civil disobedience is justified by the failure of our democracies to show sufficient concern for the interests of future generations. Like the suffragettes more than a century ago, today’s young people have no voice.
Please. He just likes the cause. If pro-lifers attacked great art because they believe that tens of thousands of babies’ lives are at stake — and that their future interests are unrepresented in the halls of democracy, so what else is there to do? — Singer unquestionably would be singing a different tune.