18 quotes
Our first moral concern should always be with the individual who is the maximum sufferer.
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
It is always wrong to cause pain to A merely in order to increase the pleasure of B.
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
Their experiences may be more simple than ours, but are they less intense? Perhaps a caterpillar’s primitive pain when squashed is greater than our more sophisticated sufferings.
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
We have an obligation to try to reduce the pains of others, wherever they are, and however the pains have been caused.
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
The implication of painism is that political policies should extend to individuals of all nations, races, and species on an 'equal pain equal treatment' basis.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
We all, thank goodness, feel a natural spark of sympathy for the sufferings of others. We need to catch that spark and fan it into a fire of rational and universal compassion.
All beings that feel pain deserve human rights (2005)
In judging who are the maximum sufferers politicians must, today, cast their eyes around the whole globe and take into account the sufferings of all races, religions and species.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
Idealism itself can become dangerous. But going too far in the other direction, towards relativism, amoral expediency and opportunism, is equally perilous.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
Perhaps there is too much talk of justice, equality and liberty in political philosophy, and not enough about suffering. It is suffering that matters morally …
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
[The] habit of totalling pains and pleasures across individuals is one of the main errors in ethics today.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
Are there then any moral foundations on which we can all agree, at least to some extent? I believe there are and that they are these: pain is bad, and so, causing unnecessary pain to others is wrong.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
Just as nobody pursues happiness in order to find anything other than happiness, so nobody strives to reduce pain to reduce anything other than pain. Pain is always at the end of the track: it is the ultimate and essential badness. 'Painful' and 'bad' are synonymous in the mind of the child and, at a basic level, in all our minds.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
[C]ertain moral imperatives are, rightly, considered to transcend national boundaries. What, after all, is so imperative about geography? Suffering is global.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
[P]olitical policy should be based, not upon mere opinion, nor upon a set of knee jerk reflexes, but upon a scientific concern for the facts and an intelligent and open moral argument.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
… it is less imperatively my duty to give pleasure than it is to alleviate pain. If someone else is not actually suffering then it seems more acceptable to leave to them … the provision of their own pleasures.
Painism: A Modern Morality (2001)
A sound moral argument requires both factual and moral premises. Yet there has been little intelligent dialogue at either level. The mumbling of slogans must no longer suffice. We must demand more of our leaders …
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
[W]hat, ultimately, should politics be aiming for? What is the underlying moral objective? … None of the traditional political ideals … provides a satisfactory moral basis for politics today.
Putting Morality Back Into Politics (2006)
Two slightly different, but not often clearly distinguished usages of "speciesism" should be noted. But more strictly, it is when the discrimination or exploitation [is defended by means of an appeal to] species that it is speciesist. This usage should perhaps be called strict speciesism.