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Human social institutions can effect the course of human evolution. Just as climate-change, food supply, predators, and other natural forces of selection have molded our nature, so too can our culture.

— Peter Singer The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

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More quotes by Peter Singer

If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own?

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

Science does not stand still, and neither does philosophy, although the latter has a tendency to walk in circles.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

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We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment.

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All our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.

Kofi Annan

We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us.

Mary Daly Beyond God the Father (1973)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Peter Singer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.