On Tuesday, the left-wing daily "Junge Welt" published an article strongly criticising the planned award for "animal suffering reduction" to the Australian philosopher Peter Singer. Shortly afterwards, drastic comments on the Internet were calling for "the guy to be put up against the wall". Humanistischer Pressedienst (Humanistic Press Service) had a conversation with Michael Schmidt-Salomon, who was invited by the organisers of the prize to give the laudation for Peter Singer on May 26 at the Berlin Urania.

hpd: The appeal "Stop Peter Singer!" was background of the article in the "Junge Welt", which was published on Tuesday on "Rollingplanet", a platform for the disabled. There it says, the organiser of the award, "Förderverein des Peter Singer Preis für Strategien zur Tierleidminderung e.V." ("Association of the Peter Singer Prize for Strategies to Reduce Animal Suffering", TN), is an "offshoot of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung". Is that correct?

MSS: No, there are no organisational links between the Giordano Bruno Stiftung and the association. I know the initiator of the prize, Walter Neussel, who was involved in the idea of incorporating "basic rights for great apes" into the German constitutional law a few years ago and also established links between political forces of the animal protection movement and gbs, but that's it! The Giordano Bruno Stiftung was in no way involved in founding the association, none of the members of this association has any function within the gbs and there was and is no financial or organisational support from us for the award ceremony in Berlin. The responsibility for this event solely remains with the "Förderkreis Peter-Singer-Preis für Strategien zur Tierleidminderung e.V.".

hpd: Nevertheless, as one of the gbs' leading representatives, you will deliver the laudatory speech on Singer. In addition, the award ceremony is announced in the gbs calendar of events.

MSS: Right. The association requested me as a speaker, as did other third-party organisers in the past, and it will also cover the arising expenses. The award ceremony is included in the gbs calendar, because all thematically relevant events in which gbs members are involved are announced there. Many lectures were announced there, for example, which I gave following the invitation of the Catholic or Protestant Church. I hope that no one will conclude that the Catholic Church is an "offshoot of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung". (laughs)

hpd: "Junge Welt" was a bit more cautious. They wrote that the award ceremony takes place in the "environment" of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung.

MSS: That's true, but what is that supposed to mean? The fact is that we have had much more contact with "Junge Welt" than with this sponsoring association, so does "Junge Welt" also belong to the "environment" of the gbs? Of course not! There are just as few financial and organisational links between us and the "Junge Welt" as there are between us and the organisers of the Peter Singer Prize.

hpd: Very well, let's move on to content-related questions. Why did you agree to give the laudatory speech for Peter Singer at the award ceremony?

MSS: There are two crucial reasons for this: First, animal suffering reduction is an ethical goal that logically results from the basic idea of evolutionary humanism. Since human consciousness did not simply appear out of nowhere, but evolved evolutionarily, we have to assume that other animals feel in a comparable way as we do, which is why it would be unethical to continue suppressing their needs as much as it has happened so far. Secondly, I value Peter Singer as one of the most important philosophers of our time. Although I may hold different positions in some aspects, it was the very examination of his arguments that helped me to develop my own philosophical perspective. For this reason, I would like to contribute to eliminating the tragic misunderstandings that have occurred in Germany and that have led to an extremely distorted perception of the philosopher and person Peter Singer.

hpd: What do you mean by "tragic misunderstandings"?

MSS: In Germany, it is repeatedly claimed that Peter Singer's position is "hostile to the disabled", although he himself advocates a "more disability-friendly policy". In his highly controversial book "Should the Baby Live?", which Peter Singer wrote together with Helga Kuhse, it says: "We are convinced that rich nations should do much more to enable people with disabilities to have a fulfilled life worth living and to enable them to truly relise their inherent potential. We should do everything we can to improve the often deplorably poor institutional care and to provide services that allow disabled people to live outside institutions and within the community" (translated from the German edition, TN). We have to be aware of this: Singer is attacked all over the world because he has "left-wing positions", whereas in German-speaking countries he is accused of the complete opposite. I already referred to these and various other issues four years ago. Unfortunately, little changed about the prejudices against Peter Singer.

hpd: All well and good, but what about the phrase that Singer is quoted with in the "Junge Welt": "I don't want my insurance fees to be increased so that children with no prospect of quality of life receive expensive treatment"?

MSS: Unfortunately, I didn't find the source of this quote, so I don't know if Peter Singer really said so. But let's assume that he really would have chosen this unfortunate phrasing. When evaluating these words, it depends on what he meant by "children with no prospect of quality of life". If he addresses the problem that severely multiple-disabled infants are kept alive and presumably also tortured with the assistance of unreflected forms of medical apparatuses before they die as expected a short time later, this statement can be explained a little better. Unfortunately, there is a form of high-tech medicine that does not serve the patient's interests but the clinic operator's economic interests. One could critically object that such pointless measures may reduce the supply for meaningful measures in the health sectors that really improve patients' quality of life. On the other hand, the cases of children who are so severely handicapped that they have no prospect of quality of life at all are so rare that such measures are unlikely to significantly increase insurance fees.

hpd: The main problem with the quote is that Peter Singer is upset about a possible increase in his insurance contributions. That sounds hard-hearted and selfish, but it doesn't reflect his own position at all, does it? In fact, Singer is known for donating a significant part of his income to charity, and in this context he has launched the movement for "effective altruism", which aims to generate as much money as possible and use it to help as many individuals as possible. In its article, "Junge Welt" indirectly criticises Singer's position. Rightly so?

MSS: Yes and no. First of all, of course people are welcome to get involved in helping others and use their donations in a way that effectively improves the quality of life of as many people as possible or as many non-human animals as possible. This is why the Giordano Bruno Stiftung supports the idea of effective altruism. However, I do see some difficulties with this approach that have not really been solved. The "Junge Welt" correctly pointed out one of these problems in its article. In an Australian talk show, Peter Singer allegedly called for "cutting funds for the training of guide dogs and spending them on the prevention of blindness in developing countries".

hpd: I understand that this guide dog example is very popular with "effective altruists"...

MSS: Yes, they think they can use it to show that you can achieve very different results with the same use of resources: In one case a single blind person receives a guide dog, in the other case you can prevent thousands of people from going blind in the first place with the same investment. This may seem convincing at first, but the "Junge Welt" has rightly asked in this context why it is not possible to do both, i.e. train guide dogs and protect thousands of people in the Third World from blindness. On closer inspection, the guide dog example seems plausible only because people intuitively assume that the funds come from a common pool and disappear from the world after their use.

hpd: And this is wrong?

MSS: Of course! Money that is spent does not simply disappear, but ends up with other market participants, such as guide dog trainers, who can donate a part of their profit, for example to prevent blindness in the Third World. A second, even more important reason why I criticise the guide dog comparison, is that it conveys a message that diametrically contradicts humanistic convictions: it cannot and must not be the purpose of effective altruism to revoke solidarity with the people in need in our society on the grounds that this could save more people in need in other parts of the world! The underlying alternative scenario is wrong because, of course, there are many more options than the two offered. This argumentation is also highly dangerous because it can lead to a disruption of solidarity with those members of society who most need our support.

hpd: Is it due to this feared "disruption of solidarity" that associations for the disabled protest against the award to Peter Singer so vehemently?

MSS: It certainly plays a role. Without wanting to, Peter Singer has triggered many fears, especially among disabled people. I can easily understand why people who suffer from a lack of attention and insufficient social support express their disappointment and anger by vehemently protesting against a philosopher who supposedly legitimises this unacceptable situation. In truth, however, Peter Singer is the wrong addressee for such accusations, since his philosophy is characterised specifically by overcoming all forms of discrimination. After all, the central dictum of Singer's ethics is to "treat equal interests equally", regardless of the group to which the individual belongs.

hpd: Nevertheless, the accusations against Singer are not entirely unfounded, are they? Some of his statements about disabled people sound extremely discriminatory...

MSS: Yes, they sound like that, but they are not meant to be. I admit that you could interpret Singer's texts in a reactionary way if you absolutely wanted to and if you took the arguments out of context. The fact that Peter Singer can be misunderstood so easily has something to do with the structure of philosophical texts. After all, it is a philosopher's job to question everything conventionally assumed - including the right to life, which we naturally guarantee every individual in our constitution for good reasons. We should not blame a philosopher for critically questioning traditional ideas about the right to life, because that is part of his job. You can only blame him for the answers he eventually provides to this question.

hpd: And in your opinion, the answers Peter Singer has found are not discriminatory?

MSS: No, you really can't accuse him of that! However, I don't think Peter Singer did himself a favour by linking the question of the right to life so closely to the question of euthanasia. Such a connection is not necessary at all. For example, in the case of an extremely distorted infant who would, with the help of intensive care medicine, continue to exist for a few weeks in agony, one does not have to deny him the right to life. One only has to acknowledge that from the "right to life", to which every person is entitled from birth, arises no "duty to live". If Peter Singer had advocated the position "Right to life for all - duty to life for no one", many misunderstandings would not have occurred in the first place. In this case, only "Christian pro-life activists" would protest him, but barely any representatives of the disability movement.

hpd: Current reactions among the protesters have been very violent in some cases. In a comment to the appeal "Stop Peter Singer!", a reader of the disabled platform "Rollingplanet" writes regarding Singer: "The guy belongs on the wall and shoot away. Done".

MSS: Yes, unfortunately there are such threats. The atmosphere is highly poisoned and there is reason to fear that the award ceremony in Berlin will be massively disturbed. Unfortunately, I can't think of much to do about it. I hope, albeit without too many expectations, that at least some of the protesters will read this interview and reconsider their attitude. At the moment I can't do any more in this matter, especially as I will be in Athens in the coming days to present our film "In Humanity We Trust" as well as two of my books that have recently been published in Greece.

hpd: Under these circumstances, wouldn't it make sense to cancel the award ceremony?

MSS: This decision is neither up to me nor up to the Giordano Bruno Stiftung, but to the "Förderverein des Peter-Singer-Preises für Strategien zur Tierleidminderung", which is responsible for the ceremony. I hope that the association can ensure the security of Peter Singer. That will certainly not be simple, since the protest community will probably be very heterogeneous. I expect a unique mixture of representatives of the disabled, concerned social pedagogues, "Christian pro-life activists", and left-wing autonomists. Among these protest groups only the "Christian pro-life activists" actually have good reasons to protest against Peter Singer, because he actually diametrically contradicts their positions. Unfortunately, these religious fundamentalists are also dangerous sometimes, as the acid attack on the president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS - German Society for Humane Dying), Elke Baezner showed last year. Threats should therefore be taken seriously. But as I said, the decision on how to deal with this delicate situation lies solely with the organisers of the ceremony, neither with me nor with the Giordano Bruno Stiftung.

hpd: Thank you very much for the interview!

 

The article was first published at Humanistischer Pressedienst.