Leading all-out pro-death philospher Peter Singer speaking at Fordham; is this stupid, or is it us?

You know, us prolifers. The talk is tonight, Friday November 16th.

Just days after Fordham University’s president Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J.  determined that conservative author Ann Coulter was too “hateful and needlessly provocative” to speak on campus, the University will tomorrow host the pro-infanticide ethicist Peter Singer to speak at a conference entitled “Conference with Peter Singer: Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.”

The University certainly has a right to make a judgement on a political commentator, who of course is a conservative republican and therefore (in the view of Fr. McShane0 "hateful".

Here's what Fordham theologian Charles Camosy has to say justifying Singer's invite - hit the link for the whole thing:

Be assured, this is not a Peter Singer scandal. This is a Fordham scandal. The moderator of the event is Charles Camosy, a Fordham theologian. It’s interesting that Camosy would moderate as he’s defended Singer’s work in the past, even going so far as comparing Singer with Pope John Paul II. In a piece called Peter Singer Is Not the Antichrist, Camosy showed that he understood Singer’s position on issues but still found a comparison with the beloved Pope accurate.

Many Christians consider him (Singer) to be a leader of a “culture of death”, especially given his very public support of infanticide and euthanasia of the mentally disabled.  Many disability rights groups have come out strongly against his view. Singer has been essentially silenced in German-speaking areas, where (given their checkered past) they are especially unforgiving of those who advocate for euthanasia. The last few times he has spoken in these areas Singer has been shouted down so loudly that he could not deliver his presentation. One time a protester leapt onto the stage, forcibly removed Singer’s glasses, and stamped on them.

Much of the academy doesn’t like him either. Three years ago I explained to one of my favorite senior ethicists that I was writing a book on Singer and was even going to meet him for an (obviously) vegan lunch in Manhattan.  His reaction?  “Be careful, Charlie, you’re going to like him.” And yes, despite being a pro-life Christian ethicist, I have come to like Peter Singer. Since that lunch-meeting I have debated him twice in his courses at Princeton and he has presented in my graduate bioethics seminar at Fordham; he and I gave the opening papers at a conference at Oxford last year called Christian Ethics Engages Peter Singer; we organized and planned  an international conference at Princeton designed to find new ways to think and speak about abortion; and we are currently working on planning an event that would challenge Christians to take non-human animals far more seriously than we currently do.  Through all of these experiences I have found Singer to be friendly and compassionate. He is willing to listen to an argument from almost anyone, and is unburdened by any sort of academic pretension is so doing. He is motivated by an admirable desire to respond to the suffering of human and non-human animals, and an equally admirable willingness to logically follow his arguments wherever they lead.

But this is all consistent with Christians still considering Singer our enemy. After all, he attacks many of the vulnerable populations Christians are called to defend.  He has criticized a Christian ethic as incoherent and dependent on pretense.  He claims that the West needs another “Copernican Revolution” to fully extricate ourselves from the stranglehold of Christianity.

But in my new bookPeter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization, I show that the disagreements between us are remarkably narrow. Though Singer is pro-choice for infanticide, on all the numerous and complicated issues related to abortion but one (it turns out to be complex argument about the moral value of “active” potential vs. “passive” potential), Peter Singer sounds an awful lot like Pope John Paul II.

 

Comments

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Through all of these experiences I have found Singer to be friendly and compassionate. He is willing to listen to an argument from almost anyone, and is unburdened by any sort of academic pretension is so doing.