Peter Singer

But by and large, the right theory was the one that best matched the data.

I think that's a mistaken view of what we're doing in

because I don't think there is this solid data that there might be in science, scientific observation.

So I'm more of a foundationalist than a proponent of reflective equilibrium.

I try to get the foundations as clear as I can, try and reflect on them, think about them, take the most...

rational point of view that you can.

And that's, as I was saying at the beginning, trying to take the point of view of the universe rather than our own point of view and try to find what is intrinsically good and what is intrinsically bad and coming up with the idea of desirable states of consciousness as intrinsically good and undesirable states of consciousness, ones that you would rather stopped, um, as intrinsically bad.

Um,

And that seems to me to be a more solid foundation than relying on those moral intuitions.

That's a kind of simplified overall perspective.

Yeah.

But it's not that everybody should do that in their daily life all the time.

I simply don't think that would work.

Again, we have evolved as beings who love and care for their children and have close relationships

relationships with other kin as well, siblings, parents, maybe even cousins.

And of course, close ties with friends, unrelated friends with whom we have mutually beneficial relationships, often cooperative relationships.

And I don't think we can simply set all that aside and say, well, I'm going to deal with strangers exactly the same way that I deal with my children or with my closest friends or my partner.

we have to show some partiality there.

So although in one sense I think the well-being of every other sentient being counts as much as the similar well-being of myself and those close to me, I think we in practice have to take account of the fact that we will only do well and others will only do well in close personal relationships that necessarily involve some form of partiality.

We should care about strangers and people far away because they are capable of having the mental states that are intrinsically good or the mental states that are intrinsically bad.