As part of Tales From the Crip’s new series, Imaginary Interviews With People Who We Wish Were Imaginary, our own Respironics Bi-Pap S/T sat down with philosopher Dr. Peter Singer, Princeton’s Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, whose anti-crip, pro-swine agenda argues that infanticide of babies with disabilities should be legal up until the 28th day after birth, that health care for people with disabilities should be rationed, and that the consciousness of some pigs doesn’t get enough respect. These fascis — fascinating ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of why Peter Singer is gracing the cover of NotPeople magazine as the Rationalest Man Alive! 

RBPS/T:  Welcome to the United States, Dr. Peter Singer, and all Bruces from Australia.

PS: G’day.

RBPS/T: We’re going to have a rational discussion!

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Rational.

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  You’ve been named NotPeople’s Rationalest Man Alive 2015. How does this make you feel?

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Any plans for keeping the title in 2016?

PS: I don’t make plans more than 28 days ahead.

Coming Up in the Interview! 

Peter Singer as you’ve never heard him!  

“Your bizarre stereotypes about Australian people are getting in the way of me explaining why infanticide is the rational choice for parents of disabled infants!”

On Infanticide!

RBPS/T:  Let’s get right to the question we’re all wondering when it comes to your idea of infanticide for newborns who may have significant disabilities: Why 28 days?

PS: 28 is a rational number. 27 is not. 29 is not.

RBPS/T:  It sounds like an arbitrary choice.

PS: I’m completely prepared and eager to have a rational discussion about this.

RBPS/T:  Would it be easier for you to accept infants with disabilities if you simply thought of them as underperforming cats?

PS: Infanticide is rational. Kittenicide is not. It’s about suffering.

RBPS/T:  Clearly you’re unfamiliar with the cat experience.

PS: I would like to discuss my ideas seriously.

RBPS/T: Like the idea that disability negates personhood?

PS: Yes!

RBPS/T:  Nah.

On Eating Meat(s)!

RBPS/T:  You’re opposed to eating meat?

PS: Animal liberation.

RBPS/T:  So your primary objection to Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is as a vegetarian?

PS: Just because I personally would not eat a disabled child doesn’t mean I would prevent someone else from eating a disabled child.

RBPS/T:  Free to eat you and me, as it were.

PS: No. “Us” is not an edible. “Them” is an edible.

RBPS/T:  Rational.

PS: Rational.

On Parenting!

RBPS/T:  Are you familiar with the term “parent?”

PS: I’m a father myself.

RBPS/T:  So you know what those first few weeks with your child is like.

PS: Of course.

RBPS/T:  That staring at them when they’re sleeping, and you’re thinking that thought every ethical new parent has: “Yeah, but I’m still not sure you’ve got what it takes, 29^th day-wise.”

PS: Offensive.

RBPS/T:  “Yeah, mmmm…just not sure you’re going to maximize my happiness and that of the many.”

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  “I’m sure you’d understand, if you could understand. And therein lies the rub.”

PS: Ethical.

RBPS/T:  “It’s not you, it’s me. Largely because my ethical framework doesn’t allow there to be a ‘you.’ Ok, it’s a bit incoherent, I admit, because ‘you’ have to be an ‘it’ if this is going to work at all.”

PS: Suffering

RBPS/T:  “Though if I’m going to take my own ethics seriously, it does beg the question of why I’m speaking apologetically to an ‘it,’ an object, a being without consciousness.”

PS: Where are the standards for this conversation?

RBPS/T:  “A meatloaf. Essentially.”

On Stereotypes!

RBPS/T:  I’d like to go back to your roots a bit. [Rare footage of early teaching days] Tell the world how a stunningly beautiful young priest like yourself made it off an Outback sheep-shearing station to become the Morrissey of the philosophical world at one of the lesser Ivies.

PS: None of that is true.

RBPS/T:  You come from a land down under, correct?

PS: Yes.

RBPS/T:  You don’t have to run, you don’t have to take cover.

PS: It’s not my past. It’s not true.

RBPS/T:  How can you sleep when the beds are burning?

PS: Rationally.

RBPS/T:  You’ve never felt even the slightest bit as if Barbara Stanwyck wanted to kiss you?

PS: That’s not me.

RBPS/T:  Let’s talk about Australia’s greatest gift to the world.

PS:  Thank you.

RBPS/T:  I was referring to the onion ring you can make a meal out of.

PS:  Your bizarre stereotypes about Australian people are getting in the way of me explaining why infanticide is the rational choice for parents of disabled infants.

On the Love Secrets of the Utilitarian!

RBPS/T:  Isn’t “No Rules, Just Rights” pretty much the mating call of the utilitarian?

PS: “If it feels good, do it,” is a much more rational mating call.

RBPS/T: What’s a common way for a utilitarian to get friend-zoned?

PS:  A utilitarian could help a hot girl move and then she gets back together with her bass-player ex. Who’s a contemporary Continental phenomenologist.

RBPS/T: That sounds…nonhypothetical. And gender-biased. But hey, you are a philosopher.

PS: JUST BECAUSE WE’RE UTILITARIANS DOESN’T MEAN WE LIKE BEING USED.

RBPS/T: Hypothetically.

PS: It was a long time ago. I am completely and 110% over it. My happiness has never been more maximized. A random person might see me on this cover and think, “Wow, he is totally living the life he said he would and here I am, possibly married to but probably long-since-dumped by an untalented string player who distracted me from what my life could have been, and if something tragic happens like I get so horribly disfigured in an accident that I need expensive but ultimately futile treatments or I have an adorable but super sick baby — which wouldn’t be so unlikely if the weak genes of a contemporary Continental phenomenologist were involved in the uterine brew — I will most definitely not want societal resources wasted on prolonging our now-useless lives that are almost entirely composed of suffering moments that don’t include one single glimpse much less the infinitely tender touch of the brilliant moral pragmatist — pragmatic moralist? — I should have appreciated and who I secretly dream of providing me with his personal care and support at no cost to the public or to his individual liberty.” SHOW ME ONE TENURED “ARTIST,” SHEILA!

RBPS/T: No projection there.

PS: What’s projection?

On Suffering! And More Stereotypes!

RBPS/T:  Let’s discuss your notion of suffering.

PS: No one would rationally choose to suffer.

RBPS/T:  You’ve chosen to live in New Jersey.

PS: I find New Jersey to be a perfectly pleasant place to live.

RBPS/T:  Given your state of consciousness.

PS: Yes.

RBPS/T:  A state of consciousness formed in a place perhaps best known for a Warner Bros. cartoon character that spins in circles and devours every living animal. Except rabbits.

PS: Tasmania is not Australia.

RBPS/T:  “Mate.”

PS: What?

RBPS/T:  That statement should have ended with the word “mate.”

PS: No. That’s a stereotype.

RBPS/T:  I’m pretty sure it’s Australian for punctuation.

PS: No.

RBPS/T:  Do you need another beer?

PS: I’m not drinking beer.

RBPS/T:  I’m pretty sure my question was Australian for “Ça va?”

PS: This is not an ethical or rational interview.

RBPS/T: You’ve claimed to be a vegetarian but you insist on living in a state that celebrates scrap meat stuffed in a tube, deep fried, and doused in chili.

PS: I’ve never eaten a ripper in my life.

RBPS/T: That wasn’t the Jersey delicacy I was referring to.

PS: This conversation isn’t ethical or rational.

RBPS/T:  I see you. And I see your suffering. Will you take my hand?

PS: You don’t have a hand.

RBPS/T: Of course, that would only leave me with one.

On Dingoes!

RBPS/T:  And that, of course, leads us to dingoes. In the matter of dingoes taking babies, you’re pro-dingo, I believe.

PS:  I’m simply in favor of a more nuanced discussion.

RBPS/T:  #DingoLivesMatter?

PS: That’s a ridiculous thing to say and quite insensitive.

RBPS/T:  #NotAllDingoes?

PS: Really? This is your best refutation of my arguments?

On Oh Fine You Want a Refutation?!

RBPS/T: My host prefers this guy.

PS: Crikey, the contemporary Continental phenomenologists.

RBPS/T: Just because Levinas’ ethics precedes his ontology —

PS: All that bloody exteriority and the “Other” —

RBPS/T:  The Other’s face calls us forward in desire. The Other demands responsibility.

PS:  Oh desire. Your Host no doubt believes string players know the meaning of the word “responsibility.”

RBPS/T: I know which of you I’d trust around a bunch of newborns and in geriatric ward. I’m going with a guy who has some grasp of vulnerability.

OnWho Really Taught Who a Thing Or Two!

PS: I will say I’m glad you didn’t bring up the Nazis.

RBPS/T: That would have been completely unfair.

PS:  Thank you for saying so.

RBPS/T: Of course, it is shocking.

PS: What is?

RBPS/T: Normally, you say, “America really taught those damn Nazis a thing or two!”

PS:  Yeah?

RBPS/T:  But you don’t usually mean: ” Hey, America really taught those damn Nazis a thing or two about…how to have a rational conversation about infanticide and disability.”

PS:  I’m sorry but the law demands the conversation cease now.

RBPS/T:  You made the comparison by noting there’d been no comparison!

PS:  Rational.

RBPS/T:  Happy to inject some reason, myself, and here’s some more, as we send you off on the wings of song. Thank you, Peter Singer, 2015 Rationalest Man Alive!

PS: G’day.