Viewpoint

Controversial scholars should not be censored

Next fall, students at Princeton University will be able to take a class entitled "Questions of Life and Death" from a person who some call "the most dangerous man in the world today." When it hired Peter Singer, Princeton was probably not counting on being found guilty by one writer in The Wall Street Journal of "jettisoning ... the understanding of man's dignity that has defined Western civilization for two millennia." If we are to take the word of some writers, activists and academics, the Antichrist has a degree from Oxford, founded the International Association of Bioethics and wrote "Animal Liberation," one of that movement's finest intellectual achievements. Singer hasn't even started teaching, and he already has some groups vowing to picket his classes.

As one might expect, you need to have some pretty unconventional views to become evil incarnate, and Singer definitely has unconventional views. In accordance with his fellow utilitarian thinkers, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, Singer believes in the doctrine of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

But Bentham and Mill didn't advocate euthanasia for infants born with disabilities such as spina bifida, severe mental retardation or hemophilia. Nor did they equate the killing of an infant to the killing of a dog or cow because each shares a similar capability for emotions and rationality.

A closet neo-Nazi with an academic disposition? No. Singer, who is working on a biography of one of his three grandparents who were killed in the Holocaust, is concerned with relieving suffering - sometimes by means of euthanasia - for all living things, human and animal alike. The emphasis is on quality of life, not life for its own sake.

Try as he might to be understood, Singer has plenty of vocal detractors in the academic community who approve of efforts to silence him. In a recent article on Singer, The New York Times quoted Cambridge philosopher Jenny Teichman saying, "False philosophy can be dangerous and ... if circumstances prevent its being refuted in print, it is probably all right, in extreme cases, to silence it in other ways."

It isn't necessary to agree with Singer to find these reactions disconcerting. History has shown that common people react to thinkers who have the audacity to reject western civilization's most sacred principles with outrage.

Usually scholars brush these misguided sentiments aside - there have still been no serious calls for Princeton to strip Singer of his position. But if Teichman's attitude reflects even a small trend within academia - to simply censor views that cast doubts upon what many consider to be indubitable - the university community must be wary.

Once we begin to tell our best thinkers, "Question freely, but just don't go here," progressive thought is bound to plunge down the gutter. No matter how intrinsically true or good a belief may seem at face value, enlightened people must continue the process of asking hard questions and deal with the sometimes painful answers.

- Nick Woomer can be reached over e-mail at nwoomer@umich.edu

04-15-99