Conscious of being Peter Singer

Peter Singer is an ethicist who teaches at Princeton university here in the USA. In the writings I have read both by Singer and about him he seems to make the defining characteristic of personhood as conciousness. He makes several references to the ability to anticipate pain as the critical attribute in what makes someone a bona fide and worthy person.

As such, young infants and the elderly suffering from dementia are no longer part of the protected class of persons. In Singer's distorted scale of measuring who deserves life, these groups of human's may actually be killed off for failure to anticpate forthcoming pain.

I think Singer errs greatly in his standard of personhood. He in effect says that only those who can consciously and subjectively anticipate a particuliar feeling are human. Singer opens the door to the belief that a subjective perception is the sole determiner of human personhood. This just happens to be Singer's subjective preference regarding what makes up a person. The problem I see with subjectively conscious feelings is that they vary depending on the consciousness and perceptive ability of each human who has them? So, I would ask Professor Singer, which subject's conciousness should serve as the standard for when someone is or is not considered a person?

Who consciousness should we trust? Is it the consciousness of a trained surgeon or the consciousness of young adolescent? Perhaps I need to read more of Singer's writings myself, but I am also puzzled as to what makes consciousness the final determining factor for personhood? Is it because it is Peter Singer's subjectively conscious choice? What about if he himself became demented tomorrow and would be considered no longer a person? Since he may no longer consciously choose to believe in these ethical mores can we discount them, since their author is no longer considered a person?

What goes into determining the constitution of a person is much more complex than subjective perception. In my opinion, limiting personhood to those who can subjectively perceive pain is a far too simplistic and naive belief about an extremely complex issue. In short, Dr. Singer is a bit of simpleton in advocating this narrow position.