Ethics in the Real World

82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter

Peter Singer (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

376 Seiten

2017 | Revised edition
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-17847-9 (ISBN)

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Peter Singer is often described as the world's most influential philosopher. He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words. In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness. Singer asks whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalized, and he reiterates his case against the idea that all human life is sacred, applying his arguments to some recent cases in the news.
In addition, he explores, in an easily accessible form, some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as whether anything really matters and what is the value of the pale blue dot that is our planet. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer's thoughts on one of his favorite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast. Now with a new afterword by the author, this provocative and original book will challenge--and possibly change--your beliefs about many real-world ethical questions.

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He first became well known internationally in 1975 with the publication of Animal Liberation. His other books include How Are We to Live?, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), and The Most Good You Can Do. He divides his time between Princeton and Melbourne.

Introduction ix

Acknowledgments xv

Big Questions

The Value of a Pale Blue Dot 3

Does Anything Matter? 6

Is There Moral Progress? 9

God and Suffering, Again 12

Godless Morality (with Marc Hauser) 15

Are We Ready for a "Morality Pill"? (with Agata Sagan) 19

The Quality of Mercy 23

Thinking about the Dead 27

Should This Be the Last Generation? 31

Philosophy on Top 35

Animals

Europe's Ethical Eggs 41

If Fish Could Scream 44

Cultural Bias against Whaling? 47

A Case for Veganism 50

Consider the Turkey: Thoughts for Thanksgiving 55

In Vitro Meat 60

Chimpanzees Are People, Too 63

The Cow Who . . . 66

Beyond the Ethic of the Sanctity of Life

The Real Abortion Tragedy 73

Treating (or Not) the Tiniest Babies 77

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Mercy Killing of Newborns 81

No Diseases for Old Men 85

When Doctors Kill 89

Choosing Death 93

Dying in Court 97

Bioethics and Public Health

The Human Genome and the Genetic Supermarket 103

The Year of the Clone? 106

Kidneys for Sale? 110

The Many Crises of Health Care 114

Public Health versus Private Freedom? 118

Weigh More, Pay More 122

Should We Live to 1,000? 125

Population and the Pope 129

Sex and Gender

Should Adult Sibling Incest Be a Crime? 135

Homosexuality Is Not Immoral 139

Virtual Vices 142

A Private Affair? 146

How Much Should Sex Matter? (with Agata Sagan) 150

God and Woman in Iran 154

Doing Good

The One-Percent

Solution 159

Holding Charities Accountable 163

Blatant Benevolence 167

Good Charity, Bad Charity 171

Heartwarming Causes Are Nice, But Let's Give to Charity with Our Heads 175

The Ethical Cost of High-Price Art 179

Preventing Human Extinction (with Nick Beckstead and Matt Wage) 182

Happiness

Happiness, Money, and Giving It Away 191

Can We Increase Gross National Happiness? 195

The High Cost of Feeling Low 199

No Smile Limit 202

Happy, Nevertheless 205

Politics

Bentham's Fallacies, Then and Now 211

The Founding Fathers' Fiscal Crisis 215

Why Vote? 219

Free Speech, Muhammad, and the Holocaust 222

The Use and Abuse of Religious Freedom 225

An Honest Man? 229

Is Citizenship a Right? 232

The Spying Game 236

A Statue for Stalin? 239

Should We Honor Racists? 243

Global Governance

Escaping the Refugee Crisis 249

Is Open Diplomacy Possible? 253

The Ethics of Big Food 257

Fairness and Climate Change (with Teng Fei) 260

Will the Polluters Pay for Climate Change? 264

Why Are They Serving Meat at a Climate Change Conference? (with Frances Kissling) 268

Dethroning King Coal 273

Paris and the Fate of the Earth 277

Science and Technology A Clear Case for Golden Rice 283

Life Made to Order 287

Rights for Robots? (with Agata Sagan) 291

A Dream for the Digital Age 295

A Universal Library 298

The Tragic Cost of Being Unscientific 302

Living, Playing, Working How to Keep a New Year's Resolution 307

Why Pay More? 310

Tiger Mothers or Elephant Mothers? 313

Volkswagen and the Future of Honesty 317

Is Doping Wrong? 321

Is It OK to Cheat at Football? 324

A Surfing Reflection 328

Afterword to the Paperback Edition 331

Index 335

Erscheinungsdatum	12.08.2017
Nachwort	Peter Singer
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	127 x 203 mm
Gewicht	312 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
ISBN-10	0-691-17847-X / 069117847X
ISBN-13	978-0-691-17847-9 / 9780691178479
Zustand	Neuware