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Imagine that you could choose a book that everyone in the world would read. My choice would be this book. (Roger Crisp, Ethics )
highly successful. it tackles questions of the first importance, it is immensely readable - being packed with anecdotes and illustrations - and it forces its readers to reflect on how they live their lives (Journal of Applied Philosophy )
highly successful. it tackles questions of the first importance, it is immensely readable - being packed with anecdotes and illustrations - and it forces its readers to reflect on how they live their lives (Journal of Applied Philosophy )
Journal of Applied Philosophy
"highly successful. it tackles questions of the first importance, it is immensely readable - being packed with anecdotes and illustrations - and it forces its readers to reflect on how they live their lives"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my first book on ethics and it has successfully got me hooked. I am now about to begin Animal Liberation! Singer presents a very convincing argument for taking the ethical path and not ending up feeling lacking. There were many comments and even sections I felt compelled to underline and note the page numbers as they really struck a chord and I want to return to them to ponder further. He includes a little bit of everything, giving plenty ammunition for discussions. Excellent book, I have recommended it to almost everyone I know!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Singer compellingly shows how our misunderstanding of self-interest has led us to the brink of social and ecological disaster. He unmasks the errors that have led us down this path. Best of all, he offers an alternative -- a new understanding of self-interest, one that embraces altruism and ethical integrity. What a humane and reasonable book!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The author raises the question of ethics in our overwhelmingly individualistic society. Unlike at least one other reviewer of this book, I didn't feel that it is a sermon in disguise to promote Singer's ideas about animal welfare, although it does receive mention several times. The book is a good synthesis of carefully chosen historically significant events and social analyses (e.g. the "Opening of Japan" at the Bay of Edo, and the culture of materialism, as well as foreign work ethics and so on). Singer's style is relaxed but not condescending. He argues in the end that although reality is relative, there is a sense in which that can be transcended to some degree. The idea is that as beings endowed with the gift of imagination, we are able to move in our minds beyond the relative reality, to observe that all beings suffer as we do personally. This slight glimpse of an objective truth that we permit ourselves to witness is a motivation and reason enough, argues Singer, for us to want to act ethically towards others.
The book is a mild philosophical romp, with some ideas in ethics, biology and evolution receiving mention. In no place is the book overwhelming.
I gave the book 4 stars because I don't think it is a masterpiece, and it doesn't make allowance for the fact that to some extent it is limited by its need to rationalise parts of human existence that don't necessarily warrant it or are capable of being rationalised. Nonetheless, one cannot write a book that accounts for the entire truth of human experience within the bounds of a light discussion.
On a practical level, the book is about 350 pages, just larger than the average paperback with a medium sized print (I know some books have discouragingly small letters (some Penguin ones for instance)).
I think it is very well worth reading, but don't expect it to be the best book on the topic of all time. Nonetheless, a good introduction, and even if you don't follow or buy into all the arguments Singer presents, there's plenty else you'll find out besides.
The book is a mild philosophical romp, with some ideas in ethics, biology and evolution receiving mention. In no place is the book overwhelming.
I gave the book 4 stars because I don't think it is a masterpiece, and it doesn't make allowance for the fact that to some extent it is limited by its need to rationalise parts of human existence that don't necessarily warrant it or are capable of being rationalised. Nonetheless, one cannot write a book that accounts for the entire truth of human experience within the bounds of a light discussion.
On a practical level, the book is about 350 pages, just larger than the average paperback with a medium sized print (I know some books have discouragingly small letters (some Penguin ones for instance)).
I think it is very well worth reading, but don't expect it to be the best book on the topic of all time. Nonetheless, a good introduction, and even if you don't follow or buy into all the arguments Singer presents, there's plenty else you'll find out besides.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An audacious undertaking, and Singer pulls it off
Singer tackles "the big one," the meaning of life, in this book, and damned if he doesn't figure it out. In my opinion. (Your mileage may vary. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 1999
Being ethical can make you feel better
Singer argues cogently that as a social animal it is natural for us to care for others, and we actually enjoy a far greater sense of satisfaction from it, than from the inevitably... Read more
Published on 28 Dec 1998
A terrific, beautifully written book
This may be the best book of moral philosophy ever written for a general audience. Singer covers a large number of topics, from feminist ethics to the prisoner's dilemma, in the... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 1997
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