Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Peter Singer's remarkably clear and comprehensive Practical Ethics has become a classic introduction to applied ethics since its publication in 1979 and has been translated into many languages. For this second edition the author has revised all the existing chapters, added two new ones, and updated the bibliography. He has also added an appendix describing some of the deep misunderstanding of and consequent violent reaction to the book in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland where the book has tested the limits of freedom of speech. The focus of the book is the application of ethics to difficult and controversial social questions.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 About ethics
• 2 Equality and its implications
• 3 Equality for animals?
• 4 What's wrong with killing?
• 5 Taking life: animals
• 6 Taking life: the embryo and the foetus
• 7 Taking life: humans
• 8 Rich and poor
• 9 Insiders and outsiders
• 10 The environment
• 11 Ends and means
• 12 Why act morally?
• Appendix: on being silenced in Germany
• Notes
• References and further reading

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Singer (like Socrates) takes philosophy and puts it where it belongs--in the market place. In lucid, non-technical prose he tackles disputed moral questions--most notably abortion, euthanasia, civil disobedience, equality, animal rights, and the obligations of the haves to the have-nots--with a compelling blend of intellectual rigor and personal commitment. (An earlier, more limited example: Animal Liberation, 1975.) Singer calls himself a consequentialist, i.e., a utilitarian who measures acts against the norm of ""what, on balance, furthers the interests of those affected"" rather than with any simple calculus of pleasure and pain. He follows this guideline wherever it leads him--and sometimes winds up out on some pretty controversial limbs. He maintains, for instance, that some animals (chimpanzees, among others) are persons, because they are self-conscious, communicate, and have a notion of the future. Killing an adult, nonhuman primate, then, would be worse than killing a human baby, which is not a person in the strict sense. Singer is not promoting infanticide, but challenging this and other forms of ""speciesism,"" a blind moral prejudice in favor of humanity. In another chapter he proposes with cool but passionate eloquence that withholding help from starving people (e.g., by spending money on luxuries instead of sending it to CARE) is ""the moral equivalent of murder."" Here and elsewhere Singer stops short of laying down any absolutes, but takes a bold stance that provokes the reader to respond, one way or another. Anti-abortionists will argue--with reason--that he does scant justice to the fetus' status as a potential human being. And ecologists will protest the narrowness of his view that only sentient beings are entitled to ethical consideration (so it's wrong to eat a hamburger, but all right to destroy a redwood forest?). Finally, professional philosophers will complain about the relative flimsiness of Singer's concluding chapter, ""Why Act Morally?"" on which, logically speaking, his whole case rests. But, whatever the objections, this is a superb performance, rich in substance and immaculately written: critical thinking at its creative best. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Born in Australia, Singer received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Melbourne and, in 1971, his B. Phil from University College, Oxford. During his teaching career, he has held positions in philosophy in England, the United States, and Australia. While a student at Oxford, Singer was deeply affected by a group of people who had become vegetarians for ethical reasons. Joining their commitment to the rights of animals, he wrote Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (1975), a persuasively reasoned, yet clearly understandable defense of the rights of animals. Singer's vocal concern for the proper treatment of animals has triggered a new appreciation of the anthropocentric bias of traditional Western moral philosophy; other philosophers have followed his lead. Complaining that ethical theorists have focused too intensely upon the rights, responsibilities, and treatment of humans, Singer dubs this malady "speciesism" and calls for a broader moral perspective---one that includes a sensitivity to the needs and concerns of other sentient creatures. (Bowker Author Biography)