 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Peter Singer |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Applied ethics |
| Publisher | Text Publishing, Melbourne |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 262 |
| ISBN | 1863721010 |
How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest is a 1993 book about applied ethics by moral philosopher Peter Singer. [1] Singer argues that doing the right thing involves attending to the sufferings and preferences of other sentient beings. [2]
Singer presents a history of ethical thought, and attempts to refute the popular idea that humans are genetically driven to be selfish. He explains how this idea has been attributed to Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith, and how politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan tried to persuade people that self-interest was good. [3] Singer takes a contrary view, and argues that self-interest is a time-bomb for society. [3]
Singer discusses Japanese culture and how its ethical perspective differs from that of modern western culture, and attempts to infer a few properties of the development of ethical thought. Singer argues in favour of a form of R. M. Hare's notion of universalizability as a basis for ethics: he argues we should make choices with reference to the whole universe. [3] He proposes that ethical behavior is in fact beneficial for the individual under real-life conditions, and proposes five practical ethical rules based on a computer simulation of the Prisoner's Dilemma. He draws on the Golden Rule, and explains how the broad cross-cultural support for it gives it a central role in ethics. [3] Singer elaborates on the reasons for behaving ethically and how they apply on actual everyday life.
Singer discusses various philosophical perspectives on ethics, including Christian and Kantian ones. The book asserts that "In a society in which the narrow pursuit of material self-interest is the norm, the shift to an ethical stance is more radical than many people realize." [4]
Singer attempts to show how the key for a satisfactory life resides on its purpose and how crucial for that purpose a commitment to an ethical life is. This connects with the argument that the pursuit of self-interest is self-defeating. [3] He argues that altruism can be genuine – not just enlightened self-interest, and offers examples of people who sacrificed their lives to save people from Nazis to make this point. [3] Singer comments on the effect of having the widest perspective possible on our ethical decisions; on how our rational capability sometimes leads us to change our goal; and on the paradoxical opportunity that the existence of so many ills on the world brings to us by way of showing plenty of clearly worthwhile goals. To live a good life, the book prescribes: "You can rethink your goals and question what you are doing with your life. That might mean quitting your job, selling your house, and going to work for a voluntary organization in India. More often, the commitment to a more ethical way of living will be the first step of a gradual but far-reaching evolution in your lifestyle and in your thinking about your place in the world. One thing is certain: you will find plenty of worthwhile things to do." [4]
The Oxford philosopher Roger Crisp wrote, "Imagine that you could choose a book that everyone in the world would read. My choice would be this book." [5]
Critics have suggested Singer misrepresents the role of self-interest in some religions, such as the prospect of rewards in heaven. [6]
Singer has said, "I am not really satisfied with the book". He has expressed concerns that his argument that an ethical life makes for a fulfilling life "contains an element of wishful thinking", as he does not always do everything that he believes to be morally right and so might have underestimated how demanding morality can be, set against other things that might be fulfilling in life. [5]
The first edition was published in Melbourne, Australia by Text Publishing Company in 1993. It was reissued in Britain by Mandarin Press in 1994, and in the United States by Prometheus Books in 1995.
A second edition was produced by Oxford University Press in 1997. [7]
The German translation, by Hermann Vetter, was published by Harald Fischer Verlag in 1996 as Wie sollen wir leben?: Ethik in einer egoistischen Zeit. A paperback was produced by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag in 1999 and went through several reprints, most recently in 2004.
In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one's preferences, and broader notions of the "general good".
In ethical philosophy, ethical egoism is the normative position that moral agents ought to act in their own self-interest. It differs from psychological egoism, which claims that people can only act in their self-interest. Ethical egoism also differs from rational egoism, which holds that it is rational to act in one's self-interest. Ethical egoism holds, therefore, that actions whose consequences will benefit the doer are ethical.
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest and selfishness, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so.
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which argues the moral imperative of donating to help the poor around the world. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian. He revealed in The Point of View of the Universe (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.
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Derek Antony Parfit was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world, some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism, error theory, and non-cognitivism. Moral realism's two main subdivisions are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism.
Eudaimonia, sometimes anglicized as Eudaemonia, Eudemonia or Eudimonia, is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of good spirit, and which is commonly translated as happiness or welfare.
The is–ought problem, as articulated by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, arises when one makes claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is. Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements and prescriptive statements, and that it is not obvious how one can coherently transition from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones.
"Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an essay written by Peter Singer in 1971 and published in Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1972. It argues that affluent persons are morally obligated to donate far more resources to humanitarian causes than is considered normal in Western cultures. The essay was inspired by the starvation of Bangladesh Liberation War refugees, and uses their situation as an example, although Singer's argument is general in scope and not limited to the example of Bangladesh. The essay is anthologized widely as an example of Western ethical thinking.
Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others ultimately serve their own self-interest.
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Evolutionary ethics is a field of inquiry that explores how evolutionary theory might bear on our understanding of ethics or morality. The range of issues investigated by evolutionary ethics is quite broad. Supporters of evolutionary ethics have argued that it has important implications in the fields of descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics.
Rational egoism is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest. As such, it is considered a normative form of egoism, though historically has been associated with both positive and normative forms. In its strong form, rational egoism holds that to not pursue one's own interest is unequivocally irrational. Its weaker form, however, holds that while it is rational to pursue self-interest, failing to pursue self-interest is not always irrational.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law." It is also associated with the idea that "it is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if it is motivated by a sense of duty, and its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
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