Peter Singer

Argues that for the first time in history the possibility of eradicating world poverty is within reach and offers a plan that combines personal philanthropy with activism and political awareness to increase the commitment to helping the world's poorest people.

Acting Now to End World Poverty

The Life You Can Save

In this book of brief essays, Singer 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 decriminalised, 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 whether the pale blue dot that is our planet has any value. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer's thoughts on one of his favourite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast. Provocative and original, these essays will challenge—and possibly change—your beliefs about a wide range of real-world ethical questions.

86 Brief Essays on Things that Matter

Ethics in the Real World

From the ethicist the New Yorker calls “the most influential living philosopher,” a new way of thinking about living ethically Peter Singer’s books and ideas have been disturbing our complacency ever since the appearance of Animal Liberation. Now he directs our attention to a new movement in which his own ideas have played a crucial role: effective altruism. Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profound idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the "most good you can do." Such a life requires an unsentimental view of charitable giving: to be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us. Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas, and shows how living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment than living for oneself. The Most Good You Can Do develops the challenges Singer has made, in the New York Times and Washington Post, to those who donate to the arts, and to charities focused on helping our fellow citizens, rather than those for whom we can do the most good. Effective altruists are extending our knowledge of the possibilities of living less selfishly, and of allowing reason, rather than emotion, to determine how we live. The Most Good You Can Do offers new hope for our ability to tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas about Living Ethically

The Most Good You Can Do

In this Tenth Anniversary Edition of The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer brings his landmark book up to date. In addition to restating his compelling arguments about how we should respond to extreme poverty, he examines the progress we are making and recounts how the first edition transformed the lives both of readers and the people they helped. Learn how you can be part of the solution, doing good for others while adding fulfillment to your own life.

How To Do Your Part To End World Poverty

10th Anniversary Edition The Life You Can Save

Decamp Professor of Bioethics Peter Singer

Practical Ethics

Peter Singer identifies the central vision that unifies Marx's thought, enabling us to grasp Marx's views as a whole. He explains alienation, historical materialism, the economic theory of Capital, and Marx's idea of communism, in plain English, and concludes with an assessment of Marx's legacy.

Marx: A Very Short Introduction

Many people regard Hegel's work as obscure and extremely difficult, yet his importance and influence are universally acknowledged. Peter Singer eliminates any excuse for remaining ignorant of the outlines of Hegel's philosophy by providing a broad discussion of his ideas and an account of his major works.

Hegel: A Very Short Introduction

First published in 1972, Singer's essay argued that choosing not to send life-saving money to starving people on the other side of the earth is the moral equivalent of neglecting to save drowning children because we prefer not to muddy our shoes. In this publication, his essay is accompanied by other pieces on our obligations to others, as well as a new introduction that discusses Singer's current thinking.

Famine, Affluence, and Morality

James Mason

Jim Mason

IRA W Decamp Professor of Bioethics Peter Singer

Examines the practices of the modern food industry, exposing its exploitation, waste, and inhumane treatment of animals, and provides guidelines for making informed and ethical choices in the selection of food products.

Why Our Food Choices Matter

The Way We Eat

'So the only question is: do animals other than man suffer?' One of the great moral philosophers of the modern age, Peter Singer asks unflinching questions about how we should live our lives. The ideas collected in these writings, arguing that human tyranny over animals is a wrong comparable to racism and sexism, triggered the animal rights movement and gave impetus to the rise in vegan eating. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

Why Vegan?

أخلاقيات عالمنا الواقعي

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike.

The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement

Animal Liberation

Ethics and Sociobiology

The Expanding Circle

هيجل

The Ethics of What We Eat

Love him or hate him, you certainly can't ignore him. For the past twenty years, Australian philosopher and professor of bioethics Peter Singer has pushed the hot buttons of our collective conscience. In addition to writing the book that sparked the modern animal rights movement, Singer has challenged our most closely held beliefs on the sanctity of human life, the moral obligation's of citizens of affluent nations toward those living in the poorest countries of the world, and much more, with arguments that intrigue as often and as powerfully as they incite. Writings On An Ethical Life offers a comprehensive collection of Singer's best and most provocative writing, as chosen by Singer himself. Among the controversial subjects addressed are the moral status of animals, environmental account-ablility, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and the ultimate choice of living an ethical life. This book provides an unsurpassed one-volume view of both the underpinnings and the applications of Singer's governing philosophy.

Writings on an Ethical Life

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology--especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light of recent research on the evolution of morality.

Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress

Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek

In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its nineteenth-century origins, to its justification and its varieties. Considering how utilitarians can respond to objections that are often regarded as devastating, they explore the utilitarian answer to the question of whether torture can ever be justified. They also discuss what it is that utilitarians should seek to maximize, paying special attention to the classical utilitarian view that only pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value. Singer and de Lazari-Radek conclude by analysing the continuing importance of utilitarianism in the world, indicating how it is a force for new thinking on contemporary moral challenges like global poverty, the treatment of animals, climate change, reducing the risk of human extinction, end-of-life decisions for terminally-ill patients, and the shift towards assessing the success of government policies in terms of their impact on happiness.

Peter Singer

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