How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest"Is there still anything worth living for? Is anything worth pursuing, apart from money, love, and caring for one's own family?" Internationally known social philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer has an answer to these and other questions in this compelling new volume. "If we can detach ourselves from our own immediate preoccupations and look at the world as a whole and our place in it, there is something absurd about the idea that people should have trouble finding something to live for."Singer suggests that people who take an ethical approach to life often avoid the trap of meaninglessness, finding a deeper satisfaction in what they are doing than those people whose goals are narrower and more self-centered. He spells out what he means by an ethical approach to life, and shows that it can bring about significant and far-reaching changes to one's life. |
Contents
Ivan Boeskys choice 1 The Ring of Gyges | 8 |
Ethics and selfinterest | 18 |
A failing social experiment 22 The loss of community | 28 |
Copyright | |
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act ethically Adam Smith altruism American animal liberation animal liberation movement answer Aristotle asked become behaviour Bellah better Boesky century chapter Christian co-operation commitment confess corporations culture desire developed Donald Trump duty economic ethical evolution evolutionary F. H. Bradley feel feudal genes give goal happiness Henry Spira human idea individual interests Ivan Boesky Japan Japanese kakapo less living an ethical Marx means ment million modern moral nations nature Nazi nice one's parents party percent Peter Singer philosophers pleasure political possible Prisoner's Dilemma problem produce question R. M. Hare reason relationship reward rich self-interest selfish sense Sisyphus social society strategy survive term thing thought tion Tit for Tat ultimate choice University Press usury wealth Western women workers Worldwatch Institute wrote York