RETHINKING LIFE AND DEATH THE COLLAPSE OF OUR TRADITIONAL ETHICS 2ND EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Peter Singer | 9780312144012 | | | | | Rethinking Life and Death The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics 2nd edition PDF Book Sperm and egg have potential too, perhaps comparable with an early embryo, because: a. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. Yet, many continue to raise the "sanctity of life" position when it is clear that our legal and ethical positions in western society have embraced the "quality of life" stance. Practical Ethics. This universalising step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, [24] : 11 is crucial and sets him apart from those moral theorists, from Hobbes to David Gauthier , who tie morality to prudence. Makes many excellent points. Book is in Used-Good condition. Why did the Harvard committee limit its concern to those with no brain activity at all, rather than those with no consciousness? Veganism and vegetarianism. Ethical conduct is justified by reasons that go beyond prudence to "something bigger than the individual", addressing a larger audience. Aug 18, John Budding rated it really liked it. In other words, he discouraged their impartially taking into account all individual interests. Bentham and Singer are interested in different research fields, however, for both of them, ethics must not be based on custom or habit but be evaluated by looking at the consequences of an action which is where the consequentialist principle originates. Voluntary euthanasia is that to which the subject consents. An unstable compromise [35] Problem: according to the Harvard committee, death occurs when all functions of the brain have irreversibly ceased. Some chapters of Animal Liberation are dedicated to criticising testing on animals but, unlike groups such as PETA , Singer is willing to accept such testing when there is a clear benefit for medicine. This means that, in effect, the Law Lords were discarding it as stated. Probably the thing I enjoyed most about this book was going through the mental exercise of thinking about certain ethical situations. View all copies of this ISBN edition:. He acknowledges that that is arbitrary, and gives no real reasoning for such an arbitrary day. Many taboos have since fallen. They have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery which we have. In A Darwinian Left , [46] Singer outlines a plan for the political left to adapt to the lessons of evolutionary biology. Book Description Text Publishing, It will further evaluate whether they are being applied at the societal level i. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor. Rethinking Life and Death The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics 2nd edition Writer If, however, we insist on believing in divine creation, we are forced to admit that the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all good. Condition: Very Good. Or do we make these efforts because the fetus has a right to life which could only be overridden by the right of the pregnant woman to control her own body--and in this case there is no living pregnant woman whose rights override those of the fetus? According to philosopher Helga Kuhse , Singer is "almost certainly the best-known and most widely read of all contemporary philosophers". Gibson Square Books Ltd. Archived from the original on 12 October Convert currency. He is a board member of Animal Charity Evaluators , a charity evaluator used by many members of the effective altruism community which recommends the most cost-effective animal advocacy charities and interventions. Vegetarians Vegans Fictional characters Vegetarian festivals Vegetarian organizations Vegetarian restaurants List of vegan media. He never thought that the aim of Utilitarianism was to explain or justify ordinary moral views; it was, rather, to reform them. For Bentham, it meant that all sentient beings should be included in the utilitarian calculus. None of the two acts should be absolutely prohibited. Singer was able to find one book in which he could read up on the issue Animal Machines by Ruth Harrison and "within a week or two" he approached his wife saying that he thought they needed to make a change to their diet, and that he did not think they could justify eating meat. But even this author could not stomach the logical and monstrous ends to his own arguments. Singer himself adopted utilitarianism on the basis that people's preferences can be universalised, leading to a situation where one takes the "point of view of the universe" and "an impartial standpoint". Why did Catholics switch to opposing abortion from conception? Singer uses this introduction to pose the many ethical questions that are raised because of medicine's ability to keep a "brain dead" body warm for an extended period of time. Carol J. Not all human beings are persons in that sense. No trivia or quizzes yet. There is no moral difference between the abortion of a fetus and the active termination of the life of a newborn infant when both have the same gestational age and suffer from the same defects. All OpenEdition. Obviously, in my personal life, it's pretty safe to say that I will never take a human life. Admiraal gave her a lethal injection. It follows, for Singer, that killing a severely handicapped child is not morally equivalent to killing a person, adding that very often, it is not wrong at all. Singer Ed. I'll first discuss some of the ways in which I felt this book helped me do that, and then I'll discuss Occasionally, I like to read books that I know I will disagree with. McCloskey as his two most important mentors. Martin's Griffin first published April 1st Readers also enjoyed. A very thought provoking book. Jan 22, Peter rated it really liked it Shelves: best-life-changers. A Companion to Applied Ethics. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Her boyfriend and her parents wanted the hospital to do everything possible so that the baby would be born. The same coherence can be identified as regards two other ethical issues: abortion and infanticide. Need an account? The second part will explore the more precise touchstone of the status of animals, a less central concern for Bentham than for Singer. Now it is possible thanks to the methods outlined by de Campo 2. April rated it really liked it Mar 22, Friend Reviews. In , Singer wrote a book with the physician Deanne Wells arguing that surrogate motherhood should be allowed and regulated by the state by establishing nonprofit 'State Surrogacy Boards', which would ensure fairness between surrogate mothers and surrogacy-seeking parents. Singer thinks the better way to take this proposal is that we are allowed to terminate human life before the brain starts working just as he thinks we should be allowed to remove organs from living humans with dead cortexes. Finite medical resources [] In none of these cases is defining death the important issue. Now i. Lord Browne-Wilkinson: How can it be lawful to allow a patient to die slowly, though painlessly, over a period of weeks from lack of food but unlawful to produce his immediate death by lethal injection, thereby saving his family from yet another ordeal to add to the tragedy that has already struck them? Rethinking Life and Death The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics 2nd edition Reviews For this problem and all the others he considers, Singer seeks the solution that will have the best consequences for all beings involved, in keeping with the principle that beings with similar interests deserve similar consideration, independent of what groups they may happen to belong to. In , disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson debated Singer, challenging his belief that it is morally permissible to euthanise new-born children with severe disabilities. Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure. A profound and provocative work, Rethinking Life and Death , in the tradition of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World , examines the ethical dilemmas that confront us as we near the twenty-first century. By Peter Singer. So does conception occur when the sperm enters the egg or 22 hours later? Who is Homo? However, I wholeheartedly recommended as a thorough primer to a utilitarian perspective on sanctity of life issues to others who are new to the subject. Of course, my disagreement is with the first statement. Singer, Peter. Veganism and vegetarianism. They are not persons. The burden is great on patients who suffer permanent loss of intellect, on their families, on the hospitals, and on those in need of hospital beds already occupied by these comatose patients. UK: Cambridge University Press. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular , utilitarian perspective. However this principle does not apply if a being is incapable of suffering or of feeling either pain or happiness. Later in the book he says, "Human babies are not self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. Understood this way, the brain-life criterion is an attack on premise 1: it is okay to take some innocent human life — that is, the life of those who do not have active cortexes. Two possibilities: 1. Between and this question was asked of a national sample 13 times: Please tell me whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if there is a strong chance of a serious defect in the baby.