Many pieces could well inspire conversations—and arguments—that deepen and complicate the crucial moral and ethical issues...
Collected opinion pieces from a renowned ethicist.
Australian philosopher Singer (Bioethics/University Center for Human Values, Princeton Univ.; The Most Good You Can Do: How Affective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically, 2015, etc.) has written, famously and controversially, about such issues as animal liberation, abortion, equality, altruism, global health, and attainment of a common good. His new volume gathers 82 short pieces—all under 1,000 words—most of which were contributions to Project Syndicate, a news service for more than 450 media outlets in 153 countries. Singer acknowledges that such pieces often are “ephemeral” and lack the “nuances and qualifications that could be explored in a longer essay.” Because his tone is characteristically sedate, the short form unfortunately flattens the impact of some emotionally laden topics: whether physicians are justified in carrying out euthanasia on severely impaired newborns; whether adult sibling incest should be considered a crime; whether demented, aged adults should be treated with antibiotics; and whether obese individuals should be taxed for excess weight. Among the essays on “Doing Good” are several pieces about how to evaluate charities for giving; Singer argues that supporting the Make-A-Wish Foundation to “fulfill the superhero fantasies of a five-year-old” is less responsible than contributions to organizations that provide surgeries, mosquito nets, and treatments against blindness. In a section on animals, Singer, who has not eaten meat for 40 years, exposes the cruelty involved in the poultry industry, cattle farms, and fishing; it is not merely the method of killing animals that he objects to, but the suffering that animals experience while alive. In a previously unpublished piece, he suggests bringing up at Thanksgiving dinner the ethical implications of eating turkey.
Many pieces could well inspire conversations—and arguments—that deepen and complicate the crucial moral and ethical issues that Singer presents.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-691-17247-7
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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