Peter Singer is an influential and controversial philosopher, best known (to me) for his strong views on animal rights. Ethics in the Real World is "82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter."
Unfortunately, the essays are too brief to give me any sense of why Singer might be influential or controversial. They are really more like blog posts than essays, and for the most part they merely have time to introduce a subject from the news (abortion, organ sales, euthanasia, religious liberty, climate change), show how they raise an ethical question, and state his position on that question, which is inevitably the stereotypical liberal one. I got no sense of Singer's unique or well-argued point of view, nor did I learn anything about moral reasoning. Disappointing.
Unfortunately, the essays are too brief to give me any sense of why Singer might be influential or controversial. They are really more like blog posts than essays, and for the most part they merely have time to introduce a subject from the news (abortion, organ sales, euthanasia, religious liberty, climate change), show how they raise an ethical question, and state his position on that question, which is inevitably the stereotypical liberal one. I got no sense of Singer's unique or well-argued point of view, nor did I learn anything about moral reasoning. Disappointing.
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