The book Practical Ethics is an introduction to applied ethics written by modern bioethical philosopher Peter Singer. It was originally published in 1979 and has since been translated into a number of languages. The book caused outrage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The 1993 second edition has new chapters on refugees and the environment, and new sections on equality and disability, embryo experimentation, and the treatment of academics in Germany. A third edition of Practical Ethics was published in 2011. It doesn't have the chapter on refugees, and has a new chapter on climate change.
The work analyzes, in detail, why and how beings' interests should be weighed. He states that a being's interests should always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties, and not according to its belonging to some abstract group.
The book studies a number of ethical issues including: race, sex, ability, species, abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, embryo experimentation, status of animals, political violence, overseas aid, and obligation to assist others.
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or ethics:
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The vanity of the sciences. Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)