Posted at Heradas ReviewA wonderful collection of short essays, aimed toward every day people. Each designed to introduce some difficult ethical questions to those that may have never been forced to confront them in their day-to-day lives.The only failure of this book is, in retrospect, actually a success, it being inherent to the function of what the book set out to achieve; the essays are too brief, and as a result, often too black and white. The author, a utilitarian, undoubtedly understood t...

Recommendation by Ekaterina ShulmanWhen voting is voluntary and it is extremely unlikely that the voice of one particular person is able to decide something, when this logic takes hold of the minds, keeping too many from voting, the future of the country is in the hands of a minority.Professor Peter Singer of Princeton and Melbourne Universities is in the top five of the list of one hundred most influential global thinkers of our time. The rating of the Duttweiler Institute is based on three mai...

Ethics in the Real World is a collection of Singer's writings on a wide range of topics, ranging from vegetarianism and charitable giving to parenting and artificial lifeforms. The essays can be interesting and thought provoking. However, if one is at all knowledgeable about the subject matter, the author's views routinely come across as shockingly naive. He also writes as if his subjective value judgments were universal truths; they are not.

The book consists of short essays from one of the most eminent philosophers of our age. The book title Ethics in the Real World is a little misleading because there are in fact essays on a range of topics: from Godless morality to New Year's resolution. As each essay is only a few pages and written in clear and understandable prose, it gives good introductions on major topics. The problem, however, is that sometimes the essays are so short that it gives no justice to Singer's thought. I have rea...

I agree with Singer that the op-ed provides a great medium for scholars to advance their thoughts because it forces them to make their language less complicated and their thoughts more succinct. Having said that, there was no real coherency to this book--no connecting tissue from one thought to the other. It didn't even seem like there was any order at all to the random essays. Having said that each essay was really thought-provoking and it was great to have them all in one place and read Singer...

Australian philosopher and Stanford professor Peter Singer provides bite-sized food for thought in this collection of mini essays on various ethical issues, which was written with a general audience in mind. The essays are organized according to topic, covering everything from animal rights and euthanasia to charitable giving and politics. As a teenager, these types of ethical questions were ones that I devoured endlessly. I lurked on online forums to discover different viewpoints and delighted

Excellent book that raises a lot of important questions that we are often uncomfortable to ask ourselves.

DNF at 68% - some of its arguments were engaging and thought-provoking (especially the ones on medical care), but for the most part I didn't really care for these essays. A lot of them felt obvious, and maybe that's because of the constraints of Singer's format. Personally, I thought the brevity of the essays robbed them of potential for nuance, and made them feel quite underwhelming at times. That being said, I'm deciding to DNF this because it simply isn't holding my attention right now. I'd r...

Jake and I listened to a couple essays in the car on a road trip which started some really good conversations. I want to discuss all 86 essays with someone on a road trip. That would be awesome.

I bought this book based more on the title than anything else. Ethics in the Real World delivers on what it promises. It contains ethical problems that are occurring as we speak. The book takes essays printed in newspapers and collects them into categories for easier reading. The lengthiest pieces in the book are four pages.Peter Singer was not a familiar name to me when I began reading this book. Singer has controversial views according to the blurb, and I can see where some people would become...

I have come to respect Peter singer in recent years because of his contributions to the field of effective altruism, doing the most good possible with your financial contributions to charities. I decided to read this book because it was by Peter Singer. I was somewhat disappointed but I think that was more because I felt somewhat overwhelmed by one short op ad piece after another. I wasn't especially interested in all of the topics and didn't feel that Peter added a great deal to my thinking abo...

A collection of thought-provoking essays on ethical issues that should concern every single one of us.How can philosophy and ethics be valuable if they only raise questions that cannot be definitively answered? This thought always steered me away from philosophy – why are you sitting here thinking about these empty ideas when, instead, you can use this time to do something useful? I found an answer in this book: just like inventing new technologies, by thinking about and discussing things that m...

Dr. Singer is an instructor in bioethics at Princeton, which explains his relentlessly liberal viewpoint and thinly veiled contempt for religion, conservatives and basically everyone who does not agree with him. For an individual who supposedly has spent a lifetime developing the field of Bioethics, many of his arguments (they are in fact arguments, in support of his own opinions, not even-handed treatments of difficult questions) lack even a pretense of logical progression. As a physician who h...

This collection of essays is thought-provoking and at times, controversial. I was inspired to try veganism and dismayed by Singer's lack of appreciation for art and culture, which he consistently values below disease-prevention. Bunched by topic, the essays can be quite repetitive and are not ideal for road-trip listening. The book is better in small doses.

‘Peter Singer’s status as a man of principles and towering intellect—a philosopher extraordinaire, if you will—is unrivalled in Australia.’Sydney Morning Herald‘Peter Singer is a public intellectual par excellence.’Monthly‘Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential.’New Yorker‘Lucidly conceived and written, the brief essays in Ethics in the Real World attest to Singer’s enduring facility for wise, clear-headed enquiry into some of the...

This book will make you think about every single thing you do. It will also make you want to be a better person. This book will also make you want to be a deeper better thinker. Professor Singer does these things effortlessly in easy language George Orwell would approve of. He does it with humility, sincerity and brio. Everyone should have this on their bed side table ready to be absorbed nightly.

2017.09.23–2017.09.26ContentsSinger P (2016) (09:04) Ethics in the Real World - 86 Brief Essays on Things that MatterIntroductionAcknowledgmentsBig Questions01. The Value of a Pale Blue Dot (from Project Syndicate, May 14, 2009)02. Does Anything Matter? (from Project Syndicate, June 13, 2011)03. Is There Moral Progress? (from Project Syndicate, April 14, 2008)04. God and Suffering, Again (from Free Inquiry, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism, a program of the Center for Inquiry, O...

This would make a great 'textbook' for a Philosophy & Ethics course at the high school level. I'd really like to teach such a class someday. The breadth is fantastic: "climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness... whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalised" and more.The

It took me 100 years to finish it lol. It was okay nothing profound or anything. Very dry though which is why it took so long to get through. A huge positive is how succinct and approachable each essay is, no jargon or anything just super accessible.I really do like Peter Singer, he approaches every topic with so much genuine respect he is never patronising or demeaning. He handled many topics that he had direct opposing views to such as religion (he's an athiest) but was always respectful about...

picked this up after reading the seminal Animal Liberation. this was enjoyable and at least occasionally interesting, covering a variety of esoteric subjects, but given the designed brevity of the project I never felt like I was getting anything more than a surface reading of the issues - again, that is by design. this is not a grand and specific treatise concerning a grand and specific issue. it’s energising to have little 2 page dips into particular ethical issues but i personally did not find...