How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest Contributor(s): Singer, Peter (Author) |
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ISBN: 0879759666 ISBN-13: 9780879759667 Publisher: Prometheus Books OUR PRICE: $22.79 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 1995 Annotation: Singer suggests that people who take an ethical approach to life often avoid the trap of meaninglessness, finding a deeper satisfaction in what they are doing than those people whose goals are narrower and more self-centered. He spells out what he means by an ethical approach to life and shows that it can bring about significant and far-reaching changes to one's life. How Are We to Live? explores the way in which standard contemporary assumptions about human nature and self-interest have led to a world that is fraught with social and environmental problems. Singer asks whether selfishness is in our genes and concludes that we do not have to accept the bleak view of human nature sometimes believed to be inevitable, given our evolutionary origins. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy - Philosophy | History & Surveys - Modern - Philosophy | Individual Philosophers |
Dewey: 170.44 |
LCCN: 94-42598 |
Physical Information: 0.56" H x 5.34" W x 8.46" (0.68 lbs) 272 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: "Is there still anything worth living for? Is anything worth pursuing, apart from money, love, and caring for one's own family?" Internationally known social philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer has an answer to these and other questions in this compelling new volume. "If we can detach ourselves from our own immediate preoccupations and look at the world as a whole and our place in it, there is something absurd about the idea that people should have trouble finding something to live for." Singer suggests that people who take an ethical approach to life often avoid the trap of meaninglessness, finding a deeper satisfaction in what they are doing than those people whose goals are narrower and more self-centered. He spells out what he means by an ethical approach to life, and shows that it can bring about significant and far-reaching changes to one's life. |