Acceptable Premises: An Epistemic Approach to an Informal Logic Problem Book

Practical Ethics was recommended to me by my ethics professor. She claimed that the book was the reason she became a vegetarian.

Reading this book will be an eye-opening experience for many. The discussions tackle the biggest questions facing ethics. At what point should we consider a fetus a human being? What is the value of one human life compared to another? Why worry about saving the environment?

A highlight of the text is that Singer starts with a simple question or example which you will intuitively answer. He then follows the line of logic to a conclusion that may surprise or even shock you. This will make you go back and analyze your own values and presumptions. In that respect, Practical Ethics is an amazing and thought-provoking work.

Because of this structure, Practical Ethics needs to be read in order. Chapters build on arguments made (and supposedly resolved, or at least presumed to be resolved) in previous chapters. So you can't just jump to the clickbait 'euthanasia' section and come away with a clear understanding. The conclusions can run counter to conventional wisdom, but he's not afraid to follow the logic.

It will be no surprise that Singer gets plenty of flak on his conclusions, some of which comes from people who didn't get the whole picture. (See the appendix of the 2nd edition to learn how he was unfairly treated in Germany for exactly this reason...)

All that said, I did find the final chapter discussion of 'why we should act morally' would have fit better at the beginning of the book. Although the results of that discussion are probably the most eye-opening of all, and I can understand why the author would hold that big reveal off till the end.

Regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with Singer's conclusions, Practical Ethics helped me to clarify my own position on complicated and emotionally loaded issues like abortion, euthanasia, animal rights and environmental ethics. It made me more aware of critical aspects of what it means to be human in the first place.

And No, reading Practical Ethics did not turn me into a vegetarian. Your mileage may vary...

-Zero