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This brief text assists students in understanding Singer's philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series, (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON SINGER is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

On Peter Singer byHyun Höchsmann
Hyun Höchsmann's study of the philosophy of Peter Singer is a significant contribution to our understanding of some of the major developments in contemporary philosophy, as well as of the ideas and arguments of one of the most articulate and influential philosophical essayists of recent decades. Peter Singer has been a pioneer in applying the powerful tools of philosophical analysis to the major social and ethical issues of our time (and perhaps of all time).

Höchsmann's book offers a very concise and lucid overview of Singer's writings, and a balanced evaluation of their strengths and possible vulnerabilities. It is written with great clarity and elegance.

Raziel Abelson

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
New York University ... Read more

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The primary purpose of this book is to provide a state-of-the-art look at the study of consciousness, which is in the midst of a great renaissance. While honoring Jerome Singer's impressive career in psychology, this volume demonstrates the broad and integrative influence the study of consciousness is having across a variety of subdisciplines of psychology--experimental, personality, developmental, social, and clinical. The contributors to this volume represent both pioneers in the study of consciousness and contemporary researchers whose work has followed in the spirit of their predecessors' seminal work. This book will serve as a landmark end-of-the-century statement about psychology's understanding of the role of consciousness in affective and cognitive processes, the development of imagination in children, and its application to the practice of psychotherapy.
... Read more

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For the first time in history, it is within our reach to eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. A billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for a bottle of water. Nearly ten million children die each year from poverty-related causes. Our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but ethically indefensible. If we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world's population, we must become part of the solution. This is the right time to ask yourself: 'What should I be doing to help?' Peter Singer's unflinching, persuasive and rigorous book is a call to action. It not only suggests what you should be doing, but also shows you how you can do it. It shows you the life you can save. ... Read more

Product Description
This second edition of A Companion to Bioethics, fully revised and updated to reflect the current issues and developments in the field, covers all the material that the reader needs to thoroughly grasp the ideas and debates involved in bioethics.

• Thematically organized around an unparalleled range of issues, including discussion of the moral status of embryos and fetuses, new genetics, life and death, resource allocation, organ donations, AIDS, human and animal experimentation, health care, and teaching
• Now includes new essays on currently controversial topics such as cloning and genetic enhancement
• Topics are clearly and compellingly presented by internationally renowned bioethicists
• A detailed index allows the reader to find terms and topics not listed in the titles of the essays themselves

Customer Reviews (3)

bioethics
decent read for class. almost too much material, but efficient in explaining details of bioethics

Expensive, but well worth the price!!
As source material for the bioethics student, this anthology is a joy to read and refer back to.After a laconic introduction by Helga Kuhse, the book begins to situate bioethics as a discipline with articles contrasting it to law, ethics, and religion.The diverse approaches are next examined, each by an expert (Arras on the case approach, Childress on the prnciple approach, etc).Especially informative and provocative are the articles on personhood by Michael Tooley and brain death by Jeff McMahan.A sanity check is provided for bioethics teachers who wonder if they are approaching the discipline correctly in the critical review on how bioethics is taught by Catherine Myser.The book is a gold mine by experts who dispassionately present their topics cogently and clearly.

Excellent compendium of bioethical issues
This anthology, like all other Blackwell philosophy anthologies, is a keeper.This text is comprehensive, and presents multiple viewpoints on each issue, unlike many texts, which present primarily one viewpoint. ... Read more

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This volume collects a wealth of articles covering a range of topics of practical concern in the field of ethics, including active and passive euthanasia, abortion, organ transplants, capital punishment, the consequences of human actions, slavery, overpopulation, the separate spheres of men and women, animal rights, and game theory and the nuclear arms race. The contributors are Thomas Nagel, David Hume, James Rachels, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Michael Tooley, John Harris, John Stuart Mill, Louis Pascal, Jonathan Glover, Derek Parfit, R.M. Hare, Janet Radcliffe Richards, Peter Singer, and Nicholas Measor. ... Read more

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Medicine and health care generate many bioethical problems and dilemmas that are of great academic, professional and public interest. This comprehensive resource is designed as a succinct yet authoritative text and reference for clinicians, bioethicists, and advanced students seeking a better understanding of ethics problems in the clinical setting. Each chapter illustrates an ethical problem that might be encountered in everyday practice; defines the concepts at issue; examines their implications from the perspectives of ethics, law and policy; and then provides a practical resolution. There are 10 key sections presenting the most vital topics and clinically relevant areas of modern bioethics. International, interdisciplinary authorship and cross-cultural orientation ensure suitability for a worldwide audience. This book will assist all clinicians in making well-reasoned and defensible decisions by developing their awareness of ethical considerations and teaching the analytical skills to deal with them effectively. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Bioethics for today
It is an excellent textbook in bioethics; highly didactic and comprehensive for every medical doctor in practice today.

The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethis was excellent
The book was in a very good condition and it arrives very quickly within the time stipulated I want to buy again with Amazon ... Read more

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The new science of nutrigenomics and its ethical and societal challenges


Gene-diet interactions--which underlie relatively benign lactose intolerance to life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular disease--have long been known. But until now, scientists lacked the tools to fully understand the underlying mechanisms that cause these conditions. In recent years, however, strides in human genomics and the nutritional sciences have allowed for the advancement of a new science--dubbed nutrigenomics. Although this science may lead to personalized nutrition and dietary recommendations that can mitigate, prevent, or cure sickness, current oversight mechanisms and regulations for emerging direct-to-public nutrigenomic tests are still in their infancy.

Science, Society, and the Supermarket: The Opportunities and Challenges of Nutrigenomics discusses the many ethical, legal, and social challenges presented by nutrigenomics. Concerning itself with the basic uses of nutrigenomic research as well as its clinical and commercial aspects, this text sheds light on such issues as:
* Opportunities and challenges for nutrigenomics
* The science of nutrigenomics
* The ethics of nutrigenomic tests and information both in a clinical setting and by private third parties
* Alternatives for nutrigenomics service delivery
* Nutrigenomics and the regulation of health claims for foods and drugs
* Equity and access to nutrigenomics in industrialized and developing countries
* Intellectual property issues

By taking a proactive bioethical stance on the subject, Science, Society, and the Supermarket offers a thorough and timely analysis on both the benefits and risks of nutrigenomics. Along with a thought-provoking examination of the issues, this book provides ethical guidelines and recommendations for further study in policy and regulatory development. ... Read more

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While moral perfectionists rank conscious beings according to their cognitive abilities, Paola Cavalieri launches a more inclusive defense of all forms of subjectivity. In concert with Peter Singer, J. M. Coetzee, Harlan B. Miller, and other leading animal studies scholars, she expands our understanding of the nonhuman in such a way that the derogatory category of "the animal" becomes meaningless. In so doing, she presents a nonhierachical approach to ethics that better respects the value of the conscious self.

Cavalieri opens with a dialogue between two imagined philosophers, laying out her challenge to moral perfectionism and tracing its influence on our attitudes toward the "unworthy." She then follows with a roundtable "multilogue" which takes on the role of reason in ethics and the boundaries of moral status. Coetzee, Nobel Prize winner for Literature and author ofThe Lives of Animals, emphasizes the animality of human beings; Miller, a prominent analytic philosopher at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, dismantles the rationalizations of human bias; Cary Wolfe, professor of English at Rice University, advocates an active exposure to other worlds and beings; and Matthew Calarco, author ofZoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida, extends ethical consideration to entities that traditionally have little or no moral status, such as plants and ecosystems.

As Peter Singer writes in his foreword, the implications of this conversation extend far beyond the issue of the moral status of animals. They "get to the heart of some important differences about how we should do philosophy, and how philosophy can relate to our everyday life." From the divergences between analytical and continental approaches to the relevance of posthumanist thinking in contemporary ethics, the psychology of speciesism, and the practical consequences of an antiperfectionist stance,The Death of the Animal confronts issues that will concern anyone interested in a serious study of morality.

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New developments in reproductive technology have made headlines since the birth of the world's first in vitro fertilization baby in 1978.But is embryo experimentation ethically acceptable? What is the moral status of the early human embryo? And how should a democratic society deal with so controversial an issue, where conflicting views are based on differing religious and philosophical positions? These controversial questions are the subject of this book, which, as a current compendium of ideas and arguments on the subject, makes an original contribution of major importance to this debate. Peter Singer is the author of many books, including Practical Ethics (CUP, 1979), Marx (Hill & Wang, 1980), and Should the Baby Live? (co-authored with Helga Kuhse, Oxford U.P., 1986). ... Read more

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Asking, "Why, or in what circumstances, ought we to obey the law?", this work focuses on the common view that disobedience to the law, while justifiable in a dictatorship, is much more difficult to justify in a democracy. It then develops a theory of political obligation in an ideal democracy. After discussing various forms of disobedience, the author wonders to what extent systems of government approximate to this ideal and why Western democracies fall short of it. The book concludes with a brief case study: the development of disobedience in Northern Ireland. ... Read more

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This book is the first systematic, detailed treatment of the approaches to ethical issues taken by biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The application of genetic/genomic technologies raises a whole spectrum of ethical questions affecting global health that must be addressed. Topics covered in this comprehensive survey include considerations for bioprospecting in transgenics, genomics, drug discovery, and nutrigenomics, as well as how to improve stakeholder relations, design ethical clinical trials, avoid conflicts of interest, and establish ethics advisory boards. The expert authors represent multiple disciplines including law, medicine, bioinformatics, pharmaceutics, business, and ethics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Useful case-studies, concusions too optimistic
This book provides a useful range of case-studies, illustrating how various biotech and companies pharmaceutical companies have dealt with ethical issues. This is useful for two reasons:
1) If you want to understand why companies do what they do, you need some insight into their internal decision-making;
2) The companies profiled in BioIndustry Ethics are not perfect, ethically, but each of them has made at least some effort to do better. So at least in THAT sense, they serve as positive examples of ways other companies can move foreward.

My main complaint is with the final chapter, which attempts to summarize the lessons learned from the book's various case-studies. Unfortunately, the result is relatively weak. The chapter adopts a rather one-sided view of the bottom-line value of ethics to a corporation, implying that adopting an explicit focus on ethics, for example, is a sure-and-easy route to profit. (There is in fact a literature debating that issue, in the field of Business Ethics.)

Still, the book is overall a very valuable contribution. ... Read more

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The New York Times bestseller book every American should read before voting in the 2004 elections

More than any president in recent memory, George W. Bush invokes the language of good versus evil and right versus wrong. Here, world-renowned Princeton University professor of ethics Peter Singer shines a spotlight on Bush, analyzing whether or not he has lived up to the values he so often touts in his presidential prose. Called "timely and searching," by the Washington Post, this accessible look at the president reveals his pattern of ethical confusion and self-contradiction, and his moral failure on dozens of hot-button issues. Labeled a "generous critic" by the New York Times, Singer advances devastating arguments that make this the book to give to anyone thinking of voting for George W. Bush in November 2004.

"George W. Bush has met his match. This is a chilling and powerful intellectual indictment of an administration desperate to cover up the damage it inflicts." - David Corn, author of The Lies of George W. Bush and Washington editor of The Nation

"Even Bush supporters will have to admit that, in an age of diatribe, this book elevates the level of political discourse. The more American voters who read it, the better." - Robert Wright, author of Nonzero and The Moral Animal

"Mr. Singer's influence extends to the world beyond the ivory tower partly because he writes with such lucidity and quiet passion about genuinely pressing issues." - The Economist ... Read more

Customer Reviews (36)

THIS BOOK DOES TOO MUCH WRONG
It is obvious the author is trying to put Bush down even though he claims to be being fair to both sides. One way this book is unfair is Saddam's genocide attempts on the Kurds (whom Saddam killed over 180,000 in just one year many more were killed other years plus Saddam got about a million people killed in a war with Iran he mostly started and Saddam killed many tens of thousands of non-Kurdish Iraqis internally in Iraq). Singer mentions Saddam's genocide attempts but gives no incredibly high but true figures on just what a genocide attempt, the untrained
reader is left to guess how many people Saddam killed. But when the author puts Bush down and talks of another mass murdering spree (this one going on in Africa) and Bush not stopping it the death toll murders of this holocaust get quoted (600,000).

This author mostly complains about how the US did not stop Saddam sooner. He fails to understand (or admit)
that the US military was totally and then semi-paralyzed by the powerful pacifist movement of the late60's/early70's. It was not until 30 years after the Vietnam pullout that the uS was finally able to take total military action like the current occupation of Iraq.

WhatifSingeriswrongandBushisamadman?

This is a profoundly disturbing book:if Singer is right, George Bush is a president sadly deficient in decent ethics, and if he is wrong it shows the collapse of basic ethics across much of America.

If he is right, and Singer is arguably the most provocative philosopher now in America, then Bush is merely the public face of a cynical cabal that has nothing but contempt for everyone and everything outside their own limited acumen.Bush may have implemented this conspiracy by his delegation of management policies, after all he is congenitally lazy and inclined to rely on others for his successes.Furthermore, the universally admired genius of evil, Karl Rove, shows Bush knows how to pick sinister subordinates.

On this basis, the Bush White House has the ethical standards of the final days of an Enron.This is the substance of the argument on which Singer feasts;it reminds me of good federal prosecutors who are precise, thorough, detailed and with absolute proof.It's a treat to watch such skill and certainty, and Singer is such a man.

But there's a second element, perhaps too speculative for Singer to include.Many years ago I watched a successful "consumer protection" campaign.Once in office, "consumer protection" meant rewarding wise and astute business leaders because they would never ask for anything they didn't need."Consumer protection" was not what ignorant consumers wanted, but was redefined as creating rich and powerful corporations.

Sometimes, "ethics" are bizarre.

Now, for something completely different.Bush considers himself a "born again" Christian whose sins are forgiven.I've met others who make similar claims and lead utterly disreputable lives--they know every sin is forgiven because they "have accepted Jesus".

Consider the result if national leaders assume they can do anything because if it is good it will benefit America and harm no others, and if it is harmful to America or others then God will forgive their sins and errors.Some "born again" Christians truly believe this, and thus consider they have perfect ethics.It may be far from the intended meaning;but, with "born again" Christians as with everyone else, errors are possible.

Singer's weakness isn't that he forgets to try to understand what they actually do;it's that he forgets to try to understand what they actually believe.

Singer is a "prosecutor" who is calm, precise, detailed, clear and convincing when proving a very narrow and carefully defined situation.But after reading this book, it's hard not to have the impression that he is using logic to define the ethics of madmen.

Harsh but fair
Professor Singer does a great job of pointing out Bush's many hypocrisies and lies. He fairly, but ruthlessly, points out Bush's professed goals and morality are pure deceit. One example: Bush is concerned that embryos must not be destroyed because he (supposedly)values life, but has no qualms about killing foreigners in wars or executing prisoners.

My one quibble is that Singer analyzes the war in Afghanistan without taking into account the benefits of removing the Taliban from power. So what- it's still a great book.

A must read for liberals and conservatives
Unfortunately, most political books seek to lower the level of political discourse in this nation.Through half-truths, outright lies, miscalculations, and (for lack of a better word), propaganda, other authors only seek to confuse and enrage their readers into blindly accepting their point of view and perception of reality.

Not Peter Singer.He takes a serious approach at discussing the Bush ideology from every point view, and philosophically examines the hypocrisies inherent in his dialogue and behavior.He does this fairly and with great respect to his readers as to not insult their intelligence.

Conservatives should read this to see the intelligent realities for why others object to their ideology, and how Bush is slandering these ideologies.And liberals should read this to realize that there are better ways to approach political debate without sinking down to the level of a pundit.

The Most Moral President?
Peter Singer's book is very illuminating,if somewhat influenced by an obviously liberal political agenda.No president in recent memory has done as much moralizing as Bush, but I would hardly call him moral. Singer points out many contradictions in Bush's
statements and policies, but that's not hard to do. His policies are replete with contradictions. The easiest policy to target is the one on Iraq. From repeated assurances that Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Quieda, to a public admittance
of "no Iraqi link to that terrorist organization", Bush clearly showed, not only his incompetence in handling such a delicate situation, by rushing to war when there was no clear evidence of WMD, but by blaming his mistakes on
false intelligence. So, if it's the false intelligence that caused him to err, as he claims, then why does he refuse to admit that he even made an error?
Singer's strongest points in the book, are showing the blatant lack of morals that manifested itself in the President's juvenile behavior, and ever present contradictions.
I only gave Singer a 3-star rating however, because his political motives in writing the book were too obvious. ... Read more

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This series of guides is designed to take visitors away from the tourist centres and out into the countryside, exploring by private or public transport, or on foot. The book are divided into three sections: car tours, picnics, and walks for all ages and abilities. Each book contains up-to-date timetables for public transport. ... Read more