The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary by Peter Singer, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek

By Peter Singer, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek

What does the belief of taking 'the perspective of the universe' let us know approximately ethics? the good nineteenth-century utilitarian Henry Sidgwick used this metaphor to offer what he took to be a self-evident ethical fact: the great of 1 person is of not more value than the great of the other. moral judgments, he held, are aim truths that we will be able to recognize via cause. the moral axioms he took to be self-evident supply a origin for utilitarianism. He vitamins this starting place with an issue that not anything other than states of cognizance have final price, which led him to carry that excitement is the one factor that's intrinsically sturdy. Are those claims defensible? Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer try them opposed to numerous perspectives held by way of modern writers in ethics, and finish that they're. This publication is accordingly a defence of objectivism in ethics, and of hedonistic utilitarianism. The authors additionally discover, and ordinarily help, Sidgwick's perspectives on many different key questions in ethics: tips on how to justify a moral idea, the importance of an evolutionary clarification of our ethical judgments, the alternative among preference-utilitarianism and hedonistic utilitarianism, the clash among self-interest and common benevolence, even if whatever that it'd be incorrect to do overtly should be correct if saved mystery, how challenging utilitarianism is, no matter if we should always the long run, or prefer people who are worse off, the ethical prestige of animals, and what's an optimal inhabitants.

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