Practical Ethics

Singer argues that ethics requires equal consideration of interests, and that this principle can be derived from the bare idea of universality: my own interests cannot count for more simply because they are mine. Once this is accepted, Singer contends, we arrive at an initially utilitarian position that must be the point of departure for ethical reasoning. The book rejects the assumption that common moral intuitions about species, borders, or the sanctity of human life are reliable guides. It also rejects the idea that applied ethics is merely the application of pre-existing rules; Singer presents an ethical theory of his own that can be applied consistently across all the practical cases he examines [citation:1][citation:11].

A review in the journal Ethics argued that Singer's central derivation is less successful than his treatment of specific issues. The reviewer noted that the move from equal consideration of interests to an aggregative utilitarian principle is not as direct as Singer claims: one can evaluate interests impartially without adding them up in utilitarian fashion. Rawls's original position, for example, takes everyone's interests into account impartially yet yields a distributive principle rather than aggregate utility. The reviewer concluded that from the bare notion of impartiality, there is no presumptive case for utilitarianism over competing principles of justice. Singer's argument that we cannot refuse to take this step was therefore challenged as too quick [citation:6].

The book provoked a sharply different reception in German-speaking countries than in the English-speaking world. Singer added an appendix to the second edition describing what he called deep misunderstandings of and consequent violent reactions to the book in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, where it tested the limits of freedom of speech [citation:1][citation:11]. The controversy centered on Singer's discussions of euthanasia and the value of disabled lives, which were interpreted by some critics as endorsing Nazi-style practices. Singer maintained that his arguments had been misrepresented, and the episode became a case study in how philosophical arguments about sensitive topics can be distorted in public reception. The appendix itself is a document of that conflict.

The first edition appeared in 1979 and established the book as a classic introduction to applied ethics. The second edition, published in 1993, revised all existing chapters, added two new ones, updated the bibliography, and included the appendix on the German reception [citation:1]. The third edition, published in 2011, revised and updated all chapters again and added a new chapter addressing climate change, asking whether it is wrong to have a carbon footprint above the global average [citation:2]. The third edition thus extends the book's method to the most significant ethical challenge of the twenty-first century, showing that Singer treats the work as a living intervention rather than a fixed text.

Practical Ethics systematizes and extends arguments Singer had developed elsewhere. Animal Liberation (1975) made the case against speciesism; Practical Ethics places that argument within a broader utilitarian framework and connects it to other issues. The Expanding Circle (1981) provided the evolutionary and rational basis for the expansion of moral concern; Practical Ethics applies that framework to concrete policy questions. The review in Dialogue noted that Singer deserves credit for placing the interests of animals and famine victims on the agenda of applied ethics and making that agenda prominent in public forums [citation:3][citation:8]. Practical Ethics is thus the systematic statement of the method that the other books apply or defend.

Both Singer and Rawls begin from a commitment to impartiality, but they draw different conclusions. Rawls's original position, in A Theory of Justice, models impartiality through a veil of ignorance that yields principles of justice favoring the least advantaged. Singer's universalization of self-interested decision-making yields an aggregative utilitarian principle that seeks the greatest overall satisfaction of interests. The Ethics reviewer noted that Rawlsian impartiality does not imply aggregate utility, and that Singer's claim that we must arrive at utilitarianism from universality is therefore mistaken. The disagreement is not about whether impartiality matters but about what impartiality requires: a distributive principle or an aggregative one [citation:6].

The replaceability argument holds that if persons are viewed as receptacles for utility, there is no moral issue about which persons exist over time so long as aggregate utility remains the same. If individuals die but are replaced by equivalent numbers of equally happy persons, the state of the world is as good as before. The Ethics reviewer identified this as a striking and successful portion of the book, but also noted its unsettling implications [citation:6]. The argument implies that merely conscious beings are replaceable while self-conscious beings are not, which has consequences for how Singer treats abortion and euthanasia. Critics have argued that the replaceability argument treats persons as interchangeable units of utility in ways that violate common moral intuitions about individual worth.