Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter | 
#ForeverNovember #startswithN #home #vote
Catching up-
0f course, my current buddyread with #Pemberlittens begins with N-
50 hikes in CT- my home state. My son & I hiked weekly using this book from last spring until I sprained my MCL in August & had to stop hiking.
Ethics in the Real World includes a short but thoughtful essay entitled “Why Vote?”
pickExcellent. So many topics covered and so accessibly written. Many moments of deep thought.
After reading the entirety of the 33 1/3 'Rid of Me' on a flight out I found myself in the airport needing a book for my return flight. While I sometimes struggle with Peter Singer I do like other people's reasoned opinion. And for a flight a book of 2-3 page essays was appealing.
I enjoyed it. Some opinion I disagreed with but it got the brain going. I found learning about various events in the debates on Euthenasia especially interesting.
If we could see our lives objectively, we could see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.
Words do have consequences, and what one generation says but does not really believe, the next generation may believe, and even act upon.
For nomadic societies, there was no point in owning anything that one could not carry, but once humans settled down and developed a system of money, that limit to acquisition disappeared.
If we think that democracy is a good thing, then we must believe that the public should know as much as possible about what the government it elects is doing. Snowden has said that he made the disclosures because “the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong."
We need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do. Silent giving will not change a culture that deems it sensible to spend all your money on yourself and your family, rather than to help those in greater need—even though helping others is likely to bring more fulfillment in the long run.
Since 1988, Iran has had a government-funded, regulated system for purchasing kidneys.
Worldwide, the poor leave a very small carbon footprint, but they will suffer the most from climate change.
... those who have enough to spend on luxuries, yet fail to share even a tiny fraction of their income with the poor, must bear some responsibility for the deaths they could have prevented.
Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years.
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
#PeterSinger #Ethics #Philosophy
pickI listened to this as an audiobook through Hoopla Digital. it's a collection of essays, almost all previously published, on all matter of ethical considerations affecting people today. If you're familiar with the author and have been reading his columns, skip it, but if not, this was a fun and interesting introduction to philosophy. The short essay format makes it great to listen to as you can put it down and pick it up easily.
So these little essays are pretty interesting so far....
