Book: Practical Ethics

Overview
Peter Singer develops a systematic, practical approach to applied ethics grounded in utilitarian reasoning and rigorous moral imagination. He presses moral thought beyond abstract principles, insisting that ethical judgment must respond to clear, real-world questions about life and death, suffering and responsibility. The approach combines an insistence on impartiality with an attention to consequences, asking how actions affect the interests of all who can suffer or have preferences.

Foundations: utilitarianism and impartiality
Singer bases his reasoning on a utilitarian conception that gives equal moral consideration to like interests, rejecting arbitrary biases based on species, nationality, or personal attachment. He emphasizes that moral standing depends on capacities that matter morally, such as the ability to suffer and to hold preferences, rather than on membership in a particular group. Practical judgment requires weighing harms and benefits across affected parties, and Singer often frames this as preference utilitarianism: what would best satisfy the relevant interests of those affected.

Life, death, and personhood
Central chapters explore difficult decisions about abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide through the lens of personhood and future-directed preferences. Singer challenges assumptions that full moral status attaches automatically at conception or birth; instead, he ties stronger claims to personhood traits like self-awareness and an open future of projected desires. From this perspective, voluntary euthanasia can be morally defensible when it respects a person's preferences and diminishes suffering, while difficult cases involving infants and severely disabled newborns demand careful assessment of interests rather than blanket prohibitions.

Animals and speciesism
One of the book's most influential arguments contests "speciesism," the unjustified privileging of human interests over those of other sentient beings. Singer contends that capacity for suffering and enjoyment is the morally relevant criterion, so factory farming, vivisection, and needless harm to animals require serious moral scrutiny. He advances a strong case for extending equal consideration to nonhuman animals, reshaping debates about diet, research practices, and everyday choices that affect animal welfare.

Global obligations and environmental concerns
Singer broadens the practical agenda to include duties to distant strangers, poverty relief, and environmental stewardship. He argues that geographic distance does not diminish moral obligation; affluent individuals and societies have compelling responsibilities to alleviate severe suffering elsewhere when they can do so at relatively small cost. Population ethics, resource allocation, and environmental sustainability also figure prominently, as Singer treats future generations and ecosystem health as part of the consequential calculus that guides policy and personal conduct.

Capital punishment, moral intuition, and public impact
On questions such as capital punishment, Singer applies the same consequentialist scrutiny, weighing deterrence, the risk of error, and social consequences rather than relying on retributive instincts. His willingness to challenge common intuitions and to subject emotionally charged issues to impartial analysis has provoked controversy, yet it has also shaped the field of applied ethics. The clear, example-driven method invites readers to test moral principles against the practical implications of action, making ethics an active enterprise oriented toward reducing suffering and respecting interests across the moral community.

Legacy and tone
Singer writes with clarity and argumentative rigor, combining philosophical analysis with concrete cases and policy implications. The tone aims to move ethical reflection from abstract doctrine to decisions people face in medicine, law, and everyday life, while urging moral consistency and compassion. The result has been formative for debates about animal rights, global justice, end-of-life care, and the responsibilities of affluent societies.