How are we to live? Ethics in an age of self-interest Peter Singer was born in Australia in 1946 and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. He has aught at the University of Oxford, New York University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of California at Irvine, and La Trobe University. He is now Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director of the Institute of Ethics and Public Affairs, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne Professor Singer has written and edited more than twenty books on ethics and related areas of philosophy. He is best known for his book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals, which spawned the international animal liberation movement. He is the author of the major article on ethics in the current edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and co-editor of the journal Bioethics
How are we to live? Ethics in an age of self-interest Peter Singer was born in Australia in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. He has taught at the University of Oxford, New York University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of California at Irvine, and La Trobe University. He is now Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director of the Institute of Ethics and Public Affairs, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne. Professor Singer has written and edited more than twenty books on ethics and related areas of philosophy. He is best known for his book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals, which spawned the international animal liberation movement. He is the author of the major article on ethics in the current edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and co-editor of the journal Bioethics
Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viIi PREFACE A Mandarin Random House Australia australia CHAPTER I The ultimate choice 1 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, NSW 2061 p-l/www.randomhouse.com.au Ivan Boesky's choice I The Ring of Gyges 9 First published in Australia in 1993 by the Text Publishing Company What in the hell are we doing this for? 11 This Mandarin edition reprinted by Random House Australia, 1997 Ethics and self-interest 21 Copyright e Peter Singer 1993 CHAPTER 2 What's in it for me? 26 A failing social experiment 26 transmitted in any form or by any means(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright The loss of community 34 and the publisher of this book. CHAPTER 3 Using up the world 4 Printed and bound in Ar australian Print Group Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Adam Smith? 45 Cataloguing-in-Publication data Living on our inheritance 49 How an overflowing sink makes Adam Smith obsolete 55 When are we well oft? 57 CHAPTER 4 How we came to be living this way 65 ISBN1863304312 A perverse instinct 65 Aristotle on the art of making money 67 L. Ethics. 2 Self-interest- Moral and ethical aspects. L. Title. Can a merchant be pleasing to God? 69 Luthers calling and Calvins grace 77 The religious and the secular converge 8 A withered greening 90
A Mandarin book Published by Random House Australia Australia 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, NSW 2061 http://www.randomhouse.com.au First published in Australia in 1993 by the Text Publishing Company Reprinted 1993, 1994 This Mandarin edition reprinted by Random House Australia, 1997 Copyright © Peter Singer 1993 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Typeset in Garamond by Bookset Pry Ltd, Melbourne Printed and bound in Australia by Australian Print Group National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data Singer, Peter. How are we to live? Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 86330 431 2 1. Ethics. 2. Self-interest - Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. 170 Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S viii « PREFAC E i x CHAPTE R 1 The ultimate choice 1 Ivan Boesky's choice 1 The Ring of Gyges 9 'What in the hell are we doing this for?' 11 The end of history or the beginning of secular ethics? 14 Ethics and self-interest 21 CHAPTE R 2 'What's in it for me?' 26 A failing social experiment 26 The loss of community 34 CHAPTE R 3 Using up the world 45 Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Adam Smith? 45 Living on our inheritance 49 How an overflowing sink makes Adam Smith obsolete 55 When are we well off? 57 CHAPTE R 4 How we came to be living this way 65 A perverse instinct 65 Aristotle on the art of making money 67 Can a merchant be pleasing to God? 69 Luther's calling and Calvin's grace 77 The religious and the secular converge 80 The consumer society 88 A withered greening 90 The Reagan years: 'Enrich thyself 93
ve to live nts v CHAPTER 5 Is selfishness in our genes? 99 CHAPTER II The good life The biological case for selfishness 99 Pushing the peanut forward Caring for our children 103 The escalator of reason 268 Caring for our kin 108 Toward an ethical life 277 Caring for our group 115 NOTES 281 CHAPTER 6 How the Japanese live 125 Japan: A successful social experiment? 125 NDEX 303 The corporation as an ethical community 127 The self and the group 141 CHAPTER 7 Titfor Tat 152 Caring for those who care for us 152 Self-interest and ethics: An interim conclusion 180 CHAPTER Living ethically 182 A green shoot 189 Why do people act ethically? 198 ChaPTer 9 The nature ofethics 202 a broader perspective 202 The gender of ethics 207 Jesus and Kant: Two views on why we ought to live Beyond Jesus and Kant: The search for an ultimate answer 220 CHAPTER 10 Living to some purpose 230 The myth of Sisyphus and the meaning of life 230 Of housewives, Aboriginal Australians and caged hens 232 The struggle to win 23 The inward turn 244 A transcendent cause 253
vi How ar e we to live ? CHAPTE R 5 Is selfishness in our genes? 99 The biological case for selfishness 99 Caring for our children 103 Caring for our kin 108 J Caring for our group 115 CHAPTE R 6 How the Japanese live 125 Japan: A successful social experiment? 125 The corporation as an ethical community 127 The self and the group 141 CHAPTE R 7 Tit for Tat 152 Caring for those who care for us 152 Doing better with Tit for Tat 167 Self-interest and ethics: An interim conclusion 180 CHAPTE R 8 Living ethically 182 Heroes 182 A green shoot 189 Why do people act ethically? 198 CHAPTE R 9 The nature of ethics 202 A broader perspective 202 The gender of ethics 207 Jesus and Kant: Two views on why we ought to live ethically 212 Beyond Jesus and Kant: The search for an ultimate answer 220 CHAPTE R 10 Living to some purpose 230 The myth of Sisyphus and the meaning of life 230 Of housewives, Aboriginal Australians and caged hens 232 The struggle to win 238 The inward turn 244 A transcendent cause 253 Content s vii CHAPTE R 11 The good life 260 Pushing the peanut forward 260 The escalator of reason 268 Toward an ethical life 277 NOTE S 281 INDE X 303
Acknowledgements Preface I owe thanks to many people. Di Gribble of Text Publishing Is there still anything to live for? Is anything worth pursuing, uggested that the time was right for a book on this theme and part from money, love, and caring for ones own family? If so, Michael Heyward of the same firm advised me after the book what could it be? Talk of something to live for has a faintly reached the draft stage. An Australian Research Council Grant eligious flavour, but many people who are not at all religious made it possible for Margaret Parnaby to provide part-time have an uneasy feeling that they may be missing out on some- research assistance, gathering materials, checking references and thing basic that would give their lives a significance it now lacks providing critical comments at every stage of the work. Her Nor do these people have a deep commitment to any political work has helped to put flesh on the bare bones of the outline I creed. Over the past century political struggle has often filled had planned. Various drafts were read by Aaron Asher, Stephen the place that religion once held in other times and cultures. No Buckle, Paola Cavalieri, Lori Gruen, Helga Kuhse, Shunici one who reflects on recent history can now believe that politics Noguchi, Julian Savulescu, Renata Singer, Henry Spira an alone will suffice to solve all our problems. But what else can we Tomasaburo Yamauchi. Each gave me helpful comments and live for? In this book I give one answer. It is as ancient as the collectively, they have made the book- whatever faults it may dawn of philosophy, but as much needed in our circumstances still have - much better than it would have been otherwise today as it ever was before. The answer is that we can live an ethical life. By doing so we make ourselves part of a great, cross- cultural tradition. Moreover. we will find that to live an ethical fulfillment If we can detach ourselves from our own immediate preoccu pations and look at the world as a whole and our place in it, there is something absurd about the idea that people should have trouble finding something to live for. There is, after all, so much that needs to be done. As this book was nearing completion, United Nations troops entered Somalia in an attempt to ensure that food supplies reached the starving population there Although this attempt went badly wrong, it was at least a hope ul sign that affluent nations were prepared to do something about hunger and suffering in areas remote from them. We may learn from this episode, and future attempts may be more suc cessful. Perhaps we are at the beginning of a new era in which
Acknowledgements I owe thanks to many people. Di Gribble of Text Publishing suggested that the time was right for a book on this theme, and Michael Heyward of the same firm advised me after the book reached the draft stage. An Australian Research Council Grant made it possible for Margaret Parnaby to provide part-time research assistance, gathering materials, checking references and providing critical comments at every stage of the work. Her work has helped to put flesh on the bare bones of the outline I had planned. Various drafts were read by Aaron Asher, Stephen Buckle, Paola Cavalieri, Lori Gruen, Helga Kuhse, Shunici Noguchi, Julian Savulescu, Renata Singer, Henry Spira and Tomasaburo Yamauchi. Each gave me helpful comments and, collectively, they have made the book — whatever faults it may still have — much better than it would have been otherwise. Preface Is there still anything to live for? Is anything worth pursuing, apart from money, love, and caring for one's own family? If so, what could it be? Talk of 'something to live for' has a faintly religious flavour, but many people who are not at all religious have an uneasy feeling that they may be missing out on something basic that would give their lives a significance it now lacks. Nor do these people have a deep commitment to any political creed. Over the past century political struggle has often filled the place that religion once held in other times and cultures. No one who reflects on recent history can now believe that politics alone will suffice to solve all our problems. But what else can we live for? In this book I give one answer. It is as ancient as the dawn of philosophy, but as much needed in our circumstances today as it ever was before. The answer is that we can live an ethical life. By doing so we make ourselves part of a great, crosscultural tradition. Moreover, we will find that to live an ethical life is not self-sacrifice, but self-fulfillment. If we can detach ourselves from our own immediate preoccupations and look at the world as a whole and our place in it, there is something absurd about the idea that people should have trouble finding something to live for. There is, after all, so much that needs to be done. As this book was nearing completion, United Nations troops entered Somalia in an attempt to ensure that food supplies reached the starving population there. Although this attempt went badly wrong, it was at least a hopeful sign that affluent nations were prepared to do something about hunger and suffering in areas remote from them. We may learn from this episode, and future attempts may be more successful. Perhaps we are at the beginning of a new era in which
How are we to live we will no longer simply sit in front of our television sets watch- world really were full of people who take so little care of their ing small children die and then continue to live our affluent lives wn lives, never mind the lives of others, there would be nothing without feeling any incongruity. It is not only the dramatic and that anyone could do, and our species would probably not be newsworthy major crises that require our attention, though; there around for very much longer. But the ways of evolution tend to are countless situations, on a smaller scale, that are just as bad eliminate those who are that crazy. There may be a few around and are preventable. Immense as this task is, it is only one of t any one time; no doubt big American cities shelter more than many equally urgent causes to which people in need of a worth- their fair share of them. What is truly disproportionate, though, while objective could commit themselves. the prominence that such behaviour has in the media and in The problem is that most people have only the vaguest idea he public mind. It is the old story of what makes news. A of what it might be to lead an ethical life. They understand million people doing something every day that shows concern ethics as a system of rules forbidding us to do things. they do for others is not news. rooftop sniper is. This book is not not grasp it as a basis for thinking about how we are to live blind to the existence of vicious, violent and irrational They live largely self-interested lives, not because they are born people, but it is written in the conviction that the rest of us selfish, but because the alternatives seem awkward, embarrass- should not live our lives as if everyone else is always inherently ing, or just plain pointless. They cannot see any way of making likely to be vicious, violent and irrational an impact on the world, and if they could, why should they In any case, even if I am wrong, and crazy people are much bother? Short of undergoing a religious conversion, they see more common than I believe. what alternative is left to us? The nothing to live for except the pursuit of their own material self- onventional pursuit of self-interest is, for reasons that I shall interest. But the possibility of living an ethical life provides us lore in a later chapter, individually and collectively self- ith a way out of this impasse. That possibility is the subject of defeating. The ethical life is the most fundamental alternative to this book. the conventional pursuit of self-interest. Deciding to live ethi erely to broach this possibility will be enough to give rise to cally is both more far-reaching and more powerful than a politi- accusations of extreme naivity. Some will say that people are cal commitment of the traditional kind. Living an ethically naturally incapable of being anything but selfish. Chapters 4, 5, reflective life is not a matter of strictly observing a set of rules 6 and 7 address this claim, in varying ways. Others will claim hat lay down what you should or should not do. To live ethi- hat whatever the truth about human nature. modern Western ally is to reflect in a particular way on how you live, and to try ociety has long passed the point at which either rational or to act in accordance with the conclusions of that reflection. If ethical argument can achieve anything. Life today can seem so the argument of this book is sound then we cannot live an crazy that we may despair of improving it. One publisher who unethical life and remain indifferent to the vast amount of read the manuscript of this book gestured at the New York necessary suffering that exists in the world today. It may be street below his window and told me that, down there, people that a ly small number of people who are ad taken to driving through red lights, just for the hell of it. living in a reflective, manner could prove to be a critical How, he was saying, can you expect your kind of book to mak mass that changes the climate of opinion about the nature of a difference to a world full of people like that? Indeed, if the self-interest and its connection with ethics but when we look
How ar e we to live ? Prefac e xi we will no longer simply sit in front of our television sets watching small children die and then continue to live our affluent lives without feeling any incongruity. It is not only the dramatic and newsworthy major crises that require our attention, though; there are countless situations, on a smaller scale, that are just as bad and are preventable. Immense as this task is, it is only one of many equally urgent causes to which people in need of a worthwhile objective could commit themselves. The problem is that most people have only the vaguest idea of what it might be to lead an ethical life. They understand ethics as a system of rules forbidding us to do things. They do not grasp it as a basis for thinking about how we are to live. They live largely self-interested lives, not because they are born selfish, but because the alternatives seem awkward, embarrassing, or just plain pointless. They cannot see any way of making an impact on the world, and if they could, why should they bother? Short of undergoing a religious conversion, they see nothing to live for except the pursuit of their own material selfinterest. But the possibility of living an ethical life provides us with a way out of this impasse. That possibility is the subject of this book. Merely to broach this possibility will be enough to give rise to accusations of extreme naivity. Some will say that people are naturally incapable of being anything but selfish. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 address this claim, in varying ways. Others will claim that whatever the truth about human nature, modern Western society has long passed the point at which either rational or ethical argument can achieve anything. Life today can seem so crazy that we may despair of improving it. One publisher who read the manuscript of this book gestured at the New York street below his window and told me that, down there, people had taken to driving through red lights, just for the hell of it. How, he was saying, can you expect your kind of book to make a difference to a world full of people like that? Indeed, if the world really were full of people who take so little care of their own lives, never mind the lives of others, there would be nothing that anyone could do, and our species would probably not be around for very much longer. But the ways of evolution tend to eliminate those who are that crazy. There may be a few around at any one time; no doubt big American cities shelter more than their fair share of them. What is truly disproportionate, though, is the prominence that such behaviour has in the media and in the public mind. It is the old story of what makes news. A million people doing something every day that shows concern for others is not news; one rooftop sniper is. This book is not blind to the existence of vicious, violent and irrational people, but it is written in the conviction that the rest of us should not live our lives as if everyone else is always inherently likely to be vicious, violent and irrational. In any case, even if I am wrong, and crazy people are much more common than I believe, what alternative is left to us? The conventional pursuit of self-interest is, for reasons that I shall explore in a later chapter, individually and collectively selfdefeating. The ethical life is the most fundamental alternative to the conventional pursuit of self-interest. Deciding to live ethically is both more far-reaching and more powerful than a political commitment of the traditional kind. Living an ethically reflective life is not a matter of strictly observing a set of rules that lay down what you should or should not do. To live ethically is to reflect in a particular way on how you live, and to try to act in accordance with the conclusions of that reflection. If the argument of this book is sound, then we cannot live an unethical life and remain indifferent to the vast amount of unnecessary suffering that exists in the world today. It may be naive to hope that a relatively small number of people who are living in a reflective, ethical manner could prove to be a critical mass that changes the climate of opinion about the nature of self-interest and its connection with ethics; but when we look •HI