The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics

by Peter Singer and Katarzyna De Lazari-Radek

Book Overview

What does the idea of taking 'the point of view of the universe' tell us about ethics? The great nineteenth-century utilitarian Henry Sidgwick used this metaphor to present what he took to be a self-evident moral truth: the good of one individual is of no more importance than the good of any other. Ethical judgments, he held, are objective truths that we can know by reason. The ethical axioms he took to be self-evident provide a foundation for utilitarianism...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199603693
• ISBN13: 9780199603695
• Release Date: July 2014
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 422 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.2" x 9.2"