A Mandarin bookPublished byRandom House Australia Australia20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, NSW 2061http://www.randomhouse.com.auFirst published in Australia in 1993 by the Text Publishing CompanyReprinted 1993, 1994
This Mandarin edition reprinted by Random House Australia, 1997
Copyright © Peter Singer 1993All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of thispublication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright ownerand the publisher of this book.Typeset in Garamond by Bookset Pry Ltd, MelbournePrinted and bound in Australia by Australian Print GroupNational 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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
viii
«
PREFACE ix
CHAPTER 1
The ultimate choice
1Ivan Boesky's choice 1The Ring of Gyges 9
'What in the hell are we doing this for?' 11The end of history or the beginning of secular ethics? 14Ethics and self-interest 21
CHAPTER 2
'What's in it for me?' 26 A
failing social experiment 26The loss of community 34
CHAPTER 3
Using up the world
45
Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Adam Smith? 45Living on our inheritance 49How an overflowing sink makes Adam Smith obsolete 55When are we well off? 57
CHAPTER
4
How we
came
to be
living this
way
65
A perverse instinct 65Aristotle on the art of making money 67Can a merchant be pleasing to God? 69Luther's calling and Calvin's grace 77The religious and the secular converge 80
The consumer society 88
A withered greening 90The Reagan years: 'Enrich thyself 93
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