My wife and I really, really liked The Good Place. I also got us a copy of How To Be Perfect and thought it was a decent read. Not particularly EA, but very balanced to consider all the major western schools of moral philosophy and give each a fair hearing. I do think it was a bit lacking in covering eastern schools of thought like the role-based ethics of Confucius, but I understand it was targeted towards an english speaking audience.
As a primer on ethics, it’s very approachable, but I do think it simplifies some things, and feels ever so slightly biased against consequentialism towards something like virtue ethics, but I’ll admit, I’m pro-Utilitarianism, and might myself be biased in the other direction.
From an EA perspective, it may not be the best introduction to us, as I believe there’s mention of EA, but it’s mostly the view that Peter Singer and his arguments are very demanding and perhaps unreasonably so, albeit, it’s a logical and important nudge towards caring and doing more (he hedges a lot in the book).
At the end of the day, the book shies away from deciding which moral theory is more correct, and as such is kinda wishy-washy, choose your own morality from a menu of possibilities, which somewhat disappointed me (but I also understand picking sides would be controversial). I’d still recommend the book to someone relatively unfamiliar with morality and ethics because it is a much friendlier introduction than say a moral philosophy textbook would be.
My wife and I really, really liked The Good Place. I also got us a copy of How To Be Perfect and thought it was a decent read. Not particularly EA, but very balanced to consider all the major western schools of moral philosophy and give each a fair hearing. I do think it was a bit lacking in covering eastern schools of thought like the role-based ethics of Confucius, but I understand it was targeted towards an english speaking audience.
As a primer on ethics, it’s very approachable, but I do think it simplifies some things, and feels ever so slightly biased against consequentialism towards something like virtue ethics, but I’ll admit, I’m pro-Utilitarianism, and might myself be biased in the other direction.
From an EA perspective, it may not be the best introduction to us, as I believe there’s mention of EA, but it’s mostly the view that Peter Singer and his arguments are very demanding and perhaps unreasonably so, albeit, it’s a logical and important nudge towards caring and doing more (he hedges a lot in the book).
At the end of the day, the book shies away from deciding which moral theory is more correct, and as such is kinda wishy-washy, choose your own morality from a menu of possibilities, which somewhat disappointed me (but I also understand picking sides would be controversial). I’d still recommend the book to someone relatively unfamiliar with morality and ethics because it is a much friendlier introduction than say a moral philosophy textbook would be.