How we should treat nonhuman animals is one of the most important environmental questions that we face. Although most people think of humans as having a qualitatively different moral status than nonhuman animals, there is no morally significant criterion for membership in the moral community that is satisfied by all and only humans. If the criterion is demanding enough (e.g., language), it excludes some humans; if it is permissive enough to include all humans (e.g., sentience), it includes some nonhumans. The discovery that “speciesism” is indefensible opens the door to a range of strong animal-protection philosophies – for example, Peter Singer’s “animal liberation,” which is founded on utilitarianism, and Christine Korsgaard’s “fellow creatures” view, which has a Kantian foundation. These views converge in concluding that many of the ways that we treat animals are wrong.

While many expect happiness to decline in old age, research into well-being and happiness suggests otherwise. Happiness is U-curved, with the bottom of the U, the unhappiest part, experienced in middle age, and happiness increasing thereafter. This surprising diachronic phenomenon presents ethical questions concerning the way we perceive our own and other people's lives, and how individuals and society ought to respond to ageing. I claim the U-curve could influence, inter alia, our attitudes to our own ageing, debates concerning prioritisation of the elderly in health decisions, and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions. As an example of how the U-curve can influence the conclusion of an applied ethical problem in population ethics, I revisit Peter Singer’s claim that substantially extending later life would reduce total utility. With some qualifications, I defend Mark Walker’s claim that, in undermining the crucial empirical assumption that life gets worse as we age, the U-curve casts doubt on Singer’s critique of life extension.

Chapter 6 looks at three prominent consequentialist strategies that have been employed more recently to justify different forms of the legislative perspective as well as a fourth option that is Kantian. The first option, exemplified by Robert Goodin, Conrad Johnson, and Frederick Schauer, is to restrict legislative consequentialism’s scope to the design of rules, policies, and institutions. The second option, pursued by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, is to follow Sidgwick and accept a disjunction between moral rules and moral right (or between decision rules and the standard of right). The third option, used by Brad Hooker, seeks to justify a consequentialist legislative perspective based on its fit with our moral judgments using something akin to a reflective equilibrium approach rather than having consequentialism itself be the foundation. The chapter then considers a very different fourth option where the shift to a legislative point of view depends on Kantian claims as seen in the work of Thomas Hill, Jr. and Derek Parfit. Each of these approaches, however, includes serious drawbacks.

Throughout his lifetime, Brahms accompanied dozens of singers in a variety of settings, ranging from huge public halls to his friends’ homes, and conducted many others in choirs. Some of those working relationships were one-offs, arising from the widespread practice of including a set of piano-accompanied songs within most concerts and the expediency and cost-effectiveness of using local talent. Others were deep, enduring partnerships; the timbres and interpretative approaches of those singers are surely ingrained in his vocal music. Overall, Brahms’s singers were generally not part of the international operatic elite associated with Verdi, Bizet and Massenet. Figures like Julius Stockhausen (1826–1906) and Raimund von Zur-Mühlen (1854–1931)were almost exclusively concert singers and, later on, teachers. Most hailed from German-speaking territories, reflecting Brahms’s own concert career.

Throughout his lifetime, Brahms accompanied dozens of singers in a variety of settings, ranging from huge public halls to his friends’ homes, and conducted many others in choirs. Some of those working relationships were one-offs, arising from the widespread practice of including a set of piano-accompanied songs within most concerts and the expediency and cost-effectiveness of using local talent. Others were deep, enduring partnerships; the timbres and interpretative approaches of those singers are surely ingrained in his vocal music. Overall, Brahms’s singers were generally not part of the international operatic elite associated with Verdi, Bizet and Massenet. Figures like Julius Stockhausen (1826–1906) and Raimund von Zur-Mühlen (1854–1931)were almost exclusively concert singers and, later on, teachers. Most hailed from German-speaking territories, reflecting Brahms’s own concert career.