The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush by Peter Singer

From the Publisher

The New York Times bestseller book every American should read before voting in the 2004 elections

More than any president in recent memory, George W. Bush invokes the language of good versus evil and right versus wrong. Here, world-renowned Princeton University professor of ethics Peter Singer shines a spotlight on Bush, analyzing whether or not he has lived up to the values he so often touts in his presidential prose. Called "timely and searching," by the Washington Post, this accessible look at the president reveals his pattern of ethical confusion and self-contradiction, and his moral failure on dozens of hot-button issues. Labeled a "generous critic" by the New York Times, Singer advances devastating arguments that make this the book to give to anyone thinking of voting for George W. Bush in November 2004.

The New York Times

Singer is a generous critic. In discussing Bush's reverence for life, evidenced in his opposition to stem cell research, he constructs the most plausible arguments possible against the sacrifice of unwanted embryos, to demonstrate convincingly how unsustainable they are. But he can hardly help observing that Bush's ''culture of life'' cohabits jarringly with his enthusiasm for capital punishment and readiness to inflict civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. Singer is led, on issue after issue, to a double conclusion: Bush's views are not intellectually defensible, and his behavior shows he doesn't believe in them anyway. — Paul Mattick

The Washington Post

Where the book strikes a fresh note is in the last chapter, which tries to penetrate to the heart of the Bush moral outlook. His policies show that he is neither a believer in the inviolability of individual rights nor a consistent utilitarian. Nor can the teachings of Christianity be used to support his various positions, since these can be interpreted in several ways, and many of his policies have no biblical basis. Singer suggests, plausibly and scarily, that a brand of Manichaeism best represents his religious outlook -- the idea of a force of evil in the world, with an apocalyptic Second Coming imminent and America as the divinely appointed nation set to destroy the forces of Satan. — Colin McGinn

Economist

Mr. Singer's influence extends to the world beyond the ivory tower partly because he writes with such lucidity and quiet passion about genuinely pressing issues.

The New Yorker

Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential.

Publishers Weekly

This book by controversial ethicist Singer (a founder of the animal rights movement) is both broader and narrower than it purports to be. It offers a look at almost every significant policy the administration has taken a position on yet offers little in the way of new philosophic inquiry. Singer pits Bush's rhetoric and prescriptions against his actions, going from the topical (terror detainees, the war in Iraq) to the abstract (utilitarian theories of government). Singer's arguments are often reasonable and well documented: he asks whether an administration that emphasizes smaller government should be intervening in state right-to-die cases and whether someone so vocal about the value of individual merit should be rewarding birthright by eliminating the estate tax. But anyone who has followed recent critiques of the administration would learn nothing new from these familiar arguments and conclusions, such as that the justification for the Iraq war might have been problematic. Singer's logic can also be mushy. A chapter that decries the influence of religion on Bush's policy dissolves into vague, emotional language better suited to a TV pundit than a philosopher. Singer's most intellectually adventurous chapter involves stem-cell research, where the author exposes fissures in Bush's "compromise" to allow research on existing stem-cell lines. But mostly Singer's critique does little to distinguish itself from other anti-Bush books. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A best-selling ethicist-he wrote Animal Liberation and teaches at Princeton's Center for Human Values-takes on the current President. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

If George W. Bush fell down in a forest, would he know it? Singer (Pushing Time Away, 2003, etc.) is an ethicist, not an epistemologist, and such a question is of less interest to him than, say, What is the best Occam's-razor explanation for Bush's apparent inability to tell the truth? Dubya is certainly no philosopher, writes Singer. He is, however, "not only America's president, but also its most prominent moralist," fond of viewing the world in dualistic terms such as good vs. evil. In fact, between the time Bush took office and June 2003, by Singer's count, he made public reference to evil in no fewer than 319 speeches, and as a substantive rather than adjective ("914 noun uses as against 182 adjectival uses"). But does Bush really understand evil except as a fundamentalist trope? Does he understand the implications of much of anything? The unreflective Bush has, after all, talked himself into many a corner. Singer closely examines several such instances, such as Bush's averring that our money is our money (a rationale for cutting taxes) while rejecting the Nozickian minimalist-state view, yielding a deception that Singer states thus: "It's your money, but the government can and should take your money to meet needs or priorities." (Unless you're rich, in which case it's your money, period.) Blurring the distinction between morals and ethics, Singer occasionally writes his way into corners of his own: Is Bush's failure to create jobs really an ethical matter? Is it his obligation to do so at all? Still, readers will delight in pondering a few textbook-like chestnuts (does war equal murder?) while basking in Singer's breezy disdain for the president, whose "religious beliefs are no morebased on critically examined evidence than are the religious beliefs of Osama bin Laden." Assuming, that is, that bin Laden has any truly felt religious beliefs, and that religion has ever required the examination of evidence. High-concept ammunition for the anti-Bush crowd as the 2004 race heats up. Agent: Kathy Robbins

What People Are Saying

Robert Wright
Even Bush supporters will have to admit that, in an age of diatribe, this book elevates the level of political discourse. The more American voters who read it, the better.
—(Robert Wright, author of Nonzero and The Moral Animal)

David Corn
George W. Bush has met his match. This is a chilling and powerful intellectual indictment of an administration desperate to cover up the damage it inflicts.
—(David Corn, author of The Lies of George W. Bush and Washington editor of The Nation)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Barnes & Noble.com: The President of Good & Evil is a look at the ethics of George W. Bush. What inspired you to write this book?

Peter Singer: The president talks a lot about good and evil, right and wrong. That's the field that I work in. And it struck me that no one seriously analyzes what the president says about ethics. What kind of ethic does he hold? How defensible are his claims about the rights and wrongs of tax cuts, research on stem cells, the proper role of the state, or the right to make preemptive strikes against countries perceived to be a threat to the United States?

I think these claims need to receive more scrutiny -- not just anti-Bush polemic, and not just deferential acceptance because he is the president, but scrutiny that is tough but fair.

B&N.com: Out of all the current books that question the president, yours is the only one written by a well-known philosopher and professor of ethics. Did you ever imagine you'd write such a book?

PS: Not at first. But the more I listened to President Bush, the more I thought it was a task that needed to be done.

B&N.com: Is a "simplistic" ethical mindset indicative of immaturity?

PS: It can be. At one point in the book I assess the president's views in terms of Lawrence Kohlberg's views about moral development. By that model, the president has not gone beyond the stage of moral thought characteristic of teenagers.

B&N.com: Have average Americans been made privy to all the information they need to fairly assess Bush's ethics?

PS: Regrettably not. The media have often been too deferential to the president and have not probed nearly hard enough, or told the public enough.

B&N.com: Do Bush's ethical viewpoints make him vulnerable on Election Day?

PS: Yes, I think what he has said and done both make him highly vulnerable, if the opposing candidate can make the most of the available material.

Read an Excerpt

Bushís tendency to see the world in terms of good and evil is especially striking. He has spoken about evil in 319 separate speeches, or about 30 percent of all the speeches he gave between the time he took office and June 16, 2003. In these speeches he uses the word evil as a noun far more often than he uses it as an adjective914 noun uses as against 182 adjectival uses. Only 24 times, in all these occasions on which Bush talks of evil, does he use it as an adjective to describe what people dothat is, to judge acts or deeds. This suggests that Bush is not thinking about evil deeds, or even evil people, nearly as often as he is thinking about evil as a thing, or a force, something that has a real existence apart from the cruel, callous, brutal and selfish acts of which human beings are capable. His readiness to talk about evil in this manner raises the question of what meaning evil can have in a secular modern world.

My professional interest in the presidentís ethics dates from his intervention in my own field, bioethics, in his first special prime-time televised address to the nation as president on August 9, 2001. The speech was devoted to the ethical questions raised by stem cell research. I was preparing to teach a graduate seminar on bioethics when I learned that Bush was going to speak to the nation on that topic. Issues about the moral status of human embryos were part of the syllabus for my course, and I thought it might be interesting for my students to read and discuss what the president had to say. As an educational tool, that worked well, for the speech provides a clear example of an unargued assumption that is very common in the debate about abortion and early human life. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the nation turned from its discussion of stem cells to terrorism and how to respond to it. But once Bushís ethics had caught my attention in one field, I paid more attention to all the other issues that he saw in moral terms. To what extent, I asked myself, does the president have a coherent moral philosophy? Is there a clear moral view lying behind the particular views he expresses, and if so, what is it?

This book expounds George W. Bushís ethic as it is found in his speeches, writings, and other comments, as well as in the decisions he has made as an elected official. It does not attempt the impossible task of covering everything he has said and done, or even every major issue of his presidency, but instead focuses on those issues that most sharply raise fundamental ethical principles and hence reveal the presidentís views about right and wrong.

Once we are clear on what Bushís ethic is, the question arises: how sound is it? Or at least, that question arises for everyone who believes that there is a role for reason and argument in ethics. Some think that all we can ever do in ethics is state our own position, and if others hold different views, we can no more argue against them than we can argue over matters of taste. Bush rejects this skepticism about morality. Speaking at the inauguration of his second term as governor of Texas, he said that our children must be educated not only in reading and writing, but also in right and wrong, adding: Some people think itís inappropriate to make moral judgments anymore. Not me. Well, not me either, so that is one view about morality on which the president and I agree. If reason and argument were of no use in reaching ethical judgments, we would not be educating our children in right and wrong, we would be indoctrinating them in the views our society holds, or the views we hold, without giving them reasons for thinking those views to be true. Iíll assume that when Bush said that our children should be educated in right and wrong, he did not mean that we should be indoctrinating them. So he must think, as I do, that we can usefully discuss different possible ethical views, and judge which of them are more defensible. In the course of this book I argue that Bushís own moral positions are often not defensible. If I succeed in persuading you of this, I will have established that Bush is at least correct when he asserts that it is possible to educate people in right and wrong.

As we have already seen, Bushís readiness to talk about right and wrong goes back long before September 11, 2001, before his election as president, and before his campaign for that office focused on the idea that (in what everyone understood to be a contrast to Bill Clinton) he would bring honor and dignity to the White House. Bush begins his preelection memoir, A Charge to Keep, by saying that one of the defining moments in his life came during the prayer service just before he was to take the oath of office for his second term as governor of Texas. As Bush tells the story, Pastor Mark Craig said that people are starved for leaders who have ethical and moral courage ... leaders who have the moral courage to do what is right for the right reason. Bush tells us that this sermon spoke directly to my heart and my life, challenging him to do more than he had done in his first four years as governor. He resolved, it seems, to be the kind of leader for which, as Pastor Craig had said, the people are starved.

But despite Bushís assertion that Craigís speech was one of those moments that forever change you ... that set you on a different course, it seems that he was on that course already. Morality was center stage in his inaugural speech for his second term as governor, which he had obviously prepared before he heard Craigís sermon. After saying that our children need to be educated in right and wrong, he went on to say: They must learn to say yes to responsibility, yes to family, yes to honesty and work ... and no to drugs, no to violence, no to promiscuity or having babies out of wedlock. Precisely at what point Bush decided to make ethics a central theme of his public life is difficult to say. Perhaps it was during a summer weekend in 1985, when Bush had joined his parents and other family members at the Bush summer residence in Kennebunkport, Maine. The evangelist Billy Graham was invited to join the family, and as Bush walked along the beach, Graham reportedly asked him if he was right with God. Bush replied that he wasnít sure, but the conversation started him thinking about it. In A Charge to Keep he pinpoints this as the moment when Reverend Billy Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul that led him to recommit my heart to Jesus Christ and become a regular reader of the Bible. Certainly Bushís Christian beliefs play an important role in his moral thinking.

The fact that George W. Bush is the president of the worldís only superpower is reason enough for wanting to understand his moral views. But it is not the only reason. Bush represents a distinctively American moral outlooknot, of course, one shared by all Americans, but nevertheless one that plays a more central role in American public life than it plays anywhere else. Having lived most of my life outside the United States, I am frequently struck by how differently Americans think from Europeans, Australians, and even Canadians about social, political and ethical issues. Bush and I are of the same generationindeed, we were born on the same day, July 6, 1946and yet in some ways we live in different ethical universes. To understand Bush better is to understand one strand in the complex set of ideas that makes America different. So this book is not only a study of the ethics of one United States president, but also an outsiderís look at a major strand of American thinkingthe way of thinking that currently guides the policies of the worldís dominant nation, and that openly espouses the aim of making the twenty-first century the American century.

Given the global significance of Bushís views of right and wrong, it may seem surprising that philosophers have paid little attention to his ethics. One likely reason for this is that philosophers consider him unworthy of their attention. When I have told friends and colleagues that I am working on a book about Bushís ethics, some of them quip that the phrase is an oxymoron, or that it must be a very short book. Donít I realize, they ask in incredulous tones, that Bush is just another politician who says whatever he thinks will get him elected, or reelected? He doesnít even have the attention span, they tell me, let alone the brainpower, to think out a coherent philosophy. Instead of wasting my time by taking his remarks on ethics seriously, they suggest, I should expose the hypocrisy of all his talk about morality. I should show that what he actually does is always in the interests of his Texan friends in the oil industry, or of the big corporations and wealthy individual donors who contribute so heavily to his campaign coffers.

There are times during this book when I do ask whether what Bush does is consistent with what he says he believes, and after I have done that, I will ask whether the cynical view my friends have taken is correct. Obviously Bush is a politician, and subject to the same pressures as any politician, but I think the truth is more complex than my skeptical friends suggest. Even if they are right about the presidentís motives, however, that doesnít drain all the interest from the moral philosophy that he defends. Tens of millions of Americans believe that he is sincere, and share the views that he puts forward on a wide range of moral issues. They also accept unquestioningly the bright, positive image of America and its unique goodness that shines through his speeches. Those who think I am naive about Bushís own views may therefore see what follows as an examination and critique of a set of beliefs widely shared by the American public, no matter whether the chief spokesperson for the position really believes what he saying. So in the pages that follow my starting point is to take what Bush says at face value, and inquire how defensible the positions that he espouses are.