Charles Camosy's lucid new book on the controversial philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer delivers on its promise to chart a path for Singer and Christians to move “beyond polarization,” and, even more, Camosy demonstrates a remarkable facility to hew close to his theological commitments as a Christian while engaging the Other with both respect and attentiveness to difference. Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization contributes to a range of debates around abortion, euthanasia, nonhuman animals, and duties to the poor—the four issues at the center of the text—with well-reasoned, fair, carefully cited, and incisive argumentation. Since this reviewer has often found interfaith dialogue limited by a hyperfocus on points of agreement, Camosy's approach to difference is particularly welcome. Camosy provides reliable and even robust descriptions of views with which he disagrees, as is evident in the sensitivity he shows throughout the text to the significance of Singer's Jewishness.

The first four chapters of Camosy's book each focus on a major ethical issue: abortion (chap. 1), euthanasia and the end of life (chap. 2), nonhuman animals (chap. 3), and duties to the poor (chap. 4). Each of these well-structured chapters outlines the issue at hand and then systematically proceeds to show where Christian ethics and Singer agree, where they disagree, and the precise issues on which those disagreements hinge. Camosy effectively represents Singer's views in a compelling and persuasive fashion before detailing the inadequacies he finds in them.

The fifth chapter follows the same form but considers ethical theory as such instead of a single issue; this reviewer found Camosy's defense of the doctrine of double effect particularly noteworthy. Like the previous chapters, the fifth chapter concludes by describing the unexpected scope of agreement—“both Singer and the Church value consequence-based reasoning while at the same time having an important place for moral rules”—but concedes that “some might reasonably believe that fundamental disagreements, like the nature of the human person . . . are simply non-starters” (213–14). It is precisely in relation to some of these “non-starters,” Camosy shows, that Singer appears to be reconsidering some of the most fundamental aspects of his ethical theory. The final and sixth chapter, “Singer's Shift,” details Singer's recent willingness to, in his own words, “entertain—although not yet embrace—the idea that there are objective ethical truths that are independent of what anyone desires” (215), and the opportunities that Camosy sees in this shift.

The book is accessible to nonspecialists and is well suited for undergraduate teaching, though its nuanced discussions will quite reasonably prove more challenging to those with less formal exposure to theology and ethics. Readers interested only in Singer's changing views, or only in an exposition of official Catholic teachings on the four major areas of ethical concern, will find the book valuable. For readers interested in a dialogue between these two positions, Camosy's book could not be more essential. The text cannot fail to convince the reader that there is a wide area of agreement between Singer and Christian ethics on the issues he selects, and, even more, that the disagreements that do exist are worthy of our attention; this is the first part of his thesis. For many readers, the second part of Camosy's thesis—that Christians and Singer can actually work together on issues of ethics and policy—will prove equally compelling.