Glad you liked it! you can’t beat a good porkpie!

nice reference to swift’s A modest proposal.

Cheers Mark

This paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics is causing quite a stir – they are not too far from Singer.

The abstract reads:
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Jonathan Swift made some similar comments – but satirically:
A Modest Proposal:
For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public

Interesting to hear you describe consumerism as a worldview in which everything is reduced to the economic. I can begin to see that making sense. Consumerism = consumption (vs production) = handling resources = economic. And then everything becomes a resource for me to consume.

I was reflecting on consumerism the other week and found myself thinking that a consumerist is someone who sees themselves as fundamentally a feeling-thing. In other words, that consumerism is reducing everything to the sensory. Here’s what I wrote:

http://www.anthonysmith.me.uk/2011/08/17/what-is-consumerism/

I’d be very interested in your comments. Maybe there is some synthesis – under consumerism, I am reduced to a sensory thing, and everything else is reduced to economics, resources for me to consume to satisfy my sensory longings? Or under consumerism, everything is reduced to the economic, but things are given their value based on my sensory longings?

Anthony