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If... Then...

Does anyone think this has anything to do with this? Or the curious approval some grant this:

What are the underlying assumptions of [Peter] Singer’s personism? His basic premises or assumptions consist of a dogma and a definition. The dogma: nothing in the universe has any intrinsic value except happiness and pleasure (utilitarianism). The definition: a person is a conscious thinking being. From these premises all kinds of things are inferred, for example:

  1. Human life per se has no intrinsic value;

  2. Not all human beings are persons;

  3. Only human beings who know they are persons are persons;

  4. Persons as such have rights; human beings as such have no rights;

  5. Several sorts of human beings have no right to life.

In Practical Ethics, Singer lists the kinds of human beings who have no right to life, explicitly mentioning not only disabled newborn infants but also month-old hemophiliac infants not wanted by their parents or adopters, any young infant not wanted by its parents or adopters, and all human beings who do not know they are persons.

Jenny Teichman continues, in The New Criterion, to take Singer to task. Not bad reading at all. Blimpish does a very nice job of taking on Judith Jarvis Thomson's pro abort essay, which I also did a few days ago. Tip: Conservative Philosopher.

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