Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Of Asceticism and Infanticide

I have an essay at First Things on Jeremy Bentham's criticism of asceticism. Despite its short length, it had to be put together and revised piecemeal around a number of other projects, because this May has been unusually jampacked with things, and it shows to some extent. But it does what it was supposed to, namely, provide a general comment on occasion of some recent writings made available.

I should say, incidentally, that the title is not authorial but editorial, so no weight should be put on it as to the general thrust or tone of the argument; my taste in titles is acidic sarcasm or bland statement rather than puns. But it too does what it is supposed to do.