More Thousand Cultures Blogging

So, in the middle of re-reading John Barnes' The Merchants of Souls, I had a sudden realiztion about the enitre series: the entire series can be read as a critique of Utiltarianism. The first book (A Thousand Open Doors) has it all out in front, showing the problem with classifying some desires as non-rational in order to make the balances work, and the third (Merchants) is a reducto in the other direction, with multiple digressions on the bad consequences of a utilitarianism that allows consideration of any old desire or pleasure. Between them, the second (Earth Made of Glass) is all about the problems introduced by other-regarding preferences...

Much more on The Merchants of Souls to come.