What is Swift trying to communicate in "A Modest Proposal"?

This is a very interesting question, as this wonderful
satire operates on many different levels. Clearly, one central target of Swift's pointed
treatise is the unsympathetic response and racist attitude of the British towards the
Irish famine, and the way that they appear quite happy to do nothing while thousands of
Irish are dying. This is clearly indicated by the shocking and "modest" proposal that
the speaker makes of breeding Irish children for a possible food source. Swift is
deliberately suggesting the unthinkable and horrific to make a pointed remark about how
the treatment of the Irish famine has been just as shocking up until this
stage.

However, I think it is also possible to detect
another, more subtle message. One of the characteristics of the speaker of this essay is
that he makes every effort to present himself as a reasonable, scientific man, who
reaches his conclusions on the back of logic and serious investigation. Reason and
rationality again and again are hallmarks of his discourse. Swift seems to be
communicating the dangers of relying on these characteristics alone when considering
other human beings. Just as in the case of the speaker, such people who lean to heavily
on speculative reason when trying to find solutions may ignore their own better
judgement and arrive at inhumane conclusions, rather than trusting to their common sense
and human empathy. Likewise there is a massive danger in dehumanising humans and
treating them as statistics or numbers, as this makes it that much easier to treat them
as such and forget the shared humanity that is shared between you and
them.