This paper addresses whether the often-bemoaned loss of unity of knowledge about humans, which results from the disciplinary fragmentation of science, is something to be overcome. The fragmentation of being human rests on a couple of distinctions, such as the nature-culture divide. Since antiquity the distinction between nature (roughly, what we inherit biologically) and culture (roughly, what is acquired by social interaction) has been a commonplace in science and society. Recently, the nature/culture divide has come under attack in various ways, (...) in philosophy as well as in cultural anthropology. Regarding the latter, for instance, the divide was quintessential in its beginnings as an academic dis-cipline, when Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the first professional anthropologists in the US, rallied for (what I call) the right to ignore—in his case, human nature—by adopting a separationist epistemic stance. A separationist stance will be understood as an epistemic research heuristic that defends the right to ignore a specif-ic phenomenon (e.g., human nature) or a specific causal factor in an explanation typical for a disciplinary field. I will use Kroeber’s case as an example for making a general point against a bias towards integration (synthesis bias, as I call it) that is exemplified, for instance, by defenders of evolutionary psychology. I will claim that, in principle, a separationist stance is as good as an integrationist stance since both can be equally fruitful. With this argument from fruitful sepa-ration in place, not just the separationist stance but also the nature/culture di-vide can be defended against its critics. (shrink)

I discuss controversial claims about the status of non-human animals as moral beings in relation to philosophical claims to the contrary. I address questions about the ontology of animals rather than ethical approaches as to how humans need to treat other animals through notions of, for example, animal rights. I explore the evolutionary origins of behavior that can be considered vices or virtues and suggest that Thomas Aquinas is closer to Darwin's view on nonhuman animals than we might suppose. An (...) appreciation of the complexity of the emotional lives of social animals and their cooperative behaviors in light of the work of animal ethologists such as Frans de Waal and Marc Bekoff suggests that social animals can be considered moral in their own terms. I discuss the charge of anthropomorphism, drawing on the work of archaeologist Steven Mithen, and consider arguments for the evolution of conscience in the work of anthropologist Christopher Boehm. Only the biological basis for the development of conscience and religion has evolved in nonhuman animals, and this should not be confused with sophisticated moral systems of analysis or particular religious beliefs found in the human community. (shrink)

In this essay, I connect the sexual victimization of women, children, and pet animals with the violence manifest in a patriarchal culture. After discussing these connections, I demonstrate the importance of taking seriously these connections because of their implications for conceptual analysis, epistemology, and political, environmental, and applied philosophy. My goal is to broaden our understanding of issues relevant to creating peace and to provide some suggestions about what must be included in any adequate feminist peace politics.

This essay discusses sentient robot research through the lens of suffering. First three kinds of suffering are considered: physical, psychological, and existential. Physical pain is shown to b...

Abstract.Human altruistic behavior has received a great deal of scientific attention over the past forty years. Altruistic‐like behaviors found among insects and animals have illumined certain human behaviors, and the revival of interest in group selection has focused attention on how sacrificial altruism, although not adaptive for individuals, can be adaptive for groups. Curiously, at the same time that sociobiology has placed greater emphasis on the value of sacrificial altruism, Protestant ethics in America has moved away from it. While Roman (...) Catholic ethics has a longstanding tradition emphasizing an ordering of love, placing love of self second only to love for God, Protestant ethics in America has adopted a similar stance only recently, replacing a strong sacrificial ethic with one focusing on mutual regard for self and others. If sociobiology is correct about the significance of sacrificial altruistic behaviors for the survival of communities, this shift away from sacrificial agape by American Christianity may cut the community off from important resources for the development of a global ethic crucial for the survival of that faith community and humankind itself. (shrink)

Sociobiologists make large claims for their subject. Knowing about the genetic underpinnings of human society will, they claim, enable us to understand all of human behavior and even to solve the ancient philosophical questions of how we ought to live. This essay assesses the significance of sociobiology for ethics. It argues that sociobiologists have misunderstood the relevance of facts to values and that their larger ambitions for their subject are bound to remain unfulfilled. Nevertheless, philosophers are wrong to ignore sociobiology. (...) To give a genetic account of the existence of a widely held value does not justify that value, but it does say something of relevance to the ethical issues. The problem is to work out just what difference such an explanation makes. (shrink)

In the words of Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley’s Beast and Man built “an urgently needed bridge between science and philosophy”.1 While science and philosophy have never been entirely remote, Murdoch w...

The broad character of the arguments used by sociobiologists is assessed, particularly in relation to criticisms coming from anthropology. The implications of sociobiology for theology are developed with respect to the general impact of evolutionary ideas, the reductionist assumptions of sociobiologists, whether or not “survival” can be a value, and more holistic accounts of the physical and biological grounding of the mental and spiritual lives of human beings.

Mary Midgley famously compares philosophy to plumbing. In both cases we are dealing with complex systems that underlie the everyday life of a community, and in both cases we often fail to notice their existence until things start to smell a bit fishy. Philosophy, like plumbing, is performed by particular people at particular times, and it is liable to be done in a way that suits the needs of those people and those whom they serve. I employ Mary Midgley's philosophy (...) and biography to explore the importance of a diversity of voices for academic philosophy, and for society as a whole. (shrink)

For over 40 years, Mary Midgley has been celebrated for the sensibility with which she approached some of the most challenging and pressing issues in philosophy. Her expansive corpus addresses such diverse topics as human nature, morality, animals and the environment, gender, science, and religion. While there are many threads that tie together this impressive plurality of topics, the thread of relationality unites much of Midgley's thought on human nature and morality. This paper explores Midgley's pursuit of a relational notion (...) of the self and our connections to others, including animals and the natural world. (shrink)

‘Marital faithfulness’ refers to faithful love for a spouse or lover to whom one is committed, rather than the narrower idea of sexual fidelity. The distinction is clearly marked in traditional wedding vows. A commitment to love faithfully is central: ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part… and thereto I plight [pledge] thee my troth [faithfulness]’. (...) Sexual fidelity is promised in a subordinate clause, symbolizing its supportive role in promoting love's constancy: ‘and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her/him.’. (shrink)

'What is Philosophy For?', by Midgley, Mary. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. Pp. 1-223.

Here we publish an interview with Jesper Hoffmeyer, conducted in 2012–2014.

Here we publish an interview with Jesper Hoffmeyer, conducted in 2012–2014.

Evolutionary theory has been a very popular topic in recent years and it has been claimed that it can make a major contribution to the advance of several sciences such as medicine, psychology, psychopathology and sociology: even providing them with new paradigms. This paper explores the possibility that nursing could benefit similarly by adopting an evolutionary perspective. After sketching the scientific and philosophical background to the recent developments concerning evolution, and briefly mentioning the chief features of evolutionary theory, the paper (...) discusses whether it makes sense to talk of ‘evolutionary nursing’, and whether there are any benefits in doing so. It uses a comparison with Darwinian medicine and evolutionary psychology. Several problems and objections are considered. The modest conclusion is reached that nurses need to adopt an evolutionary perspective to serve as a guide for some of their research and a source for research hypotheses. They also need to be informed about evolutionary ideas so as to be aware of the developments in the disciplines with which they work, and this understanding will assist them in maintaining vigilance against the misuse of science, religion and politics on behalf of their patients. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to discuss some of the foundational issues centering around the question of integrating education in human values with professional engineering education: its necessity and justification. The paper looks at the efforts in ‘tuning’ the technical education system in India to the national goals in the various phases of curriculum development. The contribution of the engineering profession in national development and India’s self-sufficiency is crucially linked with the institutionalization of expertise and the role of morality (...) and responsibility. This linkage can be created through a proper understanding of the social role of the profession—what motivates the professionals and what makes professional life meaningful. Value education facilitates the process of moral maturity and the development of a ‘holistic’ mindset. This paper deals with the need to create such a mindset, the human values associated with it and gives examples of efforts to impart such education through ‘action-oriented’ programmes introduced in some institutes of engineering in India. (shrink)

Environmental ethics is generally searching for the intrinsic value in natural beings. However, there are very few holistic models trying to reflect the various dimensions of the experience-to-be a natural being. We are searching for that intrinsic value, in order to determine which species are holders of rights. In this article, I suggest a set of moral and rational principles to be used for identifying the intrinsic value of a given species and for comparing it to that of other species.

According to Mary Midgley, philosophy is like plumbing: like the invisible entrails of an elaborate plumbing system, philosophical ideas respond to basic needs that are fundamental to human life. Melioristic projects in philosophy attempt to fix or reroute this plumbing. An obstacle to melioristic projects is that the sheer familiarity of the underlying philosophical ideas renders the plumbing invisible. Philosophical genealogies aim to overcome this by looking at the origins of our current concepts. We discuss philosophical concepts developed in Indigenous (...) cultures as a source of inspiration for melioristic genealogy. Examining the philosophical concepts of these communities is useful because it gives us a better idea of the range of ethical, political, and metaphysical approaches that exist in the world. Members of western societies do not get a clear view of this range, in part because living in large groups presents its own constraints and challenges, which limit philosophical options. We argue that features of Indigenous philosophies, such as egalitarianism and care for one's natural environment, are not inevitable byproducts of Native material conditions and lifestyles, but that they are deliberate forms of conceptual engineering. We propose that comparative philosophy is an integral part of the genealogical project. -/- . (shrink)

This paper focuses on Mary Midgley's influential discussions, over more than thirty years, of the relationship between human beings and animals, in particular on her concern to ‘remove the barriers’ that stand in the way of proper understanding and treatment of animals. These barriers, she demonstrates, have been erected by animal science, epistemology and mainstream moral philosophy alike. In each case, she argues, our attitudes to animals are warped by approaches that are at once excessively abstract, over-theoretical and guilty of (...) a collective hubris on the part of humankind. In keeping with Midgley's own position, it is argued in this paper that, to remove these barriers, what is required is not yet another theory of how and why animals matter, but attention to actual engagements with animals and to the moral failings or vices that distort people's relationships with them. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley discussed Aristotle's ethics as an alternative to modern moral philosophy. This idea is best known from Anscombe's 1958 paper ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. The main...

ABSTRACT The claim that social class differences in educational success are related to language and language use of a cognitively relevant kind is discussed and criticised. Various aspects of the relationship between rationality and language are examined and it is argued that the contention that deficiencies in rationality are related to language is an ambiguous one which involves different kinds of claims. When the claims of verbal deficit theorists have been clarified, it has been found that the weakest of these (...) claims have not been proven, while the strongest are empirically possible but extremely unlikely. (shrink)

Over the coming century, the accelerating advance of bioenhancement technologies, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) may significantly broaden the qualitative range of sentient and intelligent beings. This article proposes a taxonomy of such beings, ranging from modified animals to bioenhanced humans to advanced forms of robots and AI. It divides these diverse beings into three moral and legal categories—animals, persons, and presumed persons—describing the moral attributes and legal rights of each category. In so doing, the article sets forth a framework (...) for extending the concept of personhood well beyond its current boundaries, assigning moral standing to a variety of biological and nonbiological beings. The author concludes that six of the eight subgroups of such beings deserve to be treated as persons or as if they were persons, with full consideration for their presumed interests, rights, obligations, and capabilities for ethically significant agency and patiency. (shrink)

The values which are definitive of the humanist project, such as freedom and self-determination, are of central concern to environmentalism. This means, according to Lewis P. Hinchman, that environmentalists should seek a rapprochement with humanism, rather than rejecting it for its apparent anthropocentrism. He argues that this requires in turn the acceptance of those approaches to human self-understanding which are central to the hermeneutic traditions and the rejection of naturalist approaches, such as sociobiology, which is accused of producing deterministic, reifying, (...) reductionist, dehumanising forms of understanding of human beings and human life. This paper seeks to show that sociobiology does not pose the kinds of threat to humanism and environmentalism outlined by Hinchman. (shrink)

This essay explores the legacy of the four philosophers now often referred to as ‘The Wartime Quartet’: G.E.M. Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot and Mary Midgley. The life and work of the four, who studied together in Oxford during the Second World War, is the subject of two recently published books, The Women Are Up to Something, by Benjamin Lipscomb, and Metaphysical Animals, by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman. The two books show us how Anscombe, Murdoch, Foot and Midgley (...) became friends united in their hostility to the logical-positivist orthodoxy of the day and its deleterious influence on Oxford moral philosophy. And we see how their friendship had a formative influence on their subsequent—highly distinguished—careers, so that it is possible to discern, if not exactly a school of thought, then various common themes, ideas and concerns, which are expressed and developed in contrasting ways. While Lipscomb represents the work of the Quartet as of largely historical significance, my paper defends what I take to be Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman's position that their legacy is very much a living one, containing insights that are not just of enduring relevance, but can transform how we see ourselves and how we do philosophy. For Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman, the key idea shared by the members of the Quartet is to place the concept of life at the centre of philosophical attention. This commitment has at least four dimensions: (i) an interest in the ordinary; (ii) a focus on virtue, goodness and human flourishing; (iii) an affirmation of our animal nature; (iv) recognition of the normative landscape that structures our lives. I try to bring out the philosophical significance of these themes in a way relevant to the philosophical elucidation of education. (shrink)

Many physicians, anatomists and natural philosophers engaged in attempts to map the seat of the soul during the so-called Scientific Revolution of the European seventeenth century. The history of these efforts needs to be told in light of the puzzlement bred by today's strides in the neurological sciences. The accounts discussed here, most centrally by Nicolaus Steno, Claude Perrault and Thomas Willis, betray the acknowledgement that a gap remained between observable form, on the one hand, and motor and sensory functions, (...) on the other. Observation yielded information about form, but did not guarantee a constant correlation with presumed function, while the mechanisms of sense and movement did not fit in with accounts of action and cognition whose purpose was to place the connection between active body and willful, conscious soul onto a descriptive rather than metaphysical plane. Teleology was now no longer a helpful tool in the disciplines of anatomy and physiology; the consequences of this are still with us. (shrink)

What, exactly, makes humans human? A close look at nonhuman animal domestication practices reveals how people came to view their own uniqueness in western cultural process. The study of domestication across time shows the multiple human impulses underlying acts of animal enclosure and domestication. Animals can be beloved companions or eaten for a meal. These impulses involve contradictory moralities-a rich subject for inquiries into the dynamics of power and possession, at scales ranging from local to global.

In this wide-ranging interview Priscilla Alderson discusses how she came to research parental and childhood consent and became a sociologist and how, late in her career, she became convenor of the critical realism group started by Roy Bhaskar at the Institute for Education in London. She discusses aspects of her seminal research over the years on multiple subjects, such as the rights of children, and reflects on what critical realism has added to her social research.

Consent can only be voluntary, freely given and uncoerced. Can this legal adult standard also apply to children? High-risk surgery is seldom a wanted choice, but compared with the dangers of the un...

Comparative religious ethics is a complicated scholarly endeavor, striving to harmonize intellectual goals that are frequently conceived as quite different, or even intrinsically opposed. Against commonly voiced suspicions of comparative work, this essay argues that descriptive, comparative, and normative interests may support rather than conflict with each other, depending on the comparison in question, and how it is pursued. On the basis of a brief comparison of the early Christian Augustine of Hippo and the early Confucians Mencius and Xunzi on (...) the topic of "human nature," this paper advocates a particular account of comparative religious ethics, and argues for the complexity of the idea of "human nature." Different elements of this family of concerns are central to religious ethics generally, and to theories and practices of moral development and personal formation specifically. (shrink)

Karl Popper is famous for having proposed that science advances by a process of conjecture and refutation. He is also famous for defending the open society against what he saw as its arch enemies – Plato and Marx. Popper’s contributions to thought are of profound importance, but they are not the last word on the subject. They need to be improved. My concern in this book is to spell out what is of greatest importance in Popper’s work, what its failings (...) are, how it needs to be improved to overcome these failings, and what implications emerge as a result. The book consists of a collection of essays which dramatically develop Karl Popper’s views about natural and social science, and how we should go about trying to solve social problems. Criticism of Popper’s falsificationist philosophy of natural science leads to a conception of science that I call aim-oriented empiricism. This makes explicit metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe that are an implicit part of scientific knowledge – implicit in the way science excludes all theories that are not explanatory, even those that are more successful empirically than accepted theories. Aim-oriented empiricism has major implications, not just for the academic discipline of philosophy of science, but for science itself. Popper generalized his philosophy of science of falsificationism to arrive at a new conception of rationality – critical rationalism – the key methodological idea of Popper’s profound critical exploration of political and social issues in his The Open Society and Its Enemies, and The Poverty of Historicism. This path of Popper, from scientific method to rationality and social and political issues is followed here, but the starting point is aim-oriented empiricism rather than falsificationism. Aim-oriented empiricism is generalized to form a conception of rationality I call aim-oriented rationalism. This has far-reaching implications for political and social issues, for the nature of social inquiry and the humanities, and indeed for academic inquiry as a whole. The strategies for tackling social problems that arise from aim-oriented rationalism improve on Popper’s recommended strategies of piecemeal social engineering and critical rationalism, associated with Popper’s conception of the open society. This book thus sets out to develop Popper’s philosophy in new and fruitful directions. The theme of the book, in short, is to discover what can be learned from scientific progress about how to achieve social progress towards a better world. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine the topics of ethics, religion, and their relationship in the work of Charles Taylor. I take Taylor's attempt to confront modern disenchantment by seeking a kind of re-enchantment as my guiding thread. Seeking re-enchantment means, first of all, defending an `engaged realist' account of strong evaluation, i.e., qualitative distinctions of value that are seen as normative for our desires. Secondly, it means overcoming self-enclosure and achieving self-transcendence, which I argue should be understood in terms of (...) transcending a `lower' mode of selfhood for a `higher' one in concern for `strong goods'. One of the main issues that Taylor raises is whether re-enchantment requires theism for its full adequacy. He advances - often as `hunches' - controversial claims regarding the significance of theism (1) for defending strong evaluative realism and (2) for motivating an ethic of universal human concern. I seek to fill out his hunches in terms of a theistic teleological perspective that is centered on the `telos of communion'. I argue that such a view is important for overcoming the problem of what Bernard Williams calls the `radical contingency' of ethical beliefs, which seems to undermine their normative authority. However, I argue that if a non-theistic view of cosmic purpose (e.g., Thomas Nagel's view) can be regarded as a viable option, then it could also help to address this problem and support a kind of re-enchantment. Taylor also advances the controversial view that (3) there is an ineradicable draw to `transcendence' in human life in connection to the quest for the meaning of life. Here he opposes certain mainstream theories of secularization that see it as a process involving the ineluctable fading away of the relevance of religion. I seek to fill out and defend Taylor's view in this matter. Besides providing a reading of Taylor's work as a whole and advancing further some of the issues he raises, I also examine his general evaluative framework based on his account of strong evaluation. In doing so I show how he provides a distinct and important perspective among contemporary moral philosophers. (shrink)

Kirjoituksessa argumentoin, että metafysiikka on ollut valistusta, vaikka se edelleen kaipaa lisää valistumista, kun valistus ymmärretään avoimena prosessina, joka ei ole ajasta ja paikasta riippuvaista. Käsittelen ensin sitä, mitä metafysiikka ja valistus ovat. Sitten lausun länsimaisen metafysiikan historiasta hyvin lyhyesti. Päätän esseen argumentoimalla, että metafysiikka on valistunutta siinä mielessä, että klassisen substanssi-ominaisuus-skeeman sokeasta seuraamisesta on pitkälti päästy eroon. Metafysiikka kaipaa kuitenkin lisää valistusta ja kriittistä tarkastelua, jotta vapaudumme täysin kyseisen skeeman ja modernin predikaatti-logiikan johdatuksen aiheuttamasta kolmesta ongelmallisesta suositusta (tausta)oletuksesta: (1) (...) perustavat partikulaariset yksilöoliot ovat (periaatteessa) laskettavia, (2) ne eivät ole relationaalisia ja (3) ominaisuudet ovat ontologisesti riippuvaisia kantajistaan. (shrink)

The paper provides a brief introduction to Midgley's person and work, and an overview of The Biscuit Tin memorial event-series in honor of Midgley.

Skinner has been criticized for advancing essentialist interpretations of meaning in which meaning is treated as the property of a word or a grammatical form. Such a practice is consistent with a "words and things" view that sought to advance an ideal language as well as with S-R views that presented meaning as the property of a word form. These views imply an essentialist theory of meaning that would be consistent with Skinner's early S-R behaviorism. However, Skinner's more developed account (...) of meaning is based on his later selectionist behaviorism, and this account of meaning is aligned in many respects with the views of Darwin, Peirce, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. After adopting a selectionist theory of meaning, it was inconsistent for Skinner to maintain essentialist practices although Skinner did so in response to influences that had little to do with his selectionist theory. Skinner's particular contribution to this pragmatic-selectionist tradition of meaning is the integration of meaning within his three-term contingency for operant behavior. In this account, meaning lies in the probabilistic functional relations of verbal behavior rather than in its form. (shrink)