Beast and Man (1978) Animals and Why They Matter (1983) Evolution as a Religion (1985) Science as Salvation (1992)
Mary Beatrice Midgley (néeScrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018)[1] was a Britishphilosopher. A senior lecturer inphilosophy atNewcastle University, she was known for her work on science,ethics andanimal rights. She wrote her first book,Beast and Man (1978), when she was in her late fifties, and went on to write over 15 more, includingAnimals and Why They Matter (1983),Wickedness (1984),The Ethical Primate (1994),Evolution as a Religion (1985), andScience as Salvation (1992). She was awarded honorarydoctorates byDurham and Newcastle universities. Her autobiography,The Owl of Minerva, was published in 2005.
Midgley strongly opposedreductionism andscientism, and argued against any attempt to make science a substitute for thehumanities. She wrote extensively about what she thought philosophers can learn from nature, particularly from animals. Midgley insisted that humans ought to be understood as first and foremost, a kind of animal. Several of her books and articles discussed philosophical ideas appearing inpopular science, including those ofRichard Dawkins. She also wrote in favour of a moral interpretation of theGaia hypothesis.The Guardian described her as a fiercely combative philosopher and the UK's "foremost scourge of 'scientificpretension'".[3]
[A] new and vigorous Classics teacher offered to teach a few of usGreek, and that too was somehow slotted into our timetables. We loved this and worked madly at it, which meant that with considerable efforts on all sides, it was just possible for us to go to college on Classics … I had decided to read Classics rather than English – which was the first choice that occurred to me – because my English teacher, bless her, pointed out that English literature is something that you read in any case, so it is better to study something that you otherwise wouldn't. Someone also told me that, if you did Classics at Oxford, you could do Philosophy as well. I knew very little about this but, as I had just found Plato, I couldn't resist trying it.[4]
Midgley took the Oxford entrance exam in the autumn of 1937, gaining a place atSomerville College. During the year before starting university, it was arranged that she would live inAustria for three months to learnGerman, but she had to leave after a month because of theworsening political situation. At Somerville she studiedMods and Greats alongsideIris Murdoch, graduating with a first-class honours degree.
Several of her lasting friendships that began at Oxford were with scientists, and she credited them with having educated her in a number of scientific disciplines.[5] After a split in the Labour club at Oxford over the Soviet Union's actions, she was on the committee of the newly formed Democratic Socialist Club alongsideTony Crosland andRoy Jenkins.
During Midgley's time at Oxford, many of the young male undergraduates left to fight in theSecond World War. This left the women undergraduates in an unlikely position: for the first time they made up the majority in the student body. Recalling this time, Midgley writes "I think myself that this experience has something to do with the fact thatElizabeth [Anscombe] and I andIris [Murdoch] andPhilippa Foot andMary Warnock have all made our names in philosophy... I do think that in normal times a lot of good female thinking is wasted because it simply doesn't get heard."[6] Interest in the philosophy of the women philosophers at this time sparked the interest of two philosophers atDurham University, who began a project calledIn Parenthesis,[7] which explores the connections between four women philosophers (Foot,Anscombe, Midgley and Murdoch).
Midgley left Oxford in 1942 and went into thecivil service, as "the war put graduate work right out of the question". Instead, she "spent the rest of the war doing various kinds of work that were held to be of national importance".[8] During this time she was also a teacher at Downe School andBedford School. She returned to Oxford in 1947 to do graduate work withGilbert Murray. She began research onPlotinus's view of the soul, which she has described as "so unfashionable and so vast that I never finished my thesis".[8] In retrospect Midgley has written of her belief that she is "lucky" to have missed out on having adoctorate. She argues that one of the main flaws in doctoral training is that, while it "shows you how to deal with difficult arguments", it does not "help you to grasp the big questions that provide its context – the background issues out of which the small problems arose."[8]
In 1949 Midgley went toReading University, teaching in the philosophy department there for four terms. In 1950 she marriedGeoffrey Midgley (died 1997),[9] also a philosopher. They moved toNewcastle, where he got a job in the philosophy department ofNewcastle University.[10] Midgley stopped teaching for several years while she had three sons (Tom, David and Martin),[3] before also getting a job in the philosophy department at Newcastle, where she and her husband were both "much loved".[10] Midgley taught there between 1962 and 1980.[11] During her time at Newcastle, she began studyingethology and this led to her first book,Beast and Man (1978), published when she was 59. "I wrote no books until I was a good 50, and I'm jolly glad because I didn't know what I thought before then."[3]
Midgley argued that philosophy is likeplumbing, something that nobody notices until it goes wrong. "Then suddenly we become aware of some bad smells, and we have to take up the floorboards and look at the concepts of even the most ordinary piece of thinking. The great philosophers ... noticed how badly things were going wrong, and made suggestions about how they could be dealt with."[16] Midgley argued that philosophy was not something that was reserved for intellectuals and academics. In her view, it is something weall do — an activity that is part of the human conditions.[citation needed]
Despite her upbringing, she did not embrace Christianity herself, because, she says, "I couldn't make it work. I would try to pray and it didn't seem to get me anywhere so I stopped after a while. But I think it's a perfectly sensible world view."[10] She also argues that the world's religions should not simply be ignored: "It turns out that the evils which have infested religion are not confined to it, but are ones that can accompany any successful human institution. Nor is it even clear that religion itself is something that the human race either can or should be cured of."[17]
Midgley's bookWickedness (1984) has been described as coming "closest to addressing a theological theme: the problem of evil."[18] But, Midgley argues that we need to understand the human capacity for wickedness, rather than blaming God for it. Midgley argues that evil arises from aspects of human nature, not from an external force. She further argues that evil is the absence of good, with good being described as the positive virtues such as generosity, courage and kindness. Therefore, evil is the absence of these characteristics, leading to selfishness, cowardice and similar. She therefore criticizes existentialism and other schools of thought which promote the 'Rational Will' as a free agent. She also criticizes the tendency to demonize those deemed 'wicked', by failing to acknowledge that they also display some measure of some of the virtues.[18]
Midgley also expressed her interest inPaul Davies' ideas on the inherent improbability of the order found in the universe. She argued that "there's some sort of tendency towards the formation of order", including towards life and "perceptive life".[10] The best way, she argued, of talking about this is using the concept of "a life force", although she acknowledged that this is "vague".[10] She also argued that "gratitude" is an important part of the motivation fortheism. "You go out on a day like this and you're really grateful. I don't know who to."[10]
This understanding also links with Midgley's argument that the concept ofGaia has "both a scientific and a religious aspect."[19] She argued that people find this hard to grasp because our views on both science and religion have been narrowed so much that the connections between them are now obscured.[19] This is not, however, about belief in a personal God, but instead about responding to the system of life, as revealed by Gaia, with "wonder, awe and gratitude"[20]
She observes that "practically all the great European philosophers have been bachelors", and argues that this may be responsible for the solipsism, skepticism, and individualism that dominate the tradition.[21]
Midgley was supportive ofJames Lovelock'sGaia hypothesis. This was part of her "principal passion" of "reviving our reverence for the earth".[11] Midgley also described Gaia as a "breakthrough", as it was "the first time a theory derived from scientific measurements has carried with it an implicit moral imperative – the need to act in the interests of this living system on which we all depend.[22]
In 2001 Midgley founded, along with David Midgley and Tom Wakeford, the Gaia Network, and became its first Chair.[23][24] Their regular meetings on the implications of Gaia led to the 2007 bookEarthy realism edited by Midgley, which sought to bring together the scientific and spiritual aspects of Gaia theory.[24]
Midgley's 2001 pamphlet forDemos,Gaia: The next big idea, argues for the importance of the idea of Gaia as a "powerful tool" in science, morality, psychology and politics, to gain a more holistic understanding of the world.[25] Instead, Midgley argued that we "must learn how to value various aspects of our environment, how to structure social relationships and institutions so that we value social and spiritual life, as well as the natural world, alongside commercial and economic aspects.[25]
Her bookScience and Poetry, also published in 2001, also includes a discussion on the idea of Gaia, which she argued "is not a gratuitous, semi-mystical fantasy", but instead is "a useful idea, a cure for distortions that spoil our current world-view."[26] It is useful both in finding practical solutions to environmental problems and also in giving us "a more realistic view of ourselves".[26] Gaia has, Midgley argued, both scientific and moral importance, which also involves politics.[27] There is also a religious angle to Gaia.[28]
Beast and Man was an examination of human nature and a reaction against thereductionism ofsociobiology, and therelativism andbehaviorism she saw as prevalent in much of social science. She argued that human beings are more similar to animals than many social scientists then acknowledged, while animals are in many ways more sophisticated than was often accepted.[10] She criticizedexistentialists who argued that there was no such thing as human nature and writers such asDesmond Morris who she understood as arguing that human nature was "brutal and nasty".[10] Instead, she argued that human beings and their relationship with animals could be better understood by using thequalitative methods ofethology andcomparative psychology, and that this approach showed that "we do have a nature and it's much more in the middle."[10]
Writing in the 2002 introduction to the reprint ofEvolution as a Religion (1985), Midgley reported that she wrote both this book, and the laterScience as Salvation (1992) to counter the "quasi-scientific speculation"[29] of "certain remarkableprophetic andmetaphysical passages that appeared suddenly in scientific books, often in their last chapters."[30]Evolution as a Religion dealt with the theories ofevolutionary biologists, includingDawkins, whileScience as Salvation dealt with the theories of physicists andartificial intelligence researchers. Midgley writes that she still believes that these theories, "have nothing to do with any reputable theory of evolution,"[31] and will not solve the real social and moral problems the world is facing, either throughgenetic engineering or the use of machines. She concludes: "These schemes still seem to me to be just displacement activities proposed in order to avoid facing our real difficulties."[31] "[I]n exposing these rhetorical attempts to turn science into a comprehensive ideology," she wrote inThe myths we live by, "I am not attacking science but defending it against dangerous misconstructions."[32]
Midgley argued against reductionism, or the attempt to impose any one approach to understanding the world. She suggests that there are "many maps, many windows," arguing that "we needscientific pluralism—the recognition that there are many independent forms and sources of knowledge—rather than reductivism, the conviction that one fundamental form underlies them all and settles everything." She writes that it is helpful to think of the world as "a huge aquarium. We cannot see it as a whole from above, so we peer in at it through a number of small windows ... We can eventually make quite a lot of sense of this habitat if we patiently put together the data from different angles. But if we insist that our own window is the only one worth looking through, we shall not get very far."[33]
She argued that, "acknowledging matter as somehow akin to and penetrated by mind is not adding a new ... assumption ... it is becoming aware of something we are doing already." She suggested that "this topic is essentially the one which causedEinstein often to remark that the really surprising thing about science is that it works at all ... the simple observation that the laws of thought turn out to be the laws of things."[34]
Midgley wrote her 2014 book,Are you an illusion? as a response toFrancis Crick's argument in his bookThe Astonishing Hypothesis that a person's sense of personal identity and free will is no more than the behaviour of nerve cells. She attacks the understanding inherent in this argument that everything, including a sense of self, can be understood through its physical properties.[10] Instead, she argues that there are different levels of explanation, which need to be studied using different methods. This means that thoughts and memories are an integral part of reality for both humans and animals and need to be studied as such.[35]
In 1978,J. L. Mackie published an article entitledThe Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and Principles of Evolution, praising Dawkins'sThe Selfish Gene, and discussing how its ideas might be applied to moral philosophy.[36] Midgley responded in 1979 with "Gene-Juggling", stating that Dawkins was an "uncriticalphilosophic egoist", followed by some far less kind opinions of his work, and arguing that the central point ofThe Selfish Gene was "that the emotional nature of man is exclusively self-interested", rather than a perspective of general evolution.[37] In a 1981 rebuttal, Dawkins retorted that the comment was "hard to match, in reputable journals, for its patronising condescension toward a fellow academic".[38]
The bad feeling between Dawkins and Midgley did not diminish. In a note to page 55 in the 2nd edition ofThe Selfish Gene (1989), Dawkins refers to her "highly intemperate and vicious paper". Midgley continued to oppose Dawkins' ideas. In her booksEvolution as a Religion (2002) andThe Myths We Live By (2003), she wrote about what she saw as his confused use of language — using terms such as "selfish" in different ways without alerting the reader to the change in meaning—and some of what she regarded as hisrhetoric ("genes exert ultimate power over behaviour"), which she argued is more akin to religion than science. She wrote in a letter toThe Guardian in 2005:
[There is] widespread discontent with theneo-Darwinist—or Dawkinsist—orthodoxy that claims something which Darwin himself denied, namely that natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random. This is itself a strange faith which ought not to be taken for granted as part of science.[39]
In an interview withThe Independent in September 2007, she argued that Dawkins' views on evolution are ideologically driven: "The ideology Dawkins is selling is the worship of competition. It is projecting aThatcherite take on economics on to evolution. It's not an impartial scientific view; it's a political drama."[40] In April 2009 Midgley reiterated her critical interpretation ofThe Selfish Gene as part of a series of articles onHobbes inThe Guardian.[41] In her 2010 bookThe Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene, she argues that "simple one-sided accounts of human motives, such as the "selfish gene" tendency in recent neo-Darwinian thought, may be illuminating but are always unrealistic".[42]
Midgley is referred to inThe Lives of Animals (1999), a work of fiction by the South African novelistJ. M. Coetzee. The book has been likened to a cross between a short story and a philosophical dialogue, as Coetzee's protagonist, Elizabeth Costello, often speaks at length about philosophical ideas. Many reviewers expressed bafflement at the text, which has an enigmatic and riddling style. As one reviewer noted, "the reader is not quite sure whether he is intended to spot some confusion or contradiction or non-sequitur in [the protagonist's] arguments."[43] Other critics however have noted many affinities betweenThe Lives of Animals and Midgley's philosophy, and have used Midgley's ideas to make sense of Coetzee's work.
The main character, who also appears in Coetzee's novelElizabeth Costello, is concerned with the moral status of animals, a subject Midgley addressed inAnimals and Why They Matter, and discusses at length the idea of sympathy as an ethical concept, a subject Midgley wrote about inBeast and Man. Andy Lamey wrote that the result of these and other similarities is that Coetzee's work "evoke[s] a particular conception of ethics, one very similar to that of the philosopher Mary Midgley. Such a view affords a central role to sympathy and is fundamentally opposed to a long-standing rival view, most clearly exemplified by the social contract tradition, which prioritizes an instrumental conception of rationality."[44]
Coetzee and Midgley additionally shared a longstanding fascination withRobinson Crusoe. Coetzee retells the Crusoe story in his novelFoe, while Midgley wrote about Crusoe in her essay "Duties Concerning Islands." Midgley's essay argued for the idea that human beings can have ethical obligations to non-human entities such as animals and ecosystems, an idea also found inThe Lives of Animals,Foe and many other works by Coetzee.[45]
Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature. Routledge, 1978; revised edition 1995.ISBN0-415-28987-4
Heart and Mind: The Varieties of Moral Experience. Routledge, 1981.ISBN0-415-30449-0
Animals and Why They Matter: A Journey Around the Species Barrier. University of Georgia Press, 1983.ISBN0-8203-2041-2
Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay. Routledge, 1984.ISBN0-415-25398-5
with Judith Hughes.Women's Choices: Philosophical Problems Facing Feminism. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983.ISBN0-312-88791-4
Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. Routledge, 1985; reprinted with new introduction 2002.ISBN0-415-27832-5 This is dedicated "to the memory ofCharles Darwin who never said these things."
Can't We Make Moral Judgements?. Bristol Press, 1989.ISBN1-85399-166-X
Wisdom, Information and Wonder: What Is Knowledge For?. Routledge, 1989.ISBN0-415-02830-2
The Neutrality of the Moral Philosopher (1974)Supplementary Volume of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 211–29JSTOR4544857
The Game Game (1974)Philosophy49, No. 189, pp. 231–253JSTOR3750115
On Trying Out One's New Sword on a Chance Wayfarer (1977)The Listener (Reprinted in Midgley, MaryHeart and Mind (1981) and MacKinnon, BarbaraEthics, Theory and Contemporary Issues (Third Edition 2001))
More about Reason, Commitment and Social Anthropology (1978)Philosophy53, No. 205, pp. 401–403JSTOR3749907
The Objection to Systematic Humbug (1978)Philosophy53, No. 204, pp. 147–169JSTOR3749425
Freedom and Heredity (1978)The Listener (Reprinted in Midgley, MaryHeart and Mind (1981))
Brutality and Sentimentality (1979)Philosophy54, No. 209, pp. 385–389JSTOR3750611
The All-Female Number (1979)Philosophy54 No. 210, pp. 552–554JSTOR3751049
The Absence of a Gap between Facts and Values (with Stephen R. L. Clark) (1980)Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes54, pp. 207–223+225-240JSTOR4106784
Consequentialism and Common Sense (1980)The Hastings Center Report10, No. 5, pp. 43–44doi:10.2307/3561052
Why Knowledge Matters (1981)Animals in Research: New Perspectives in Animal Experimentation ed. David Sperling
Human Ideals and Human Needs (1983)Philosophy58, No. 223, pp. 89–94JSTOR3750521
Towards a New Understanding of Human Nature: The Limits of Individualism (1983)How Humans Adapt: A Biocultural Odyssey ed. Donald J. Ortner
Duties Concerning Islands (1983)EncounterLX (Reprinted inPeople, Penguins and Plastic Trees (1986) ed. Donald Vandeveer also inEthics (1994) ed. Peter Singer andEnvironmental Ethics (1995) ed. Robert Elliot)
Beasts, Brutes and Monsters (1988)What Is An Animal? ed. Tim Ingold
Teleological Theories of Morality (1988)An Encyclopaedia of Philosophy ed. G.H.R. Parkinson
On Not Being afraid of Natural Sex Differences (1988)Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy ed. Morwenna Griffiths and Margaret Whitford
Practical Solutions (1988)The Hastings Center Report19, No. 6, pp. 44–45doi:10.2307/3561992
Myths of Intellectual Isolation (1988–89)Proceedings of the Aristotelian SocietyLXXXIX, Part 1
The Value of "Useless" Research: Supporting Scholarship for the Long Run (1989)Report by the Council for Science and Society
Are You an Animal? (1989)Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes ed. Gill Langley
Why Smartness is Not Enough (1990)Rethinking the Curriculum; Towards an Integrated, Interdisciplinary College Education ed. Mary E. Clark and Sandra A. Wawritko
The Use and Uselessness of Learning (1990)European Journal of Education25, No.3, pp. 283–294doi:10.2307/1503318
Rights-Talk Will Not Sort Out Child-abuse; Comment on Archard on Parental Rights (1991)Journal of Applied Philosophy8, No. 1doi:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1991.tb00411.x
The Origin of Ethics (1991)A Companion To Ethics ed. Peter Singer (Available in Spanishhere[permanent dead link])
Is the Biosphere a Luxury? (1992)The Hastings Center Report22, No. 3, pp. 7–12doi:10.2307/3563291
Towards a More Humane View of the Beasts? (1992)The Environment in Question ed. David E. Cooper and Joy A. Palmer
The Significance of Species (1992)The Moral Life ed. Stephen Luper-Foy and Curtis Brown (Reprinted inThe Animal Rights/ Environmental Ethics Debate, The Environmental Perspective (1992) ed. Eugene C. Hargrove)
Strange Contest, Science versus Religion (1992)The Gospel and Contemporary Culture ed. Hugh Montefiore
The Ethical Primate. Anthony Freeman in discussion with Mary Midgley (1995)Journal of Consciousness Studies2, No. 1, pp. 67–75(9) (Joint with Anthony Freeman)
Sustainability and Moral Pluralism (1996)Ethics and The Environment1, No. 1
One World – But a Big One (1996)Journal of Consciousness Studies3, No. 5/6
Earth Matters; Thinking about the Environment (1996)The Age of Anxiety ed. Sarah Dunant and Roy Porter
The View from Britain: What is Dissolving Families? (1996)American Philosophical Association, Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy96, No. 1 (Joint with Judith Hughes)
Can Education be Moral? (1996)Res PublicaII, No. 1doi:10.1007/BF02335711 (Reprinted inTeaching Right and Wrong, Moral Education in the Balance ed Richard Smith and Paul Standish)
Science in the World (1996)Science Studies9, No. 2
The Myths We Live By (1996)The Values of Science Oxford Amnesty Lectures ed Wes Williams
Visions of Embattled Science (1997)Science Today: Problem or Crisis? ed Ralph Levinson and Jeff Thomas
The Soul's Successors: Philosophy and the "Body" (1997)Religion and the Body ed Sarah Coakley
Putting Ourselves Together Again (1998)Consciousness and Human Human Identity ed John Cornwall
Being Scientific about Our Selves (1999)Journal of Consciousness Studies,6 (Reprinted inModels of the Self (1999) ed Shaun Gallagher and Jonathan Shear)
Towards an Ethic of Global Responsibility (1999)Human Rights in Global Politics ed Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler
The Origins of Don Giovanni (1999–2000)Philosophy Now, p. 32
Alchemy Revived (2000)The Hastings Center Report30, No. 2, pp. 41–43doi:10.2307/3528314
Biotechnology and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the "Yuk Factor" (2000)The Hastings Center Report30, No. 5, pp. 7–15doi:10.2307/3527881
The Problem of Living with Wildness (2001)Wolves and Human Communities: Biology, Politics and Ethics ed Virginia A. Sharpe, Bryan Norton and Strachan Donelley
Wickedness (2001)The Philosophers' Magazine pp. 23–5
Heaven and Earth, an Awkward History (2001–2002)Philosophy Now34 p. 18
Does the Earth Concern Us? (2001–2002)Gaia Circular, p. 4
Choosing the Selectors (2002)Proceedings of the British Academy112 published asThe Evolution of Cultural Entities ed Michael Wheeler, John Ziman and Margaret A. Boden
Pluralism: The Many-Maps Model (2002)Philosophy Now35
Science and Poetry (2003)Situation Analysis2 (edited extract from Chapters 17 Individualism and the Concept of Gaia and 18 Gods and Goddesses; the Role of Wonder ofScience and Poetry)
^Jon Edgar - Sculpture Series Heads: Terracotta Portraits of Contributors to British Sculpture (2013) Scott, M., Hall, P., and Pheby, H.ISBN978-0955867514
Lamey, Andy."Sympathy and Scapegoating in J. M. Coetzee", in Anton Leist and Peter Singer (eds.).J. M. Coetzee and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Literature. Columbia University Press, 2010.
Mac Cumhaill, Clare; Wiseman, Rachael (2022).Metaphysical animals : how four women brought philosophy back to life. National Geographic Books.ISBN978-0-385-54570-9.OCLC1289274891.
Lipscomb, Benjamin J.B.The Women are up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch Revolutionised Ethics. Oxford, 2021.ISBN978-0197541074
McElwain, Gregory S.Mary Midgley: An Introduction. Bloomsbury, 2020.ISBN978-1350047563
Kidd, Ian James & McKinnell, Liz (eds.).Science And The Self: Animals, Evolution and Ethics: Essays In Honour Of Mary Midgley. Routledge, 2015.ISBN1-138-89838-4
Midgley, David (ed.).The Essential Mary Midgley. Routledge, 2005.ISBN0-415-34642-8
