Background
Mary Midgley was born on September 13, 1919, in London, United Kingdom. She was the younger of two children of Lesley and Tom Scrutton.
Downe House, Hermitage Rd, Cold Ash, Thatcham RG18 9JJ, United Kingdom
Downe House School where Mary Midgley studied.
Woodstock Rd, Oxford OX2 6HD, United Kingdom
Somerville College where Mary Midgley studied.
Mary Midgley at home in Newcastle, 2014. Photograph: Gary Calton.
Mary Midgley at Free Thinking Festival in November 2010.
(Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the quali...)
Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the qualities that make human beings different from other species. In Beast and Man Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, Beast and Man has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live.
https://www.amazon.com/Beast-Man-Nature-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415289874/?tag=2022091-20
1978
(Throughout our lives, we are making moral choices. Some d...)
Throughout our lives, we are making moral choices. Some decisions simply direct our everyday comings and goings; others affect our individual destinies. How do we make those choices? Where does our sense of right and wrong come from, and how can we make more informed decisions? In clear, entertaining prose Mary Midgley takes us to the heart of the matter: the human experience that is central to all decision-making.
https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Mind-Varieties-Experience-Routledge-dp-1138141720/dp/1138141720/?tag=2022091-20
1981
(To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frighten...)
To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frightening venture. Here Mary Midgley does so, with her customary brilliance and clarity. In Wickedness she sets out to delineate not so much the nature of wickedness as its actual sources. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness is an inevitable part of human nature. This is not however a blanket acceptance of evil. She provides us with a framework that accepts its existence yet offers humankind the possibility of rejecting this part of our nature. Out of this dark journey she returns with an offering to us: an understanding of human nature that enhances our very humanity. To read Wickedness is to understand Mary Midgley's reputation as one of the world's greatest moral philosophers.
https://www.amazon.com/Wickedness-Routledge-Classics-Mary-Midgley-dp-0415255511/dp/0415255511/?tag=2022091-20
1984
(This book examines how science comes to be used as a subs...)
This book examines how science comes to be used as a substitute for religion and points out how badly that role distorts it. Her argument is flawlessly insightful: a punch, compelling, lively indictment of these misuses of science. Both the book and its author are true classics of our time.
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Religion-Routledge-Classics-25/dp/0415278333/?tag=2022091-20
1985
(How many times do we hear the statement 'It's not for me ...)
How many times do we hear the statement 'It's not for me to judge'? It conveys one of the most popular ideas of our time: that to make judgements of others is essentially wrong. In this classic text, the renowned moral philosopher Mary Midgely turns a spotlight on the ever popular stance in society that we should not make moral judgements on others. Guiding the reader through the diverse approaches to this complex subject, she interrogates our strong beliefs about such things as the value of freedom that underlie our scepticism about making moral judgements.
https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Moral-Judgements-Bloomsbury-Revelations/dp/1474298001/?tag=2022091-20
1989
(In this book one of Britain's leading popular philosopher...)
In this book one of Britain's leading popular philosophers tackles a question that is at the root of our civilization: What is knowledge for?
https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Information-Wonder-What-Knowledge/dp/0415028302/?tag=2022091-20
1989
(What is the role of scientists in society? What should we...)
What is the role of scientists in society? What should we think when they talk about more than just science? Mary Midgley discusses the high spiritual ambitions which tend to gather around the notion of science.
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Salvation-Modern-Myth-Meaning/dp/0415107733/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(In The Ethical Primate, Mary Midgley, 'one of the sharpes...)
In The Ethical Primate, Mary Midgley, 'one of the sharpest critical pens in the West' according to the Times Literary Supplement, addresses the fundamental question of human freedom. Scientists and philosophers have found it difficult to understand how each human-being can be a living part of the natural world and still be free. Midgley explores their responses to this seeming paradox and argues that our evolutionary origin explains both why and how human freedom and morality have come about.
https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Primate-Humans-Freedom-Morality/dp/0415095301/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(Why do the big philosophical questions so often strike us...)
Why do the big philosophical questions so often strike us as far-fetched and little to with everyday life? Mary Midgley shows that it need not be that way; she shows that there is a need for philosophy in the real world. Her popularity as one of our foremost philosophers is based on a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to fundamental human problems, philosphical or otherwise. In Utopias, Dolphins and Computers she makes her case for philosophy as a difficult but necessary tool for solving some of the most pressing issues facing contemporary society.
https://www.amazon.com/Utopias-Dolphins-Computers-Problems-Philosophical-ebook/dp/B00B9KBJLE/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(Science, according to the received wisdom of the day, can...)
Science, according to the received wisdom of the day, can answer any question we choose to put to it – even the most fundamental about ourselves, our behaviour and our cultures. But for Mary Midgley it can never be the whole story, as it cannot truly explain what it means to be human. In this typically crusading work, universally acclaimed as a classic on first publication, she powerfully asserts her corrective view that without poetry (or literature, or music, or history, or even theology) we cannot hope to understand our humanity. In this remarkable book, the reader is struck by both the simplicity and power of her argument and the sheer pleasure of reading one of our most accessible philosophers.
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Poetry-Routledge-Classics-102/dp/0415378486/?tag=2022091-20
2001
(Mary Midgley argues in her powerful new book that far fro...)
Mary Midgley argues in her powerful new book that far from being the opposite of science, myth is a central part of it. In brilliant prose, she claims that myths are neither lies nor mere stories but a network of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world.
https://www.amazon.com/Myths-We-Live-Mary-Midgley-ebook/dp/B000OI15V6/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(One of the UK’s foremost living moral philosophers, Mary ...)
One of the UK’s foremost living moral philosophers, Mary Midgley recounts her remarkable story in this elegiac and moving account of friendships found and lost, bitter philosophical battles and of a profound love of teaching.
https://www.amazon.com/Owl-Minerva-Memoir-Mary-Midgley-ebook/dp/B000SI8CCW/?tag=2022091-20
2005
(Renowned philosopher Mary Midgley explores the nature of ...)
Renowned philosopher Mary Midgley explores the nature of our moral constitution to challenge the view that reduces human motivation to self-interest. Midgley argues cogently and convincingly 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. Such neatness, she shows, cannot be imposed on human psychology. She returns to Darwin's original writings to show how the reductive individualism which is now presented as Darwinism does not derive from Darwin but from a wider, Hobbesian tradition in Enlightenment thinking. She reveals the selfish gene hypothesis as a cultural accretion that is just not seen in nature. Heroic independence is not a realistic aim for Homo sapiens. We are, as Darwin saw, earthly organisms, framed to interact constantly with one another and with the complex ecosystems of which we are a tiny part. For us, bonds are not just restraints but also lifelines.
https://www.amazon.com/Solitary-Self-Darwin-Selfish-Gene/dp/184465253X/?tag=2022091-20
2010
(Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it ...)
Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives? Mary Midgley addresses these provocative questions in her most up-to-date statement on the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind. This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.
https://www.amazon.com/What-Philosophy-Mary-Midgley/dp/1350051071/?tag=2022091-20
2018
(In Are You an Illusion? today’s scientific orthodoxy, whi...)
In Are You an Illusion? today’s scientific orthodoxy, which treats the self as nothing more than an elaborate illusion, comes under spirited attack. In an impassioned defence of the importance of our own thoughts, feelings and experiences, Mary Midgley shows that there’s much more to our selves than a jumble of brain cells.
https://www.amazon.com/Are-Illusion-Heretics-Mary-Midgley/dp/1844657922/?tag=2022091-20
Mary Midgley was born on September 13, 1919, in London, United Kingdom. She was the younger of two children of Lesley and Tom Scrutton.
Mary Midgley attended Downe House School. In 1938 she entered Somerville College, Oxford where she studied until 1942. In 1947 she returned to Oxford in order to do graduate work. However, her thesis was unfashionable and vast, so she didn't finish it.
Mary Midgley received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Durham University in 1995. In 2008, she received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Newcastle University.
Mary Midgley started her career as a civil servant in the Ministry of Production in 1942. Her job was to weigh up the competing demands from the three armed services for raw materials. After the war, she served as a secretary to the classical scholar Gilbert Murray from 1945 to 1947. In 1949 she took up a post of professor of philosophy at the University of Reading. She held this post until 1950 when she moved to Newcastle. In 1962, Midgley became a professor of philosophy at Newcastle University. She held this post until 1980.
Mary Midgley began studying ethology at Newcastle University. This led to her first book Beast and Man that was published in 1978. Later she wrote such books as Heart and Mind: The Varieties of Moral Experience, Wickedness, Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning, The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality and many others. Her last book What Is Philosophy for? was published in 2018. Midgley also wrote numerous articles for such magazines as Philosophy, The Twentieth Century, European Journal of Education and Philosophy Now.
(Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it ...)
2018(One of the UK’s foremost living moral philosophers, Mary ...)
2005(Why do the big philosophical questions so often strike us...)
1996(What is the role of scientists in society? What should we...)
1992(In The Ethical Primate, Mary Midgley, 'one of the sharpes...)
1994(How many times do we hear the statement 'It's not for me ...)
1989(Science, according to the received wisdom of the day, can...)
2001(Renowned philosopher Mary Midgley explores the nature of ...)
2010(In Are You an Illusion? today’s scientific orthodoxy, whi...)
(In this book one of Britain's leading popular philosopher...)
1989(This book examines how science comes to be used as a subs...)
1985(Mary Midgley argues in her powerful new book that far fro...)
2003(Philosophers have traditionally concentrated on the quali...)
1978(To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frighten...)
1984(Throughout our lives, we are making moral choices. Some d...)
1981Mary Midgley did not embrace Christianity herself, because, as she said she couldn't make it work. She tried to pray and it didn't seem to get her anywhere so she stopped after a while. However, she said that the world's religions should not simply be ignored.
Mary 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 positive virtues such as generosity, courage and kindness. Therefore, evil is the absence of these characteristics, leading to selfishness, cowardice and similar. Midgley also criticized existentialism and other schools of thought which promote the 'Rational Will' as a free agent. Besides, she criticized the tendency to demonize those deemed 'wicked', by failing to acknowledge that they also display some measure of some of the virtues.
Mary Midgley expressed her interest in Paul Davies' ideas on the inherent improbability of the order found in the universe. She was supportive of James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. She argued that Gaia is not a gratuitous, semi-mystical fantasy, but instead is a useful idea, a cure for distortions that spoil our current world-view.
Midgley said that human beings are more similar to animals than many social scientists then acknowledged. She also argued that animals are in many ways more sophisticated than were often accepted. She criticized existentialists who argued that there was no such thing as human nature and writers such as Desmond Morris who she understood as arguing that human nature was "brutal and nasty". Midgley argued against reductionism, or the attempt to impose any one approach to understanding the world. She said that we need scientific pluralism – the recognition that there are many independent forms and sources of knowledge.
Midgley wrote her book Are you an illusion? as a response to Francis Crick's argument that a person's sense of personal identity and free will is no more than the behavior of nerve cells. She insists that thoughts and memories are an integral part of reality for both humans and animals and need to be studied as such.
Quotations:
"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."
"What I object to is improper science sold as science. I understand Dawkins thinks he was talking about the survival potential of certain lines rather than the motives of the genes themselves, but I believe he is mistaken. Scientists in this country have little cultural overlap with the arts and humanities and ... they are unaware of when they start bringing their own political and psychological views into the argument. There's nothing wrong with scientists having such views as long as they are aware of what they are doing ... Dawkins may argue that he is using selfishness as a metaphor but he must have been aware of how the concept might be interpreted and used. And Dawkins has to take some responsibility for that."
"Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological."
"Evolution is the creation-myth of our age. By telling us our origin it shapes our views of what we are. It influences not just our thought, but our feelings and actions too, in a way that goes far beyond its official function as a biological theory."
"The trouble with human beings is not really that they love themselves too much; they ought to love themselves more. The trouble is simply that they don’t love others enough."
Mary Midgley founded the Gaia Network in 2001. She also was an honorary fellow of the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre at Newcastle University.
Mary Midgley married Geoffrey Midgley in 1950. The marriage produced three children. Geoffrey Midgley died in 1997.