The first title to launch a new series entitled Heretics, this book is a formidable critique of the use of Darwin's ideas in modern-day accounts of human motivation, most notably in the work of evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins.
The first title to launch a new series of books, Heretics. Mary Midgley is the doyenne of British moral philosophers. The book is a formidable critique of the use of Darwins ideas in modern-day accounts of human motivation, most notably in the work of evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins.
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.
