Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature - Hardcover

Mary Midgley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801410320 ISBN 13: 9780801410321

Publisher: NCROL, 1978

Synopsis

Book by Mary Midgley

About this title

About the Author

Mary Midgley is a moral philosopher who teaches at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She is the author of Science as Salvation, The Ethical Primate, Wickedness, and Wisdom, Information and Wonder, all available from Routledge.

Review

"...an extremely elegant, penetrating and thought-provoking text...It is beautifully written, stimulating and innovative. To me, there is no question but that Beast rnd Man should be read by all those directly concerned win the nature/nurture debate: zoologist, anthropologists and social scientists. But I would go much further than to say that no thinking person can afford to live without a philosophical outlook which integrates biology and culture. Accordingly, this is a book which deserves to be read across all disciplinary boundaries. I hope it will be.." -- R.D. Martin, University College, London

"Beast and Man is a brilliant and persuasive attempt to set us in our animal context, to show us to ourselves as at home in the world, and to indicate a morality for a society without relgious absolutes--a morality of which we see the rudments in our brother species.." -- The Observer

"This is a very important book. Mrs. Midgley, a professional philosopher with a considerable knowledge of biology, defends a philosophical conception of human nature enriched by biological study. She critizes in detail narrowly scientific claims to provide fundamental explorations of human behavior. She also attacks moral theories which ignore the relation of ethics to nature and which fail to evaluate scientific discovery. her two-way exercise in relating facts to values is among other things a formidable contribution to contemporary debate in moral philosophy. This long, closely reasoned book, written without scientific or philosophical jargon, presents a lively and wide-ranging argument which will interest scientists and philosophers, specialists and laymen. In pursuing the philosophical task of resolving conceptual confusions Mrs. Midgley has provide an urgently needed bridge between science and philosophy.." -- Iris Murdoch

Edition details

• Publisher: NCROL
• Publication date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801410320
• ISBN 13: 9780801410321
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 377