ENGLISH

The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene

By Mary Midgley

Book information

Publisher
Acumen
Year
2010
ISBN
184465253X, 9781844652532
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
958 kB (981319 bytes)
Series
Heretics
Pages
vi+154\161
Orientation
yes
Paginated
yes
Scanned
portrait
Time added
2014-11-05 06:08:56

Description

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.

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