ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|24 pages
The Problem
chapter 1|10 pages
Inner Divisions
chapter 2|12 pages
Misguided Debates
part II|68 pages
The Reductive Enterprise
chapter 3|16 pages
Guiding Visions
chapter 4|9 pages
Hopes of Simplicity
chapter 5|11 pages
Crusades, Legitimate and Otherwise
chapter 6|8 pages
Convergent Explanations and their uses
chapter 7|9 pages
Troubles of the Linear Pattern
chapter 8|13 pages
Fatalism and Predictability
part III|62 pages
The Sources and Meaning of Morals
chapter 9|14 pages
Agency and Ethics
chapter 10|12 pages
Modern Myths
chapter 11|7 pages
The Strength of Individualism
chapter 12|8 pages
The Retreat from the Natural World
chapter 13|5 pages
How far does Sociability take us?
chapter 14|14 pages
The uses of Sympathy
part IV|30 pages
What kind of Freedom?