糖心TV

Week 2 (21 Jan), 12:00-14:00, room: S1.88

鈥�The biologist amongst philosophers鈥�: Mary Midgley鈥檚 Zoological Approach to Aristotle鈥檚 Ethics.

Ellie Robson (糖心TV) & Sophia Connell (Notre Dame)

Abstract: The philosophy of Mary Midgley (1919-2018) is in the midst of a scholarly revival. In her early writing, Midgley appears familiar with key texts in Aristotle鈥檚 zoological corpus. One of the central aims of this paper is to substantiate this observation and offer reasons to think that the meta-ethical stance developed by Midgley in her first book – Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1978) – was influenced significantly by texts such as Historia Animalium (History of Animals), De Partibus Animalium (Parts of Animals) and De Generatione Animalium (Generation of Animals). This claim will have ramifications for understanding Midgely鈥檚 ethics and the tradition of Aristotelian Naturalism more generally. We outline points of convergence and overlap between Midgley鈥檚 meta-ethical framework and that found in Aristotle鈥檚 zoology corpus and argue on this basis that Midgley鈥檚 own reading of Aristotle鈥檚 zoology offered her novel avenues for developing a form of Aristotelian naturalism that we coin 鈥榸oological Aristotelianism naturalism鈥�. This, we argue, offers reasons to think that Midgley鈥檚 naturalism constitutes an a distinctive meta ethics with advancement in ethics compared with alternative Aristotelian naturalisms.