PHL 333 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Mary Midgley, Tabula Rasa, White Coat
28 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PHL333
Lecture 10
Mary Midgley
- For other philosophers, the thing we are is we are rational, don’t accept nature the way it
is, we develop, control and understand nature, our world shaped by us not natural forces,
focused on how we as humans with our special power (rationality) stand outside nature
and do things nature could never do on its own- view that Midgley is trying to challenge
- Midgley is not trying to say there is nothing special about human beings, but her point is
that the way we study animals will affect how we study humans, ways we study animals
namely we put our lab coats and sit on field, observe what they do, take notes, come up
with theories, our fundamental approach when studying animals should be the same
- With our study we might come up with special things human do, in order to study those
well we may have to develop different research methods that cannot be used on all
animals (economics)
- Human economics is very complicated
- Maybe some aspects of human lives do require a separate study (art)
- Animal lives don’t seem complex enough to warrant separate fields of study
- We should not let special things humans do make us thing they are different than other
animal species- back bone of Midgely’s claim
- Her claim is when you’re talking about human nature, to take word seriously you are
acting like humans have very distinct properties that define them as humans
- Our approach to human life should be what happens to humans when you put them in
open spaces- read fact as oh okay humans are like this
- To say humans have a nature at all is to say humans are determinant with ways of life
specific to it just as every species does
- Especially relevant here is notion of instinct- part of her question is it inappropriate to
talk about instinct when talking about human life- many think yes of course instinct is
central to human life
- Just as you might say field mice have an instinct and it doesn’t seem to be based on
experience but rather built in (have instinct to avoid open spaces) seems like it is built in-
open bad, hidden good
- Just as field mice have instincts built in, we should think humans do
- Interested in aggression, whether we have instinctual, natural reasons for making families
(argues yes), she wonders whether we have any innate responses to being stared at
- Interested in talking, from an ethologist point of view that is interesting fact about us,
seems instinctual, we naturally start speaking (not like one year olds send messages out
saying it is time to start speaking), not a matter of choice,
- Extincionalism-
- Blank slate view, blank paper view- calls libertarian view (pg. 4)
- ^ set of enemies she is arguing against
- General view of all of these is that we have no distinct human nature, cannot point to
human nature to explain anything in human life
- Why is field mouse running? Because it is a field muse, very nature is to seek hidden
spaces, be sensitive to vulnerabilities of open spaces, has it by nature
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
