Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:36:50.655Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evolution as a Religion: Mary Midgley's Hopes and Fears

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Anthony O'Hear
Anthony O'Hear*
Affiliation:
University of Buckingham
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper considers Mary Midgley's views on evolution, especially as developed in her book Evolution as a Religion. In this she continues the critical campaign she waged against Dawkins’ notion of the selfish gene, but broadens her attack out to encompass many other thinkers (whom she calls the ‘Omega’ men), who are predicting dramatic and revolutionary futures for humanity, based supposedly on what evolutionary science tells us. Midgley argues that no such conclusions are scientifically warranted – hence evolution as a religion. Her own attempts to absolve Darwin himself from this sort of scientism, and to remove from him any taint of social Darwinism are criticised, particularly by reference to The Descent of Man. Something is then said about Midgley's own alternative view of nature and humanity, a more holistic view, which itself has religious overtones.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 87: A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, Murdoch , July 2020 , pp. 263 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Midgley, Mary, Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, London: Methuen, 1985Google Scholar. Hereafter ER.

2 Midgley, Mary, ‘Gene-Juggling’, Philosophy, 54, 1979, 439–58CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Dawkins, Richard, ‘In defence of selfish genes’, Philosophy, 56, 1981, 556–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Midgley, Mary, ‘Selfish genes and Social Darwinism’, Philosophy, 58, 1983, 365–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1976Google Scholar; paperback edition, London: Granada, 1978, and many subsequent editions.

4 Midgley, Mary, What is Philosophy For?, London: Bloomsbury, 2018Google Scholar.

5 MRees, artin, On the Future, Princeton University Press, 2018Google Scholar; Hawking, Stephen, Brief Answers to The Big Questions, London: John Murray, 2018Google Scholar.

6 See Popper, Karl, The Poverty of Historicism, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961 edition, vi-viiGoogle Scholar.

7 ER op. cit. note 1, 34.

8 ER op. cit. note 1, 6.

9 Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Species, cited here in the Penguin, 1982 edition, edited by Burrow, J.W. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982)Google Scholar.

10 Op. cit. note 9, 458–60.

11 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, 1898Google Scholar.

12 Darwin, Charles (ed, Darwin, Francis and Seward, A.C.), More Letters of Charles Darwin, London: John Murray, 1903, Vol II, 30Google Scholar.

13 ER op. cit. note 1, 6.

14 Op. cit. note 9, 119.

15 Op. cit. note 11, Vol II, 440.

16 Op. cit. note 11, Vol I, 197.

17 All the quotations in this paragraph are from Darwin's ‘General Summary’ at the end of Descent, op. cit. note 11, Vol II, 438–40.

18 ER op. cit. note 1, 68.

19 Op. cit. note 11, Vol I, 206.

20 Op. cit. note 11, 206.

21 Op. cit. note 11, Vol I, 203.

22 ER op. cit. note 1, 143.

23 ER op. cit. note 1, 144.

24 ER op. cit. note 1, 160.

25 Op. cit. note 9, 445.

26 Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol I, 260–1.

27 Monod, Jacques, Chance and Necessity, London: Collins, 1972, 137Google Scholar.

28 Op. cit. note 27, 160.

29 ER op. cit. note 1, 78.

30 ER op. cit. note 1, 134.

31 ER op. cit. note 1, 136.

32 ER  op. cit. note 1, 112.