Mary Midgley: The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene.
Nicholas, Jeffery
Mary Midgley
The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene.
Durham: Acumen Publishing 2010.
154 pages
US$19.95 (paper ISBN 978-1-84465-253-2)
Nelson Rivera
The Earth is Our Home: Mary Midgley's Reconstruction of
Evolution and Its Meanings.
Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic 2010
250 pages
US$29.90 (paper ISBN 978-1-84540-212-9)
When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, he
refrained from publishing his thoughts on the evolution of the human
species fearing its controversial nature. 150 years later, evolution
remains problematic, especially in the United States. On January 31st
2012, the Indiana Senate approved Senate Bill 89, which allows the
teaching of creationism alongside evolution in science classes in public
schools. In religious circles, despite accepting evolution as fact, both
Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have maintained that evolutionary
science cannot explain the origins of life, of sentience, or of human
beings.
In addition, scientists debate the nature and meaning of evolution.
Since 1975, evolutionary psychology has been 'seriously
influential' in scientific circles (18). Evolutionary psychology
traces its roots to E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology (1975) and On Human
Nature (1978) and to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (1976).
Evolutionary psychologists defend a determinist understanding of
evolution and seek to find the explanation of all human behavior in
psychological mechanisms that evolved during the Pleistocene age.
Inevitably, evolutionary psychologists reference Darwin's own words
in their defense.
Since 1978, with the publication of Beast and Man, Mary Midgley has
attacked the fallacies of evolutionary psychology, or what others term
Darwinism'. Her ethology and understanding of science speaks
directly to Wilson's theses. Midgley has continuously defended
Darwin and evolution against its misappropriation by and the
reductionism inherent in evolutionary psychology. The Solitary Self
encapsulates her main arguments and addresses Dawkins particularly, and
Nelson Rivera's The Earth is Our Home explains and defends
Midgley's approach to evolution. Anyone working in evolutionary
theory or in the field of human nature--biological, psychological,
philosophical, or theological--would do well to pay attention to
Midgley's work for it resolves many of the problems that arise from
more sensational works.
Midgley titles The Solitary Self after the object of her
argument--a lone self driven by biological directives to compete for
scarce resources. The dominant myth of contemporary moral and
sociological thought is that of a selfish egoism, more powerful because
backed by the authority of science. This myth of the selfish individual
combines two forms of reductionism: social atomism, a belief in isolated
individuals that enjoy society only unnaturally, and physical
reductionism, which reduces the individual self to the isolated
components of her body (3). Neither evolutionary theory nor Darwin
supported such reductionism. Further, Midgley's account remains
open to traditional metaphysics and theology (though she and Darwin are
agnostic).
For Midgley, Darwin's insights into ethics have been neglected
because of poor interpreters who have focused solely on Darwin's
idea of natural selection and ignored his attempt to work out the
evolution of a moral sense. Further, the individualism that
characterizes his age caused people to see only what they wanted to see
in Darwin's theory of natural selection. This individualism
entailed that science involved looking only at the components of an
entity rather than the entity itself. This view of science led to the
wide acceptance of Dawkins' notion of the selfish gene, the idea
that organisms are simple machines built for the reproduction of the
gene. Finally, Midgley notes the role of dualism in this play: it
allows, first, the separation and, then, the exorcism of the spirit from
attempts to understand the whole of human life. Midgley's account,
in contrast, remains open to the metaphysical and the religious.
Darwin contends that human beings do not fit into an egoistic or
solitary picture. Midgley quotes Darwin: 'the moral sense is
fundamentally identical with the social instincts' (25). Midgley
shares with Darwin the view that the thesis of evolutionary psychology,
viz., that the moral instincts arose out of selfishness, is absurd;
individual organisms are not intelligent enough to pretend selflessness
in the variety of situations required. Even Dawkins writes that human
beings need not despair and can turn against their genes through
'enlightened self-interest' to overcome their inherent
selfishness. In fact, in contrast to Dawkins' selfish gene, Midgley
contends that recent science shows that empathy acts as a motive for our
actions.
Midgley traces the powerful sway of individualism back to Thomas
Hobbes' idea that people are selfish individuals who come together
in society in order to more securely pursue their interests. Modern
people believe that society and government are the enemies of the
individual. Psychologists like R. D. Laing and Carl Rogers contended
that individuals must break free from tradition and society in order to
self-actualize. Economists 'defined rationality solely in terms of
self interests' (39). The victory of Hobbesianism over the entirety
of human life had help from the scientist Thomas Huxley.
'Struggle' in Darwin's usage could mean either fighting
or cooperation to overcome some obstacle, but Huxley and others took it
to mean only fighting. Dawkins' The Selfish Gene gave a stamp of
scientific approval to these ideas: he uses the phrase 'nature red
in tooth and claw' to mean fighting and death when the objects of
his investigation-genes--do not bleed and have no teeth.
In contrast to enlightenment individualism, according to Midgley
Darwin sought to understand human motivation, which meant understanding
intelligence. Intelligence refers not simply to greater powers of
calculation, but to an ability to understand and evaluate one's
motives. Nietzsche too saw the way that intelligence and memory would
explain human motivation and cause conflict within individual human
beings. Yet, unlike Darwin, Nietzsche embraced individualism and
attacked the morality of custom and memory. In further contrast to
enlightenment thinkers, Darwin noted that rationality needs the
emotions: 'rationality is not just one of intellectual power or
consistency but includes aims: desires and wishes that are recognizably
human' (64, Midgley's emphasis).
Thus, for Midgley Aristotle was right about human reason: the only
way to move human beings to action is through some practical end.
Further, theory and practice cannot be separated in the way that David
Hume and other modern thinkers pretend. Reasoning 'describes the
process of bringing our conflicting motives together, weighing them and
trying to combine them to the satisfaction of our whole being'
(80). These motives are what Darwin called social instincts, that
evolved during our biological history. The difference between human
minds and other non-human animal minds is, then, one of degree, not of
kind. This claim is exactly the sort of claim that worries people like
the late John Paul II and the current pontiff, Benedict XVI. As Midgley
notes, however, believing that we suddenly jumped from no inner life to
the full and rich inner life of modern human beings 'makes no sense
at all'. Midgley contends that when Darwin claimed that the social
instincts are shared with the 'lower animals' he intended to
show that human beings should not worry about their close ties to
non-human animals. Simply because human beings share motivations with
non-human animals does not mean that theology and spirituality are
throwaways: 'A thing can be explained in as many different ways as
there are different kinds of question that can be asked about it and
these accounts do not clash' (90). Thus, scientism--the attempt to
make all human knowledge into some kind of physical knowledge--reaches
too far. Midgely quotes Darwin: 'This follows from the extreme
difficulty, or rather impossibility, of conceiving this immense and
wonderful universe, including man,.. .as the result of blind chance or
necessity' (93).
No all-purpose theory can explain the entirety of the universe.
Even the very level of matter already contains patterns that lead to the
self-reorganization of matter and plays its own role in evolution.
Midgley develops an account of materiality and evolution in order to
claim that human conscious purposiveness represents just one form of
directionality inherent in the universe. Things like acorns have
purposes. Moreover, Midgley shows that, rather than ridding nature and
evolution of values and purposes, Dawkins' selfish genes have
purposes as well, just of a more sinister type. Midgley's views on
matter/materiality echo the views of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas on
metaphysics and substantial change.
Social atomism arose at a time when people were trying to resist
feudal forms of relationship that no longer worked. Hobbes, seeking some
way out of the English civil wars, reduced the state's function to
the protection of individuals. Trying to shock everyone out of their
quietism, Hobbes' exposed real human selfishness, but he did so
with a distorted picture of human reality. Biologically speaking, of
course, Hobbes' war of all against all plays out in the violence
higher apes show to members outside their groups. This violence,
however, is a natural counterpart to the sociability that underlies the
friendships of groups' members. The way out, then, is to recognize
that human beings aim, not simply at self-preservation, but at
individual fulfillment.
In the end, Midgley believes each human being needs solitude, but
they are not 'totally separate beings' (140). Behind the myth
of economic competition that dominates present politics lies a more
important idea: 'the centrality of independence in human life'
(141). Later thinkers like Nietzsche and Ayn Rand trumpeted freedom
above all other values. True independence, in contrast, requires that
human beings act as whole persons. Such whole persons are material
beings, and the only threat there is the reduction of matter--of
nature--to lifeless, spiritless dead stuff, an idea which, hand-in-hand
with individualism, has caused so much damage in the modern world.
The idea that human beings are home in the world gives Nelson
Rivera the title of his book on Midgley's philosophy. In it, he
seeks to show how evolutionary theory proves fruitful for philosophical
and theological thought by examining Midgley's account of evolution
and her attacks on neo-Darwinians. Divided into five chapters, The Earth
is Our Home first situates Midgley in her specific philosophical and
cultural world. Rivera then develops an account of those philosophical
problems that concern Midgley. Rivera then recounts some of the problems
that have arisen in the conflict between evolution and theology, and
finely proposes a different way of thinking about that relationship by
'thinking from below'.
Followers of Midgley will appreciate Rivera's discussion of
Midgley. He recounts, for instance, that Iris Murdoch influenced Midgley
in her belief that the inner life of human beings matter. She seeks,
further, to reveal the role of science in human understanding,
recognizing that it cannot explain all of human life. This point proves
central to Rivera's discussion, because he wants to argue against
that kind of science that tries to explain everything from one or two
simple scientific facts; such science is theologically motivated.
Picking up on various themes in Midgley's work, Rivera contends
that Midgley is needed today to provide an understanding of the myths
that drive science and scientific thought.
One of these myths is evolution itself and how it can work as a
religion. Evolution can 'speak of promise while [promising]
salvation' (47). Midgley's concerns about evolution lead to
questions about epistemology and morality. She attacks reductive
humanism that not only denies dignity to non-human animals, but also
pits human beings against nature till they dominate it. The mind-body
problem makes thinking about how human beings fit into the world
problematic. However, Rivera says, Midgley sees it as a problem of
'how we think' (56). The inner life of the person must be seen
together with the body. Human beings need a humble humanism that shows
their continuity with nature and gives proper respect to being rational
and animal. Scientists capture this humble humanism with the notion of
Gaia, 'the idea of life on earth as a self-sustaining natural
system' (64). Further, Midgley believes that science and theology
both have a place in understanding human beings. For Rivera, science
contains a little bit of religion with its emphasis on simplicity and
beauty in scientific explanation, and religion contains a little bit of
science with its attempt to be systematic and seek truth. 'Science
is not merely a collection of facts but a value' (86) and, Midgley
contends, it is necessary but not sufficient for understanding human
beings and their world.
Rivera's book aims to convince the non-scientist of the
importance of science as much as it aims to convince the scientist of
science's limitations and the importance of theology as a
discipline aimed at truth. His aim entails that his chapter on evolution
lacks depth. It merely explains Darwin's theory for those who have
never been exposed to it. Further, it takes up the task of showing why
its status as 'theory' does not undermine evolution's
claim to be science or to be true. This last point is necessary for
those on the religious side, especially creationists, who claim that,
because evolution is only a theory, it is not really true. Importantly,
Rivera shows that natural selection did not constitute the only
mechanism for evolution. He defends, further, a pluralistic approach to
understanding evolution, one that goes beyond explaining evolution
solely through genes.
Rivera's account of evolution sets him up to claim, following
Midgley, that evolution and religion need not be at odds. Rather,
Darwin's evolutionary theory shows that human beings belong down on
earth. Further, Darwin remained open to religion and showed its
importance for the development and perpetuation of moral principles.
Darwin's opinion aside, many in the Victorian era saw his theory as
anti-religious. Again, Wilson and Dawkins adopted this anti-religious
interpretation as their own and erroneously traced it back to Darwin.
The real question to ask is, however, 'Is the rejection of religion
science?' The view that Midgley has attacked for decades requires
its own faith--a faith in human powers and in science to create the
better world of tomorrow. This faith highlights the fact that, despite
the claim to complete objectivity, scientists have motivations that are
not completely objective.
The claim to impartiality and complete objectivity has been used
against religion. Rivera, then, turns to a discussion of whether
evolution can help explain religion. Certainly, theorists can use
evolution to explain not only the development of organisms, but also the
development of cultures. However, following Midgley, Rivera contends
that culture cannot be explained by the same methods and analysis as
biology. Still, while evolution can say nothing about the meaning of
life, evolution can revitalize religious examination into the meaning of
God's creative activity and into the human relationship to the
non-human natural world.
Theorists in general need, then, an epistemology of the world that
includes the insights of Darwinian evolution. Rivera contends that
theorists should model themselves after Midgley's thinking from
below. This thinking involves a rejection of an empiricism that proves
dogmatic by investigating all things in the universe as isolated
entities. Nor must theorists fear finding purpose in nature. Rather,
theorists must begin from the complexity of an entity as encountered in
the world. Rivera sees here a parallel with theological argumentation.
Karl Barth identified two ways of thinking theologically: from below,
e.g., from scripture; or from above, e.g., where the nature of the thing
remains 'partly beyond itself' (183). In short, by trying to
think biology from above, scientists reduce biology to physics and think
deductively. Doing so, according to Midgley, blinds scientists to
insights and methods from other disciplines that could be more
insightful. Rather, Midgley proposes a methodology 'which requires
that we judge the basics of human nature and cognition from an earthly
perspective' (192). Such a methodology requires an attention for
detail and a concern for the big picture.
Rivera concludes his book with reflections on the Christian
attitude toward nature. While Christianity claims that God created all
of nature, Midgley wonders whether this view has been influential.
People like St. Francis of Assisi are truly unique in the Christian
tradition. According to Rivera, Darwin's lasting contribution in
Midgley's eyes is the way he united human beings with other
animals, making 'earth our only true home' (204). We must
approach the world with a sense of wonder. Midgley's contribution
to this project consists in her rejection of mechanistic understandings
of the world, her critique of anthropocentrism, and her down-to-earth
epistemology.
The Solitary Self and The Earth is Our Home summarize much of
Midgley's work. While Midgley touches clearly on religion,
Rivera's book exposes Midgley's entire oeuvre to discover an
openness to the validity of religious thought. Wilson, Dawkins, and
other evolutionary psychologists will most likely continue to ignore
Midgley's work. To do so now, however, is to imperil any citation
they make of what Darwin said, would have said, or would have supported.
Midgley presents passage after passage from Darwin to support her claims
about Darwin's beliefs. These quotes would be handy to have around
if someone were arguing with theists as well.
Rivera's subtitle, on the other hand, proves misleading.
Someone picking up this book might expect to find a deeper analysis of
Midgley's philosophical engagement with science. While Rivera
covers that aspect, his real goal is to show that theists should learn
from, rather than fear, evolution. His greatest contribution to an
analysis of Midgley is what he has to say throughout about
Midgley's thinking from the ground up. However, he could have
strengthened his argument by bringing in Aristotle or, for theists,
Thomas Aquinas. Midgley works within an Aristotelian paradigm of looking
at the facts, thinking inductively, recognizing the importance of
motives, and understanding that the animal nature of human beings proves
necessary for understanding their inner life. Rivera either misses this
point or never fully utilizes it.
Both Midgley and Rivera write in a style accessible to the educated
non-academic, though that does not mean their arguments prove of
interest only to non-academics. Midgley's work would fit nicely
into an introductory philosophy course, a philosophy of biology course,
or a human nature course and in courses on evolutionary theories in the
sciences. Rivera's would be more at home in an introduction to
philosophy or religion and science course.
Jeffery Nicholas
Providence College
