Midgley on Moral Philosophy and Ethics

This is the first volume to focus on Mary Midgley’s moral philosophy and metaphilosophy. It aims to assist researchers by connecting Midgley’s moral thought to other philosophical traditions (including animal ethics and twentieth century naturalism) and to historical interlocutors (such as the Wartime Quartet, Peter Singer, and Cora Diamond).

The volume brings together newly commissioned essays on Midgley’s metaphilosophy, moral philosophy, and ethics - topics which are interconnected in Midgley’s philosophy and have previously been neglected. With chapters written by both emerging and well-known scholars of Midgley, the volume is organised thematically in three sections.  The first four chapters consider Midgley’s writing on moral philosophy and metaethics. The following four chapters concern topics in Midgley’s applied ethics: animal and environmental ethics, genome editing, bioethics, and the Gaia hypothesis, respectively. The volume concludes with three chapters on Midgley’s metaphilosophy which examine Midgley’s conception of what both philosophy and philosophers are or should be, and how philosophy relates to other disciplines.

Midgley on Moral Philosophy and Ethics is essential reading for scholars of ethics and moral philosophy and of twentieth-century British philosophy. It is also ideal for researchers of philosophical methods and the philosophy of science.