Wickedness

by Dr Mary Midgley, Mary Midgley

Overview

Part of the new Routledge Classics series

We have sold over 30,000 copies of Mary's books to date

Mary Midgley's lucid volume is a classic critique of a much-neglected philosophical problem. Includes a new preface written especially for this edition

She is one of the best known philosophers in the UK and writes regularly for newspapers and radio. She was recently the feature of a double-page spread in The Guardian and in 2001 has already been interviewed on Radio 4's The Moral Maze and the BBC World Service

Her most recent book, Science and Poetry (Routledge, December 2000) has been widely and positively reviewed

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134522163
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/29/2003
Series:	Routledge Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	521 KB

About the Author

Mary Midgley (1919-), a philosopher with a special interest in ethics, human nature and science, has a widespread international following for her work. Other publications include The Ethical Primate, Science as Salvation, Utopias, Dolphins and Computers and, most recently, Science and Poetry

Table of Contents

Preface to the Routledge Classics edition, Preface, 1 The Problem of Natural Evil, 2 Intelligibility and Immoralism, 3 The Elusiveness of Responsibility, 4 Understanding Aggression, 5 Fates, Causes and Free-will, 6 Selves and Shadows, 7 The Instigators, 8 Death-wish, 9 Evil in Evolution, Notes, Index

Editorial Reviews

I have now read the book twice, not because it is difficult (on the contrary it reads with the ease and elegance of Bertrand Russell), but because it is so stimulating.

Spectator

Mrs Midgley has set out to delineate not so much the nature as the sources of wickedness. Though she calls the book a philosophical essay, it is more a contribution to psychology. The book is clearly written, with a refreshing absence of technical jargon, and each chapter is followed by a useful summary of its principal arguments.

Listener

Mary Midgley may be the most frightening philosopher in the country: the one before whom it is least pleasant to appear a fool.

Guardian

Mary Midgely is a philosopher with what many have come to admire, and some to fear, as one of the sharpest critical pens in the West.

Steven Rose

' I have now read the book twice, not because it is difficult (on the contrary it reads with the ease and elegance of Bertrand Russell), but because it is so stimulating.' - Brian Masters, The Spectator

From the Publisher