In her new book, Mary Midgley argues that the unrealistic isolation of mind and body in reductive scientific ideologies still causes painful confusion. Such ideologies present crude pictures which are not good science, since they ignore the manifest importance of the higher human faculties. Neither inside nor outside these crude pictures is there room for any realistic notion of the self. Why should these theories insist on only one kind of answer? There is not just one single legitimate explanation. There are as many answers as there are viewpoints from which questions arise - subjective and objective, practical as well as theoretical. Human morality arises out of human freedom: we are uniquely free beings in that we are aware of our conflicts of motive. But those conflicts and our capacity to resolve them are part of our natural inheritance. Although our selves are in many ways divided, we share the difficult project of wholeness with other organisms. What matters for our freedom is the recognition of our genuine agency, our slight but nevertheless real power to grasp and arbitrate our inner conflicts.

Mary Midgley (1919-2018) was one of the most renowned moral philosophers of her generation and the author of many books, including Beast and Man, Wickedness and The Myths We Live By. She has taken part in many broadcast events, including The Moral Maze and Woman's Hour.

Part I - Introductory 1. Inner Divisions 2. Misguided Debates Part II - The Reductive Enterprise 3. Guiding Visions 4. Hopes of Simplicity 5. Crusades, Legitimate and Otherwise 6. Convergent Explanations and their Uses 7. Troubles of the Linear Pattern 8. Fatalism and Predictability Part III - The Sources and Meaning of Morals 9. Agency and Ethics 10. Modern Myths 11. The Strength of Individualism 12. The Retreat from the Natural World 13. How Far does Sociability Take Us? 14. The Uses of Sympathy Part IV - What Kind of Freedom? 15. On Being Terrestrial 16. What Beings are Free 17. Minds Resist Streamlining