Ellie Robson

For most readers of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Peter Momtchiloff needs little introduction. From 1993 to 2023 he was Commissioning Editor for Philosophy at Oxford University Press (OUP). It was big news in the philosophy community when we heard that Peter was leaving his post in December 2023. In July 2024 we invited Peter along to talk to us at the Aristotelian Society to find out a bit about what he's seen and what he's learned. The discussion between Peter, Jessica Leech and Ellie Robson was shared as a podcast. What follows is an edited version of that discussion for our readers.

The aim of this paper is to provide an exposition of Susan Stebbing’s moral philosophy. Stebbing is increasingly recognized as a key figure in early analytic philosophy. However, there is no existing scholarship on her moral philosophy. We examine how Stebbing’s moral philosophy connects to that of two important figures who Stebbing herself identifies as influences on her work: Moore and Aristotle. We argue that while there are clear signs of influence from Moore, Stebbing is also critical of his abstract approach to moral theorizing. In a manner more reminiscent of Aristotle, Stebbing argues that moral philosophy must concern itself with “the ways in which men live.” We argue that Stebbing can plausibly be characterized as both a first level and second level ‘Aristotelian’ ethicist. This is significant since neo-Aristotelian ethics is usually understood as having emerged in the second half of the twentieth century in the work of thinkers like Foot, Hursthouse, and MacIntyre. We also raise an objection to Stebbing from her student, Margaret Macdonald, and reconstruct a response to that objection on Stebbing's behalf.

This paper has two aims: First, to provide an elucidation of the kind of meta-ethical programme at work in Mary Midgley's (1919-2018) Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (published in 1978). Second, to make the case for Midgley's placement within the philosophical and philosophical-historical canon, specifically, as an important figure within the meta-ethical movement of ‘Neo-Aristotelian naturalism'. On historical and systematic grounds, I argue that Midgley should be classified as a neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalist notwithstanding the distinctive features of Midgley’s specific brand of neo-Aristotelianism. In doing so, I suggest a more generally applicable family resemblance approach to the history of philosophy in order to classify and re-introduce into the canon figures in the history of philosophy that are in danger of falling into oblivion.

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) was an undergraduate at Oxford University when her friend Elizabeth Anscombe first met Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). When Anscombe persuaded Wittgenstein to come and speak to the undergraduate students at Oxford University in the late 1940s, Midgley was there. She found Wittgenstein’s words ‘important and illuminating’, and ‘scolded herself for not having brought a notebook’ (Mac Cumhaill & Wiseman 2022: 172). An Anscombe-Wittgensteinian influence is clear and informative on Midgley’s philosophy of language and meta-philosophy, but it has been scarcely explored in the literature. With this in mind, the aims of this chapter are twofold. Primarily, I aim to provide an account of Wittgenstein’s influence on Midgley’s philosophy. I do so by focusing on how Wittgenstein’s ideas influence Midgley’s meta-philosophy and philosophy of language – in particular, her use of cluster concepts (akin to family-resemblance concepts), discussion of ‘life forms’, and implicit description of something like Wittgensteinian language games (PI: 19, 23, 241).

This volume celebrates the moral and ethical thought one of the most prolific philosophers in the history of twentieth-century philosophy, Mary Midgley (1919-2018). Midgley’s vision of philosophy is difficult to capture in a single sentence (a feature Midgley herself would welcome, given her avid resistance to oversimplification and reduction). Perhaps the best characterisation I can offer for now is that put forward by this book’s dedication: for Mary, the first Midgleyan. The chapters in this volume celebrate Midgley’s moral philosophy by engaging deeply and critically with her many texts, considering their historical place within the scholarship and examining their implications not just within academic philosophy, but for ‘think[ing] as whole people’ as Midgley insists we do. This volume is distinctive in being the first single volume to publish about Midgley’s writing on moral philosophy and ethics. It brings together newly commissioned essay’s on Midgley’s meta-philosophy, moral philosophy, and ethics – interconnected areas in Midgley’s philosophy that are under-represented in scholarship to date.

In the words of Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley’s Beast and Man built “an urgently needed bridge between science and philosophy”.1 While science and philosophy have never been entirely remote, Murdoch was right to observe the achievement of her friend, Midgley, in drawing a new and insightful connection between these disciplines. A bridge, more specifically, between scientific investigations into human and animal behaviour, and philosophical enquiries into the concept of human nature. A moral philosopher by trade, Midgley imbues the neo-Aristotelian understanding of man as a ‘rational animal’ with the many traits (she argues) we share with our diverse earthly neighbours – nonhuman animals.