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52The Ethics of Enchantment: The Role of Folk Tales and Fairy Tales in the Ethical ImaginationPhilosophy and Literature 43 (1): 192-209. 2019.Dedicated to the memory of Professor David Knight, a great storytellerRing the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.In his "Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties,"2 John Stuart Mill suggests that an interest in narrative—plain, unadorned narrative for narrative's sake—betrays an uncultivated mind, and is at its most prominent in what he regards as unsophisticated cultures. Mill holds that literature can have two compone…Read more
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19Philosophical Plumbing in the Twenty-First CenturyRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87 221-233. 2020.Mary Midgley famously compares philosophy to plumbing. In both cases we are dealing with complex systems that underlie the everyday life of a community, and in both cases we often fail to notice their existence until things start to smell a bit fishy. Philosophy, like plumbing, is performed by particular people at particular times, and it is liable to be done in a way that suits the needs of those people and those whom they serve. I employ Mary Midgley's philosophy and biography to explore the i…Read more
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19We are the world: environmental rights and the extended selfTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 30 (2): 95-110. 2011.
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10Science and the Self: Animals, Evolution, and Ethics: Essays in Honour of Mary Midgley (edited book)Routledge. 2015.Mary Midgley is one of the most important moral philosophers working today. Over the last thirty years, her writings have informed debates concerning animals, the environment and evolutionary theory. The invited essays in this volume offer critical reflections upon Midgley’s work and further developments of her ideas. The contributors include many of the leading commentators on her work, including distinguished figures from the disciplines of philosophy, biology, and ethology. The range of topic…Read more
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