Mary Midgley - Midgley in Fiction

Midgley in Fiction

Midgley is referred to in The Lives of Animals (1999), an unusual fictional work by the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee. The book has been likened to a cross between a short story and a philosophical dialogue, as Coetzee's protagonist, Elizabeth Costello, often speaks at length about philosophical ideas. Many reviewers expressed bafflement at the text, which has an enigmatic and riddling style. As one reviewer noted, "the reader is not quite sure whether he is intended to spot some confusion or contradiction or non sequitur in arguments." Other critics however have noted many affinities between The Lives of Animals and Midgley's philosophy, and have used Midgley's ideas to make sense of Coetzee's famously confusing work.

Costello is concerned with the moral status of animals, a subject Midgley addressed in Animals and Why They Matter, and discusses at length the idea of sympathy as an ethical concept, a subject Midgley wrote about in Beast and Man. Andy Lamey wrote that the result of these and other similarities is that Coetzee's work "evoke a particular conception of ethics, one very similar to that of the philosopher Mary Midgley. Such a view affords a central role to sympathy and is fundamentally opposed to a long-standing rival view, most clearly exemplified by the social contract tradition, which prioritizes an instrumental conception of rationality."

Coetzee and Midgley additionally share a longstanding fascination with Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee retells the Crusoe story in his novel Foe, while Midgley writes about Crusoe in her essay "Duties Concerning Islands." Midgley's essay argues for the idea that human beings can have ethical obligations to non-human entities such as animals and ecosystems, an idea also found in The Lives of Animals, Foe and many other works by Coetzee.