Awards

• Short-listed for Blackwell's Best of Non-Fiction 2017 2017

Overview

A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger ScrutonIn this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroes to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant's suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say ""I""-by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today's most fashionable ideas about our species.

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9780691183039

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Reviews

Wide-reaching, stimulating and learned. . . . Scruton has here given us a succinct but properly philosophical account of human nature. It is a timely and useful corrective against the sterile ethical theories which dominate the medical ethics literature. Students and educators alike will find its content stimulating, and its fine prose enjoyable. Many philosophers take it upon themselves to dismantle our black-and-white notions, and help us see the world in its true shades-of-grey complexity. But few inject into it the colour needed to make it a joy. Scruton is one such philosopher, and thus his work is to be commended now as ever. --Toni C. Saad, The New Bioethics On Human Nature is a fine performance. --Richard King, The Australian On Human Nature is a tour de force of a rare kind. In clear, elegant prose it makes large claims in metaphysics, morals and, by implication, politics. --The Economist Roger Scruton's On Human Nature . . . gives a brief, poetic account of a way of thinking about ourselves that many of us, especially with a background in the humanities, will find congenial. --Adam Zeman, Standpoint A luminous sketch of what we are, or might be, that will inspire some readers and infuriate others. --Kieran Setiya, Times Literary Supplement [F]inely written, compactly argued. --James Ryerson, New York Times Book Review One of Blackwell's Best of Non-Fiction 2017

Author Information

Roger Scruton (19442020) was a writer and philosopher. His many books included The Soul of the World and The Aesthetics of Architecture (both Princeton), as well as A Short History of Modern Philosophy.

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