Beast and Man

On the forty-second page of “Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature” author Mary Midgley wrote (emphasis added):

should have put an end to this convenient way of thinking. They did, however, and as a the Greek notion of the gods grew steadily more dignified and noble, the problem, "Whom can I blame for my faults?" again became pressing. I do not think it is any accident that Plato, the first Greek who consistently wrote of the gods as good, was also the first active exponent of the Beast Within. Black horses, wolves, lions, hawks, asses, and pigs recur every time he mentions the subject of evil; they provide the only terms in which he can talk about it. This is not an idle stylistic device: there is no such thing in Plato. His serious view is that evil is something alien to the soul; something Other, the debasing effect of matter seeping in through the instinctive nature. This treacherous element clearly cannot be anything properly human; it must be described in animal terms—and those of no particular animal at that, since all particular animals have their redeeming features, but a dreadful composite monster combining all the vices: in short, the Beast Within, whose only opponent is the Rational Soul. Certainly good feeling is sometimes invoked too, and given body as a Good Beast, but its goodness is supposed to consist in its obedience to Reason, not in its contributing anything itself. The white horse willingly obeys the charioteer and helps him to restrain the black;²³ it is no Balaam's Ass that hazards its own suggestions. Accordingly the feeling named in this connection are shame, ambition, the sense of honor, never, for instance, pity or affection, where the body might be held to make good suggestions to the soul. Plato's map excludes such a possibility. This exclusion has been both morally and psychologically disastrous. Fear of and contempt for feeling make up an irrational prejudice built into the structure of European rationalism.²⁴

Aristotelian and Kantian Beasts

Aristotle, though in general he was much more convinced of man's continuity with the physical world than Plato, makes some equally odd uses of the contrast between man and beast. In the Nicomachean Ethics (1 7) he asks what the true function of man is, in order to see what his

23. Plato, Phaedrus 254–257
24. I shall develop this point further in chap 11.

More information about “Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature” (and the book itself) is available from:

• Amazon.com
• Powell's Books
• Barnes & Noble

(Routledge, October 2002. Paperback, 416 pages. ISBN: 0415289874; EAN: 9780415289870.)