More Than Animals?

Abstract

Unlike other animals (so far as we know), we are unique in possessing a mental life that empirical science cannot adequately understand. [...]according to Scruton, this mental life is not that of an isolated Cartesian thinker in need of elusive arguments to prove that there is an external world and other minds. (Note that, contrary to ordinary usage, this technical sense of "intentional" need not involve acting deliberately.) Scruton allows that at least some animals are intentional systems in the sense of having experiences, beliefs, and desires; and he agrees that biology may entirely account for such systems. [...]we inhabit not only the material world but also an interpersonal world in which we are "accountable for what we think and do" and must "try to relate to one another as responsible subjects." The argument I've been discussing strikes me as the central achievement of Scruton's book, offering a penetrating but accessible response to the materialism that many regard as unavoidable in light of recent science. Particularly important is a wide-ranging chapter titled "The Moral Life," including discussions of the individual and society; praise, blame, and forgiveness; pollution and taboo. [...]these chapters are best read as a high-f lying survey of a well-thought-out philosophical vision, based on his critique of materialism, that has been percolating for some time in Scruton's mind.