Westside Ideas Discussion

John Gray and Roger Scruton are both modern British philosophers who have strenuous opinions about the true nature of human beings. That’s pretty much where the similarity ends because those views couldn’t be more different. You might say one is a misanthropic pessimist and the other is a pollyannaish optimist. For this meeting, let’s read a bit about both philosophers and compare their opinions and the ramifications of those opinions.

John Gray is a political philosopher and was Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

“The argument that our awareness of the dignity of human life has increased and that progress is possible … is countered by the reality of periodic failures. This is the position of the philosopher John Gray, an unreformed pessimist, who believes that progress is an illusion…”
- Antonio Damasio, neuroscientist & theorist of human nature

Below is a review of one of Gray’s books that contains much of the crux of his thinking: Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. “Gray sees volition, and hence morality, as an illusion, and portrays humanity as a ravenous species engaged in wiping out other forms of life. He contends…that history is not progressive, but cyclical. Human nature, he argues, is an inherent obstacle to cumulative ethical or political progress.”

Let’s discuss Gray’s scathingly realist but bracing opinions (especially in light of the fraught conditions of our current time & place). Do you think Gray has any kind of valid place to stand, or is he just a miserably biased misanthropist? Would you agree with him that Homo sapiens is a ‘flawed’ species that continually poisons its own pond in many ways and is a lost cause?
https://www.acampbell.org.uk/bookreviews/r/gray.html

Roger Scruton was a philosopher of politics & aesthetics (d. 2020) who irked many due to his conservative, traditional tastes and opinions. And yet he was also respected by many for his gentle, deliberated, humane wisdom. Scruton’s views on human nature and the self aren’t so much anti-scientific as uncompromisingly rooted in a more traditional, humanistic conception. He is an advocate of “the individual as being both a part of the material world and, in some sacred senses, transcending it. This outlook also extends to human relations and ethics and is juxtaposed against all forms of strict [reductionist] materialism.”

How do we reconcile Scruton’s aspirationally prosocial view with Gray’s realistically negative observations of human nature? Is one real and one an illusion? Or do both exist in parallel? And if so - a crucial question - are there reasons why we should choose one over the other? Either as our overarching perspective on human life, or as our approach to daily, personal behavior?

Below is a review of Scruton’s 2017 book On Human Nature:
https://merionwest.com/2020/08/27/review-roger-scrutons-on-human-nature/

~Michael