Books: The Soul Of The Marionette: A Short Enquiry Into Human Freedom & Are You An Illusion?

Abstract

The Soul Of The Marionette: A Short Enquiry Into Human Freedom John Gray Allen Lane, 2015, HB, 192 pp, £17.99, 978-1846144493 Are You An Illusion? Mary Midgley Routledge, 2014, PB, 176pp, £14.99, 978-1844657926 Every day we see patients whom we believe matter, because people matter. They often make real choices that we disagree with but we believe them to have dignity, worthy of our respect and care. But what if we are making a mistake? What if we humans are really just machines or ordinary animals, with nothing special about our humanity? What if our job was really no different from that of a vet, or a car mechanic? Is there anything special about being human? The big question is about the nature of human consciousness, and whether our actions are to some extent free. In the 1880s Thomas Huxley suggested that our thoughts and feelings are simply the idle side effects of our actions. They are like the whistle on the steam train: they attract our attention but do not drive the train. We are but ‘conscious automata’. By this account our consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon of the deterministic actions of our brain. There is nothing new in these ideas; they are major themes of Martin Luther, David Hume, …