Abstract

This book, a sequel to the author's Toward a More Natural Science exhibits masterfully what a richer and more natural biology and anthropology can do, "one that does justice to our lived experience of ourselves as psychophysical entities--enlivened, purposive, and open to and in converse with the larger world". Without forcing the issue the book unfolds the natural connections between a more comprehensive conception of natural science and ethics: how a great variety of customs, cultures, laws, and norms of civilized behavior are grounded in natural principles. Eating "turns out to be a perfect subject for reopening the question about nature, human nature, and ethics". The organization and argument of the book follows the ascending natural articulation of its subject.