Evolving Hamlet : Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy and the Ethics of Natural Selection

"Recent work in cognitive science has rooted our moral dispositions in the more ancient and less plastic regions of our brains, seeming to confirm Darwin's suspicion that a biological approach to human life must necessarily produce a narrowly conservative (and perhaps even immutable) account of ethics. This book, however, explores a now-forgotten suggestion made by William James and other early pioneers of cognitive science who saw art as a means to translate the experimental study of the mind into a skeptical, pluralist, and progressive approach to the good life. Using Hamlet and a number of other popular and influential seventeenth-century tragedies as case-studies, this book shows how aesthetic experience can help organize the biological functions of our brains into adaptive social networks that not only make us more resilient to the pressures of natural selection, but fulfill the human need for intentional life. Seen this way, art is not--as many recent cognitive scientists have suggested--simply a mirror of our natural mental functions. Rather, it is also an active contributor to new functions, a useful tool for translating the theoretical discoveries of science into progressive ethical practice"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction: The Descent of Ethics....Pages 1-14 Faustus, Macbeth, and the Riddle of Tomorrow....Pages 15-38 Partial Belief in Julius Caesar and Hamlet....Pages 39-66 Othello and the Subject of Ocular Proof....Pages 67-84 The Indian Emperour and the Reason of New World Conflict....Pages 85-99 Cartesian Generosity and the New Shakespeare....Pages 101-122 King Lear and the Endurance of Tragedy....Pages 123-134 The Progress of Ethics....Pages 135-146 Conclusion....Pages 147-150 Back Matter....Pages 151-192 Using Hamlet and a number of other popular and influential seventeenth-century tragedies as case-studies, this book shows how aesthetic experience can help organize the biological functions of our brains into adaptive social networks. Seen this way, art is not - as many recent cognitive scientists have suggested - simply a mirror of our natural mental functions, rather, it is also a useful tool for translating the discoveries of science into progressive ethical practice