Iris Murdoch
A Platonist without God in analytic Oxford, she brings morality back from choice to vision and treats the novel as a way of knowing the good.
British · 1919 – 1999
Born in Dublin into an Anglo-Irish family, she read classics and philosophy at Oxford during the war, alongside , and . After working in refugee relief, which led her to meet in Brussels in 1945, she published the first book on him in English, (1953), and taught philosophy at St Anne's College from 1948 to 1963. Against the Oxford orthodoxy of , and , whose picture of the human being she reconstructs as an agent defined by his choices, with little room for inner life, she appealed to and to 's in the three essays of (1970). (1977) argues with Plato over the place of art, and her Gifford Lectures became (1992). She also wrote twenty-six novels, among them (Booker Prize 1978). Stricken with Alzheimer's disease, she died in Oxford in 1999. Her philosophical work prepared the revival of and later work on moral perception.
The moral life cannot be reduced to the decisions we make: it is played out above all, continuously, in moral vision, the way we look at others, for we only ever choose within the world we have learned to see.
The first obstacle to the good is not ill will but : the self ceaselessly manufactures consoling images that hide reality from it.
The Good serves no purpose and promises nothing, neither happiness nor reward: we love it for itself, as a perfection we never reach.
There is no personal God to guarantee value, but the Good remains real and surpasses us: takes the place left empty by prayer.
Great art can be a school of virtue, because it teaches us to see, without bringing it back to ourselves, that something other than us exists.
Justification
takes from what she considers a realistic finding: the psyche is an egocentric mechanism, busy protecting and consoling itself. Ordinary evil therefore lies less in willing evil than in preferring flattering or self-pitying to what is real. Against fantasy she sets not the will but truth: virtue is a kind of realism, a way of allowing what does not depend on oneself to be what it is. Hence the central place she gives to humility, which she defines as a selfless respect for reality. In her novels as in her essays, consolation is the constant trap, in love, in religion or in art.
The Sovereignty of Good, "On 'God' and 'Good'" (1969) · "Against Dryness" (1961)
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Justification
A moral philosophy, for , should offer a picture of the human being that one can inhabit and that helps one become better: she judges theories by what they make of those who adopt them. This practical concern goes with a contemplation of Platonic inspiration.
The Sovereignty of Good, "On 'God' and 'Good'"
Justification
Against an idea of truth modelled on science, which holds responsible for the impoverishment of moral philosophy, she argues that moral truth also runs through literature, which is especially apt to make the opacity of persons perceptible.
"Against Dryness" (1961)
Justification
For , the Good has nothing to do with a purpose: it is not a means to happiness, and the good person expects no reward from it. She thereby parts with utilitarianism, and her approach contrasts with the naturalistic her friend would later develop. The Good is a perfection that can be neither defined nor possessed, yet serves as a standard: we recognize the better without ever reaching the perfect. It is "sovereign" because the other moral concepts, such as courage or freedom, take their meaning only from it. It is at once indefinable and real, which is what distinguishes it from a mere ideal.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts" (1967) · The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection"
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Justification
Against the picture of the person she draws out of and , in which the mental is analysed chiefly through what shows in action, builds the example of . A woman finds her daughter-in-law vulgar and lacking in dignity; then, through patient effort and without any change in her behaviour, she learns to see her as simple and spontaneous rather than vulgar. Something moral has happened that the theory of choice cannot even describe. The moral life is therefore continuous: it takes place in the unbroken work of looking, and the moment of choice only gathers what that work has prepared. What she defends is the very reality of inner life. This work is not introspection, however: it consists in submitting one's own perceptions to criticism so as to see others better, and she distrusts complacent self-scrutiny, which can be just another form of egocentrism. It is through this refusal of the primacy of action, rather than any taste for turning inward, that she leans toward this pole.
I can only choose within the world I can see, in the moral sense of 'see' which implies that clear vision is a result of moral imagination and moral effort.The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection"
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection" (1964)
Justification
Having read sympathetically, parts ways with him: what she reads in him as an empty freedom, choosing itself with nothing before it, overlooks that we have a psyche with constant, describable traits, above all a stubborn egocentrism, which precedes our choices and weighs on them. She therefore rejects the existentialist thesis that the human being is nothing but what it makes of itself. Yet this nature does not, for her, carry ends to be fulfilled in Aristotle's sense: it is rather what has to be corrected, hence a moderate position.
Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953) · The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection"
Justification
We are, writes, transient mortal creatures subject to necessity and chance; she does not envisage personal survival. Accepting death is even, for her, a school of .
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts"
Justification
For , is a discipline, opposed to the complacent daydreaming in which the self consoles itself. She does not condemn diversion as such, but the drift that turns our gaze away from what is, hence a clear but not extreme value.
The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
Justification
Against the emotivism of and the prescriptivism of , which separate fact from value, argues that moral concepts are instruments of perception: there is a moral truth to be seen, and moral progress consists in seeing it better. This moral realism does not imply uniform rules: moral truth is often the truth of a particular situation or person. Her realism runs not through human nature, as 's does, but through Plato.
"Vision and Choice in Morality" (1956) · The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection"
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Justification
puts at the centre character, vision and the virtues, humility and love foremost among them, rather than rules or calculations: she is counted among the forerunners of the revival of . Her ethics of loving attention to a singular person also bears a kinship with care ethics, which theorists such as explicitly drew on, hence a small share of that pole: a doctrinal affinity rather than membership.
The Sovereignty of Good (1970) · Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking (1989), on "attentive love"
Justification
For , love means stepping outside oneself to recognize the reality of another, asking nothing of them, which brings her close to . But in she takes up the of the , the desire for what we lack, and makes it, once purified, the energy that lifts the soul toward the Good. Desire is thus not to be abolished but redirected, hence a real share for that pole.
Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real."The Sublime and the Good", Chicago Review, vol. 13, no. 3 (1959), p. 51
"The Sublime and the Good" (1959) · The Fire and the Sun (1977)
Justification
The idea of perfection makes morality an endless task: since the moral life takes place in how we look, it is present in every ordinary moment, and there is no morally neutral zone. sets no threshold beyond which one would have done enough. The demand bears on the quality of our vision, however, more than on quantifiable material obligations, and she says nothing about how far we must help others, hence a moderate value.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection"
Justification
For , is the very movement of virtue. It is not a sacrifice but a shift of attention away from the self, toward what exists without it. It does not by itself set a systematic priority of others over oneself, but it strips self-interest of its role as a criterion, hence a clearly altruistic value short of the extreme.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts"
Justification
For , moral concepts have a depth that grows with experience: what "courage" or "justice" means changes as we learn to see. Applying a rule therefore calls for a look at the particular situation that the rule itself does not supply. Yet in she keeps political axioms, such as the rights of the person, which must not be subjected to each individual's vision, hence a moderate value.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Idea of Perfection" · Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, "Morals and Politics"
Justification
does not believe in a personal God, and in her eyes no providence guarantees the value of our lives. Yet she refuses to conclude that value comes from us. Taking up 's Good, the sun that makes things visible without itself being looked at directly, she posits it as a real magnetic centre, outside the self, that draws attention away from oneself. She keeps from religion what she finds true, the inherited from and prayer understood as contemplation, but without its object. This Good transcends the self and does not depend on our choices, yet it is not a world behind the world: it is met in this world, through persons, nature and art. It nonetheless forms a higher order of value, which judges us and which we do not make, hence a clear but moderate value. She defends this demythologized Platonism as far as her Gifford Lectures, where she proposes to reinterpret the ontological argument as bearing on the Good rather than on God.
The Sovereignty of Good, "On 'God' and 'Good'" · Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, chapter on the ontological proof
Justification
For , great art can be a school of virtue, because it exercises the same faculty as morality: seeing what is not oneself. Mediocre art consoles, it flatters ; great art, that of Shakespeare or , shows beings and a world that resist our wishes. That is why she thinks , whose Platonism she otherwise takes up, is wrong to banish the artists: mimesis, rightly practised, is a form of truth. Its moral effect is in no way automatic: it depends on the attention of the reader or viewer. She is wary, on the contrary, of art enlisted in a cause, which bends reality to a message and so falls back into : the worth of art lies wholly in the truth of what it shows.
Art and morals are, with certain provisos which I shall mention in a moment, one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love."The Sublime and the Good" (1959), reprinted in Existentialists and Mystics (1997), p. 215
"The Sublime and the Good" (1959) · The Fire and the Sun (1977)
Justification
For , the self is a fat relentless ego, naturally egocentric, and she credits with giving a realistic description of the soul. This pessimism remains moderate: can correct it, slowly and without ever overcoming it.
The Sovereignty of Good, "On 'God' and 'Good'"
Justification
says she does not believe in a personal God, while describing herself as close to Christianity and through their practices. She does not reduce religion to an illusion: she keeps its language of prayer and grace, and transfers to the Good part of what theology said of God. She thus denies a personal God without denying every reality that surpasses us, hence a moderate value.
The Sovereignty of Good, "On 'God' and 'Good'" · Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)
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Justification
The kestrel example: while I brood over a wound to my vanity, the sight of a hovering bird suddenly makes me forget that self. For , the beauty of nature is the most obvious occasion for . Above all she takes from the idea that beauty is the visible face of the Good, and holds the excellence of great art to be a quality we discover rather than decree: beauty is not, for her, a projection of taste.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts" · The Fire and the Sun (1977)
Justification
In "Against Dryness", defends the realism of the great nineteenth-century novelists, who create free and opaque characters, against the "dry" novel reduced to a symbol and against art as self-expression. Invention is worth something only if it makes reality more visible.
"Against Dryness" (1961)
Justification
The sovereignty of the Good extends over the beautiful: for , beauty is a path to the Good, not an end, and the aestheticism that makes one's life a work of art is a refined form of . She nonetheless grants art a very high moral dignity, hence a moderate value.
The Sovereignty of Good, "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts"
The kestrelHabitAttention and diversion · Self-interest and others
When you are brooding over a slight or a worry, suggests not fighting the thought but turning your gaze to something beautiful that has nothing to do with you: a bird, a tree, light on a wall. The wounded self lets go because attention has found something better to do, not through an effort of will. It takes a few seconds, and it helps whenever the mind keeps circling around itself.
- Notice the moment you start brooding: the same scene keeps coming back, with you at its centre.
- Look for something living or beautiful, outside yourself and unrelated to the matter.
- Really look at it, in detail, without commenting on it or photographing it.
- Then come back to the situation and notice what has changed in the way you see it.
⚠ This is not an escape: the real problem still has to be dealt with, but with a gaze less captured by vanity.
The school of a foreign languageHabitThe value of truth
For , learning Russian means running up against a structure that does not bend to our wishes: you can neither cheat nor flatter yourself, you make mistakes and are corrected. This discipline exercises the same virtue as morality, humility before a reality independent of oneself. Any demanding task will do (a language, an instrument, a craft), provided it forces you to acknowledge your mistakes.
- Choose a discipline where success is checked outside yourself.
- Give it a short, regular slot of time.
- Note each corrected mistake as a fact, without judging yourself.
- Watch for the moments when you would like to pretend you have understood.
⚠ If learning turns into a contest with yourself, it feeds the ego instead of decentring it.
Looking againExerciseInteriority · The value of truth
tells the story of a woman who finds her daughter-in-law vulgar and then, without changing anything in her conduct, learns to see her as simple and spontaneous. The exercise takes up this silent work: patiently looking again at someone you have put in a box. The aim is not to force yourself to like them but to see them more justly, which already changes the relationship.
- Pick someone around you whom you judge harshly: irritating, mediocre, pretentious.
- Write down the words you use for them in your head.
- For each word, ask what it says about them and what it says about you: the hurt, the jealousy, the need to be right.
- Look for a more accurate word for the same trait ("vulgar" becomes "spontaneous", "pedantic" becomes "careful to be exact") and check that it is not mere indulgence.
- Next time you meet, watch them with that word in mind, without saying anything to them.
⚠ The exercise is not meant to excuse harmful behaviour or to lie to yourself out of kindness: the aim is accuracy, not leniency.
Lineages
See on the friezeAll lineages↑ Influences received
- ReinterpretsPlatoMurdoch takes up Plato's Good, the sun that makes things visible, and the eros that lifts the soul, but without God or a world of Forms: a demythologized Platonism in which the turning of the gaze becomes moral attention.Read
- ReinterpretsSigmund FreudMurdoch takes from Freud what she considers a realistic description of the psyche, egocentric and driven by an energy it does not master; she sees it as the starting point of the moral task, not as an explanation of m…Read
- ContinuesSimone WeilMurdoch says she borrows the word attention from Simone Weil to name a just and loving gaze directed on an individual reality; she keeps its moral sense while detaching it from prayer.Read
- Reacts againstGilbert RyleAgainst the critique of inner life inherited from Ryle, for whom mind reduces to dispositions to act, Murdoch defends the reality of an inner moral activity that shows in no conduct.Read
- Reacts againstSartreAn early and sympathetic reader of Sartre, Murdoch defines herself against his freedom as the sovereign choice of a lone self: for her the moral life turns on seeing a reality that does not depend on us.Read
↓ Influence exerted
- continued byMartha NussbaumNussbaum extends Murdoch's idea that the moral life is first a fine perception of particular situations, and that the novel is a privileged place of moral knowledge.Read