AgoraAn open square of thought

Iris Murdoch

1919–1999

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Morality is mostly a matter of attention – of seeing other people justly and lovingly, which slowly frees us from our selfish fantasies.

Placement

Analytic Philosophy · Northern Europe · Ethics, Aesthetics, Religion

Oxford philosopher and novelist: morality is a matter of attention – a just and loving gaze at reality that overcomes the self.

Key ideas

  • Moral attention
  • The sovereignty of the Good
  • Unselfing

Open in the star map

Influence

Influenced by 2

  • Plato

    influenced by

    Murdoch took Plato’s Good, pictured as the sun, as the indefinable focus of moral attention (1970) and examined his distrust of art (The Fire and the Sun, 1977). I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970); The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists (1977); SEP “Iris Murdoch”

    Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO

    Plato › 428–348 BCE

  • Simone Weil

    influenced by

    Murdoch borrowed Weil’s word ‘attention’ for ‘a just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality’, the core of moral life (The Sovereignty of Good, 1970). I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970); S. Weil, “Réflexions sur le bon usage des études scolaires” (1942), in Attente de Dieu (1950); SEP “Iris Murdoch”; SEP “Simone Weil”

    Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO

    Simone Weil › 1909–1943

Influenced 3

  • Mary Midgley

    influenced

    Midgley, Murdoch’s fellow student at Oxford, followed her critique of Sartre’s solitary choosing will and wrote on her moral philosophy (‘Sorting out the Zeitgeist’, 1998). M. Midgley, “Sorting out the Zeitgeist: The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch” (1998); C. Mac Cumhaill and R. Wiseman, Metaphysical Animals (2022); SEP “Iris Murdoch”

    Evidence: AI draft

    Mary Midgley › 1919–2018

  • Martha Nussbaum

    influenced

    Nussbaum took up Murdoch’s idea of moral attention as just and loving perception in arguing that novels can do moral philosophy (Love’s Knowledge, 1990). M. C. Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990); I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Martha Nussbaum › b. 1947

  • Alice Crary

    influenced

    Crary followed Murdoch in holding that moral work lies in learning to see situations justly, so that the world, rightly perceived, has moral features (Beyond Moral Judgment, 2007). A. Crary, Beyond Moral Judgment (2007); I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Alice Crary › b. 1967

Criticism

Criticizes 2

  • Jean-Paul Sartre

    criticised

    Murdoch objected that Sartre’s solitary, choosing will in an empty world leaves out moral vision and the reality of other people (Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, 1953). I. Murdoch, Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953); The Sovereignty of Good (1970)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980

  • R. M. Hare

    criticised

    Murdoch objected that Hare’s prescriptivism reduces morality to choice and universalisable rules, neglecting moral vision and the patient work of attention (The Sovereignty of Good, 1970). I. Murdoch, “Vision and Choice in Morality”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 30 (1956); The Sovereignty of Good (1970), “The Idea of Perfection”

    Evidence: AI draft

    R. M. Hare › 1919–2002

Works

Position

Murdoch criticized the moral philosophy of her time, both existentialist and analytic, for reducing ethics to the free choices of an empty will. Moral life, she argued, happens largely before any choice: in how we see. Her example is a mother-in-law who slowly learns to see her daughter-in-law not as vulgar but as refreshingly simple. Such a just and loving gaze requires “unselfing,” overcoming the self-centred fantasy that distorts reality. Following Plato and Simone Weil, she placed the Good at the centre as a sovereign, indefinable reality that draws us like the sun. Her work inspired the revival of virtue ethics and moral realism.

Life & context

Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 and grew up in London. She studied classics and philosophy at Oxford, worked during and after the war in the civil service and with refugees for the United Nations, and taught philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford, from 1948. She published 26 novels, winning the Booker Prize in 1978. She died in Oxford in 1999.

Further main works

  • Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953)
  • Under the Net (1954)
  • Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made

Open in the star map