The Sovereignty of Good

Introduction

The short book, published in 1970, collects three essays: “The Idea of Perfection” (1964), “On ‘God’ and ‘Good’” (1969) and “The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts”, given as the Leslie Stephen Lecture in 1967. Murdoch, who was by then also a well-known novelist, takes up Simone Weil’s concept of attention. Her examples are concrete: looking out of a window in an anxious, resentful mood and suddenly noticing a hovering kestrel, which makes the brooding self vanish; or learning Russian, a discipline that demands submission to something independent of oneself. Art and intellectual work can thus be exercises in virtue. The book is often read today as a key text of contemporary virtue ethics.

Connections

Builds on

• Republicc. 375 BCE · Plato

Criticizes

• The Language of Morals1952 · R. M. Hare