Abstract
Murdoch’s moral philosophy stresses the didactic theme of active self-improvement. To this end, she argues, we can work to amend the quality of our states of consciousness, and hence (indirectly) of our conduct. But while such work undoubtedly involves cognitive effort, Murdoch has much to say (and show, in her fiction) about the hazards of a specious or misguided intellectualism. By way of commentary on these views, the present paper suggests that Murdoch’s early apprenticeship in Marxist politics—and her subsequent rejection of Marxism—may have left a trace both in the idea that ‘our states of consciousness differ in quality’ (and thus admit of critical scrutiny); and in the specific, distinctively ‘idealist’ course proposed by her mature philosophy for the project of moral self-criticism.
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Notes
- 1.
This paper was originally presented to conferences at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in November 2015 on the theme of ‘Why Iris Murdoch Matters: Truth and Love’; and at Mansfield College, Oxford in June 2016 on ‘The Philosophy of Iris Murdoch’. I am grateful for comments received at those events, and also from the philosophers’ work-in-progress group at Worcester College, Oxford.
- 2.
Xenophanes was active from the mid-sixth to the early fifth century BC.
- 3.
As Cora Diamond (1996: 95) has observed, ‘This notion, of quality of consciousness, is of central importance in all of Iris Murdoch’s philosophical discussions of ethics’.
- 4.
Ibid.: ‘Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature.’
- 5.
We might want to question Dipple’s claim (1982: 54) that ‘Hugo represents inarticulate intelligence which exists as a catalyst but does not participate in language’, since despite his own officially anti-conceptualist views he can happily engage in hours of uninhibited discussion of ‘art, politics, literature, religion, history, science, society, and sex’ (Murdoch [1954] 1960: 57)—a contradiction that prompts some ironic laughter even within the frame of the story. However, I will not pursue this point.
- 6.
‘Hopelessly theory-ridden’ is from Murdoch ([1970b] 2001: 204).
- 7.
These remarks were made in interviews dating from 1979, 1983 and 1986 respectively. The last offers ‘high incarnation’ as an improvement on, or correction of, ‘Christ figure’.
- 8.
Rupert’s and Julius’s efforts are to be found at 173–4 and 328 respectively.
- 9.
‘Actuality must strive toward thought’: that is, we need to get to the point where people can grasp in thought their actual, objective conditions of existence.
- 10.
Emphasis added.
- 11.
Thus McDowell (1978: 28): ‘In a view of what genuine virtue is, idealization is not something to be avoided or apologized for’.
- 12.
Jameson (1988: 360) (reply to comment by Cornel West; emphasis in original).
- 13.
For more detailed discussion see Lovibond (2011: 35 and context).
- 14.
The only other clear case seems to be the Marxist intellectual David Crimond in The Book and the Brotherhood (Murdoch 1987), whose way of life is highly ascetic but not otherwise particularly admirable; at any rate it does not prevent him from seducing the wife of one of his (former) best friends. In Murdoch’s first novel, Under the Net, the general social setting is bohemian and we make the glancing acquaintance of one ‘Lefty’ Todd, but political activism never takes centre-stage.
- 15.
In this respect a certain kinship is suggested between Tallis and Hilda, the other morally dependable presence in the book (see §3 above). As a well-heeled non-working wife, Hilda devotes much of her energy to charitable and liberal-minded activities ([1970b] 2001: 281), but her patronizing attitude to Tallis is mirrored in the attitude of her son Peter to herself: ‘I know you belong to the Socialist Old Guard, dear mother, but that’s not the sort of thing that’s needed now’ ([1970b] 2001: 65; and for further hints of Hilda’s leftist leanings compare ([1970b] 2001: 12), where she tells Rupert that rather than dropping out, Peter should ‘join the Communist Party’; also ([1970b] 2001: 38), ‘she had known Tallis longer than any of them … she had made his acquaintance during a general election campaign’). However, Hilda is presented throughout the narrative as not-‘intellectual’ (for example, [1970b] 2001: 17, 312), so whatever useful immunity Tallis may possess, she certainly shares.
- 16.
Emphasis added.
- 17.
A motif from Greek mythology, invoked from time to time by Murdoch in connection with suffering endured for the sake of art. See Wind (1980: Ch. 11).
- 18.
Ibid.: ‘There must be inwardness and spirit—and wit and grace and style—’.
- 19.
- 20.
Of course, in his capacity as secular saint or ‘high incarnation’ Tallis is anything but ordinary (meaning mediocre), but what distinguishes him from Morgan is that he has not renounced the ordinary (pre-critical) belief in objective moral demands.
- 21.
Julius’s words to Tallis about his, Tallis’s, attitude to Morgan.
- 22.
I accept that it would be simplistic to ignore the element of social criticism that makes itself felt especially in the early period of Murdoch’s thought, when she is formulating her misgivings about anti-naturalist ethical theories such as existentialism and prescriptivism, and about the cultural conditions reflected in these.
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Lovibond, S. (2018). Iris Murdoch and the Quality of Consciousness. In: Browning, G. (eds) Murdoch on Truth and Love. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76216-6_3
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