Editing Iris Murdoch (section)

==Work==

===Philosophy===
For some time, Murdoch's influence and achievements as a philosopher were eclipsed by her success as a novelist, but recent appraisals have increasingly accorded her a substantial role in postwar Anglo-American philosophy, particularly for her unfashionably prescient work in moral philosophy and her reinterpretation of [[Aristotle]] and [[Plato]]. [[Martha Nussbaum]] has argued for Murdoch's "transformative impact on the discipline" of moral philosophy because she directed her analysis not at the once-dominant matters of will and choice, but at those of attention (how people learn to see and conceive of one another) and phenomenal experience (how the sensory "thinginess" of life shapes moral sensibility).<ref name="NussbaumNR">{{cite magazine|last1=Nussbaum|first1=Martha C.|author-link1=Martha Nussbaum|title=When she was good|magazine=New Republic|date=31 December 2001|volume=225|pages=28–34}}</ref> Because as Calley A. Hornbuckle puts, “For Murdoch, the most essential kind of knowledge is the knowledge that other people exist”.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hornbuckle |first=Calley A. |title=Exploring Aesthetic Perception of the Real in Iris Murdoch'S the Black Prince |series=Analecta Husserliana |date=2006 |volume=92 |pages=221–233 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3744-9_16 |access-date=2024-05-21 |place=Berlin/Heidelberg |publisher=Springer-Verlag |doi=10.1007/1-4020-3744-9_16 |isbn=1-4020-3743-0}}</ref>

Although first a student, and later a lecturer and scholar, of 20th century British analytic moral philosophy, Murdoch rejected most of what was characteristic of that tradition. With the rise of anti-metaphysical empiricism in general, and logical positivism in particular, [[emotivism|emotivists]] like [[A. J. Ayer]] and [[Universal prescriptivism|prescriptivists]] like [[R. M. Hare]] settled the good independently of active cognitive practices and therefore not something to be attained by them. In [[The Sovereignty of Good]], Murdoch argues that such a criterion of reality follows from the adoption of an "uncriticized conception of science".<ref name=sovereignty>{{Cite book| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 9780415253994| last = Murdoch| first = Iris| title = The Sovereignty of Good| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s4qV3FFZ9eAC|location = London, England| series = Routledge Classics| date = 2001}}</ref>{{rp|24}} Such detachment from personal immersion in the reality of moral life was incompatible with her metaphysical commitments. Lawrence Blum concludes from such considerations that "[s]he is thus a 'moral realist', 'moral objectivist' and 'moral cognitivist'[...]."<ref>{{cite web |last=Blum |first=Lawrence |date=23 March 2022 |title=Iris Murdoch |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/murdoch/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=19 January 2025}}</ref>

In a recent survey of Murdoch's philosophical work, Justin Broackes points to several distinctive features of Murdoch's moral philosophy, including a "[[moral realism]] or 'naturalism', allowing into the world cases of such properties as humility or generosity; an anti‐scientism; a rejection of [[David Hume|Humean]] [[moral psychology]]; a sort of '[[Moral particularism|particularism]]'; special attention to the virtues; and emphasis on the metaphor of moral perception or 'seeing' moral facts."<ref name=Broakesabstract>{{Cite book| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 978-0-19-928990-5| last = Broackes| first = Justin.| title = Iris Murdoch, philosopher: a collection of essays| chapter = Introduction| location = Oxford, England| date = 2012| url = http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289905.001.0001/acprof-9780199289905| url-status = live| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151126115959/http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289905.001.0001/acprof-9780199289905| archive-date = 26 November 2015}}</ref> The reasons for this are unclear, but the Scottish literary critic, [[G. S. Fraser]] notes that, in the late 1940s, the philosophers who were then occupying Murdoch's attention were late Victorian [[British idealists]], such as [[T. H. Green]], [[F. H. Bradley]], and [[Bernard Bosanquet (philosopher)|Bernard Bosanquet]].<ref>{{Cite book| last = Fraser| first = G.S..| title = "Iris Murdoch: The Solidity of the Normal" in International Literary Annual, Vol. 2 | location = New York| date = 1959| url = https://archive.org/stream/internationallit009773mbp/internationallit009773mbp_djvu.txt }}</ref> Broackes also notes that Murdoch's influence on the discipline of philosophy was sometimes indirect since it impacted both her contemporaries and the following generation of philosophers, particularly [[Elizabeth Anscombe]], [[Philippa Foot]], [[John McDowell]], and [[Bernard Williams]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Broackes|first1=Justin|title="Introduction," Iris Murdoch, Philosopher|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780199289905}}</ref> She sent copies of her earlier novels to Anscombe, but there is nothing in Anscombe's writing which reflects any of these.

Her philosophical work was influenced by [[Simone Weil]] (from whom she borrows the concept of 'attention'), and by [[Plato]], under whose banner she claimed to fight.<ref name=sovereignty></ref>{{rp|76}} In re-animating Plato, she gives force to the reality of the Good, and to a sense of the moral life as a pilgrimage from illusion to reality.  From this perspective, Murdoch's work offers perceptive criticism of Kant, [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]] and [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein]] ('early' and 'late'). Her most central parable, which appears in ''[[The Sovereignty of Good]]'', asks us (in Nussbaum's succinct account), "to imagine a mother-in-law, M, who has contempt for D, her daughter-in-law. M sees D as common, cheap, low. Since M is a self-controlled Englishwoman, she behaves (so Murdoch stipulates) with perfect graciousness all the while, and no hint of her real view surfaces in her acts. But she realises, too, that her feelings and thoughts are unworthy, and likely to be generated by jealousy and an excessively keen desire to hang on to her son. So she sets herself a moral task: she will change her view of D, making it more accurate, less marred by selfishness. She gives herself exercises in vision: where she is inclined to say 'coarse,' she will say, and see, 'spontaneous.' Where she is inclined to say 'common,' she will say, and see, 'fresh and naive.' As time goes on, the new images supplant the old. Eventually M does not have to make such an effort to control her actions: they flow naturally from the way she has come to see D."<ref name="NussbaumNR" /> This is how M cultivates a pattern of behavior that leads her to view D "justly or lovingly".<ref name=perfection>{{cite book | last1 = Murdoch | first1 = Iris | title = Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature | chapter = The Idea of Perfection |editor1= Peter Conradi | publisher = Chatto & Windus | year = 1997 | location = London |isbn=0701166290}}</ref>{{rp|317}} The parable is partly meant to show (against Oxford contemporaries including [[R. M. Hare]] and [[Stuart Hampshire]]) the importance of the "inner" life to moral action. Seeing another correctly can depend on overcoming jealousy, and discoveries about the world involve inner work.

===Fiction===
Her novels, in their attention and generosity to the inner lives of individuals, follow the tradition of novelists like [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky|Dostoyevsky]], [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], [[George Eliot]], and [[Marcel Proust|Proust]], besides showing an abiding love of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]. There is however great variety in her achievement, and the richly layered structure and compelling realistic comic imagination of ''[[The Black Prince (novel)|The Black Prince]]'' (1973) is very different from the early comic works ''[[Under the Net]]'' (1954) or ''[[The Unicorn (novel)|The Unicorn]]'' (1963). ''The Unicorn'' can be read as a sophisticated [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] [[Romance novel|romance]], or as a novel with Gothic trappings, or perhaps as a parody of the Gothic mode of writing. ''The Black Prince'', for which Murdoch won the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]], is a study of [[Hypersexuality|erotic obsession]], and the text becomes more complicated, suggesting multiple interpretations, when subordinate characters contradict the narrator and the mysterious "editor" of the book in a series of afterwords. Though her novels differ markedly, and her style developed, themes recur. Her novels often include upper-middle-class male intellectuals caught in moral dilemmas, gay characters, refugees, Anglo-Catholics with crises of faith, empathetic pets, curiously "knowing" children and sometimes a powerful and almost demonic male "enchanter" who imposes his will on the other characters—a type of man Murdoch is said to have modelled on her lover, the [[Nobel Prize|Nobel]] laureate [[Elias Canetti]].<ref name=Conradi2001/>{{rp|350–352}}

Murdoch was awarded the [[Booker Prize]] in 1978 for ''[[The Sea, the Sea]]'', a finely detailed novel about the power of love and loss, featuring a retired stage director who is overwhelmed by jealousy when he meets his erstwhile lover after several decades apart. It was dedicated to archaeologist [[Rosemary Cramp]], who had been a student at St Anne’s.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp obituary |newspaper=[[The Times]] |language=en |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/professor-dame-rosemary-cramp-obituary-77fwbkgg5 |access-date=2023-05-06 |issn=0140-0460}}</ref> An authorised collection of her poetic writings, ''Poems by Iris Murdoch'', appeared in 1997, edited by [[Paul Hullah]] and Yozo Muroya. Several of her works have been adapted for the screen, including the British television series of her novels ''[[An Unofficial Rose]]'' and ''[[The Bell (novel)|The Bell]]''. [[J. B. Priestley]]'s dramatisation of her 1961 novel ''[[A Severed Head]]'' starred [[Ian Holm]] and [[Richard Attenborough]].

In 1988 the [[Hamburg]]-based [[Alfred Toepfer Foundation]] awarded Murdoch its annual [[Shakespeare Prize]] in recognition of her life's work. In 1997, she was awarded the [[Golden PEN Award]] by [[English PEN]] for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.englishpen.org/prizes/golden-pen-award-for-a-lifetimes-distinguished-service-to-literature |title=Golden Pen Award, official website |publisher=[[English PEN]] |access-date=3 December 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121121020544/http://www.englishpen.org/prizes/golden-pen-award-for-a-lifetimes-distinguished-service-to-literature/ |archive-date=21 November 2012 }}</ref>

[[Harold Bloom]] wrote in his 1986 review of ''[[The Good Apprentice]]'' that "no other contemporary British novelist" seemed of her "eminence".<ref name="Bloom">{{cite news |last1=Bloom |first1=Harold |author-link1=Harold Bloom |title=A comedy of worldly salvation |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/murdoch-apprentice.html |access-date=1 November 2020 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=12 January 1986}}</ref> [[A. S. Byatt]] called her "a great philosophical novelist".<ref name="Stout">{{cite news |last1=Stout |first1=Mira |title=What Possessed A.S. Byatt? |url=https://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/06/13/specials/byatt-possessed.html |access-date=1 November 2020 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=26 May 1991}}</ref> [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] wrote in ''How Fiction Works'': "In her literary and philosophical criticism, she again and again stresses that the creation of free and independent characters is the mark of a great novelist; yet her own characters never have this freedom." He stressed that some authors, "like [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], [[Anthony Trollope|Trollope]], [[Honore de Balzac|Balzac]] and [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]", wrote about people different from themselves by choice, whereas others, such as "[[Henry James|James]], [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]], [[D. H. Lawrence|Lawrence]], [[Virginia Woolf|Woolf]]", have more interest in the self. Wood called Murdoch "poignant", because she spent her whole life writing in the latter category, while she struggled to fit herself into the former.<ref name="JamesWood">{{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=James |title=How Fiction Works |date=2018 |publisher=Picador |location=New York |pages=113–114 |edition=2nd}}</ref>