The philosophical thought of Iris Murdoch proposes that no ethical tradition has ever adequately fashioned a picture of human beings as they truly are, and in the course of her career this was what she used her writing in philosophy and literature to illustrate: a personal vision of man’s morality. If we consider ethicists’ preoccupations in recent history, we might argue that these have mainly been the examination of moral being to justify why humans choose what they choose in particular circumstances, rather than the development of any concept of a “moral character” that might constitute the essential source of all the moral choices that ordinary human beings make. If we acknowledge that such a character does indeed exist, then it will naturally follow that we as humans have an important inner life characterized by a certain degree of essential unity. In the end, what is certain is that our “moral character” becomes apparent in the moment we act, and is itself the result of something that began long ago. And for Murdoch, this was the importance of virtue.

Continue reading →