Is Iris Murdoch a Closet Existentialist? Some Trouble with Vision, Choice and Exegesis

Abstract

Richard Moran argues that Iris Murdoch is an Existentialist who pretends not to be. His support for this view will be shown to depend on his attempt to assimilate Iris Murdoch's discussion of moral ‘vision’ in the parable of the Mother in Law to Sartre's thought on ‘choice’ and ‘orientation’. Discussing both Moran's Murdoch exegesis and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, I develop the Sartrean view to which Moran hopes to assimilate Murdoch, before pointing out how Moran's assimilation fails. Murdoch's thought that when M is just and loving she sees D ‘as she really is’ cannot be accommodated on Sartre's picture. I develop this point of disagreement between Murdoch and Sartre, and argue that Murdoch has not as Moran claims made a misattribution to Sartre of an unsituated will, but has instead offered a penetrating critique of the central theme of Sartre's epistemology.

Good, Evil and the Virtuous Iris Murdoch CommentaryIris Murdoch, Philosopher, edited by JustinBroackes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 400 pp. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐928990‐5 hb £35.00

“…The most arresting failure is that of Richard Moran, who, in order to defend Sartre from Murdoch's attack on his moral epistemology, tries to claim Murdoch as a confused or dishonest Sartrean who ‘represses the words of Existentialist philosophers themselves, along with her own debt to them, and substitutes a very different creation in their place’ (p. 184). As is evident from my reply to him in this journal (Robjant forthcoming), all that Moran achieves is a bright light on the accuracy of Murdoch's attack on Sartre. Yet there is much to celebrate in all these generous errors.…”

“…This is a short way with large and difficult problems around ‘reason’ and ‘autonomy’. I have argued in this journal that the ideal of free rational choice is unintelligible unless it also allows for being compelled by the facts (Robjant forthcoming). In which case, there is no reason why we should not allow that Trocme is an autonomous rational agent compelled directly by the needs of the refugees.…”

Mente humana y sujeto moral en Iris Murdoch

“…No estoy seguro de que la réplica deRobjant (2013) se centre en las cuestiones principales, pero comparto sus observaciones finales en relación con la voluntad.14 En Kant, la voluntad trascendental se separaba de la psique empírica -volveremos sobre ello-. En cambio, en Hampshire o Sartre, tratamos solo con una voluntad empírica que elige en el vacío de valores trascendentes con una libertad absoluta (es el valor primario) de la que surgirán después, con "mucho sentido común utilitarista" -sigue ironizandoMurdoch (2001Murdoch ( : 56 / 1997)-, otros valores como la imparcialidad, la racionalidad, la responsabilidad o la sinceridad, que representan perfectamente la perspectiva igualitaria y burguesa de la democracia liberal y el protestantismo.…”

‘The Extremely Difficult Realization That Something Other Than Oneself Is Real’: Iris Murdoch on Love and Moral Agency

“…35 35Robjant () is also someone who takes seriously the claim that M is trying not merely to see D accurately but to see her lovingly.…”