Moral psychology as soul-picture

Abstract

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, ‘rival soul-pictures’. In this paper, I clarify Murdoch's generic notion of ‘soul-picture’, the genus of which, for example, Aristotle's, Kant's, Nietzsche's, and Murdoch's constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a moral psychology must meet in order to qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self, that is (1) holistic, (2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), (3) reflexive, (4) therapeutic, and (5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language.