Uppsala University

Department of philosophy
Master’s program in practical philosophy
MA thesis, 45 credits
SPRING 2024

Individual Agency and Social Context in

Iris Murdoch’s Moral Philosophy

Marcus Engström

Supervisor: Sharon Rider

Abstract
In this thesis, I examine Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, with a particular focus on individual
moral agency and its relation to the broader social context. I evaluate criticism against Murdoch
regarding her alleged overemphasis on the individual, which some argue neglects broader social
and collective forces in moral life, thus presenting an unrealistic picture of moral formation and
attributing too much individual responsibility. To address this critique, I first explore
Murdoch’s metaphysical views, contrasting them with dominant philosophical schools of her
time, primarily existentialism and behaviorism. By elucidating the metaphysical underpinnings
that inform her Platonic-influenced moral realism, I argue that understanding her moral
philosophy necessitates an understanding of her metaphysics. I then delve into the central
problem in Murdoch’s moral philosophy: transcending the ego that typically obscures our
perception of reality with egocentric fantasies of all kinds. Murdoch contends that gaining
insight into moral reality hinges largely on how we deploy our attention, positing that a 'just
and loving gaze' is requisite for perceiving what is real. When this attention is properly directed,
we can experience 'unselfing,' a state in which our egocentric perspectives recede, allowing
reality to manifest itself.
I argue that, when examined within Murdoch’s metaphysical framework, the
criticism against Murdoch ultimately lacks validity, primarily because it relies on overly narrow
conceptions of selfhood, and what can constitute egoistic fantasies.
Table of content
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 1
2. MURDOCH’S METAPHYSICS ................................................................................................................ 3
2.1 WHY METAPHYSICS? ................................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 THE ´CURRENT VIEW’ .................................................................................................................................. 5
2.3 MURDOCH’S OWN METAPHYSICS ................................................................................................................... 7
2.4 MURDOCH’S EPISTEMOLOGY ........................................................................................................................ 9
2.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 9
3. MURDOCH´S MORAL PHILOSOPHY ................................................................................................... 10
3.1 VISION AND ATTENTION ............................................................................................................................. 11
3.2 UNSELFING.............................................................................................................................................. 13
3.3 SUMMARY............................................................................................................................................... 15
4. WHAT ABOUT THE CRITIQUE?........................................................................................................... 16
4.1 LAWRENCE BLUM ..................................................................................................................................... 16
4.2 MARTHA NUSSBAUM ................................................................................................................................ 20
5. CONCLUSIONS AND CLOSING DISCUSSION ........................................................................................ 23
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................................... 26
 1. Introduction
In this thesis, I shall discuss the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) with a particular
focus on her ideas about individual moral agency and its relation to the broader social context
of moral formation. Murdoch was deeply concerned with the problem of impediments to moral
improvement, to what extent and by what means human beings have the power to overcome
them. Much of her work was a critical response to the dominant tradition in analytical moral
philosophy of her time, especially at Oxford and Cambridge. She offered a somewhat radical
re-thinking not only of standard moral theories but also of the methodology and worldview
upon which those approaches to philosophy were based (Panizza & Hopwood, 2022: 1). She
was critical to how certain, largely unquestioned, metaphysical assumptions have caused a
reduction of both morality and moral philosophy to be about observable behavior and/or overt
action. This, she argued, neglects the inner moral life, which she thought to be crucial for
genuine moral development.
Murdoch was a moral realist, strongly influenced by Plato. She thought that moral
claims concern facts about the world which are either true or false. In order for us to apprehend
moral truths, she thought, impediments to perceiving reality as it is must first be removed, or at
least diminished. Among the greatest obstacles, in her view, is our innate inclination toward
egocentrism, and this is something that it is up to the individual to overcome. Her account thus
emphasizes individual agency and responsibility. Murdoch has been criticized for precisely this
reason, i.e. for not sufficiently acknowledging the broader social context in which morality and
moral formation arise. Thus, it has been argued, she places an unrealistic, or even impossible,
moral burden on the individual insofar as she neglects the impact of social and cultural factors
on moral life.
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the relationship between individual moral
agency and collective forces of moral formation within Murdoch’s philosophy, and to evaluate
her account of moral improvement on own terms, that is, from within the context of her
metaphysical and epistemological framework, so as not to base its arguments on
misconceptions and oversimplifications. The research question that I will attempt to answer is
thus:

1
Murdoch has been criticized for neglecting the influence and effects of collective (social and
political) forces in moral formation. On close inspection of her own arguments, to what extent
are these criticisms justified?
There has been a revival of interest in Murdoch, both her life and her novels, since
her death in 1999. Especially in the last decade or two, there has been increasing attention to
her philosophical work, which has undergone rediscovery and reevaluation. (See for example
Larsson (2009), Clarke (2012), Broackes (2012), Forsberg (2013), Setiya (2013), Hopwood
(2018), Dooley and Hämäläinen (2019), Hopwood and Panizza (2023)). Questions about how
we can live morally better lives, which was very central to Murdoch, are arguably never out of
date, and Murdoch’s work has shown to have bearing on diverse fields beyond moral
philosophy, including literary studies, religious studies, and to some extent, education. The
commonality often lies in exploring the inner life from various perspectives and the interplay
between the individual and a moral reality that transcends particular experiences (Olsson, 2018:
65).
The thesis consists of five chapters. After this introduction, in chapter 2, I will
present Murdoch’s metaphysical position, since her moral philosophy is inextricably tied up
with it. In the same chapter, I will also present Murdoch´s critique of the dominant
contemporary philosophical views of her day, in particular, her objections to the attempt to
eliminate metaphysics from ethics. Her main criticism of the latter is that metaphysical
assumptions are inevitable. Avoiding articulating them does not make them disappear. Instead,
they are tacit and by and large go unnoticed. Connected to this criticism is her general concern
about the contemporary moral philosophy, and the picture of man that it postulates, which will
also be described in this chapter. In Chapter 3, Murdoch’s own moral philosophy will be
presented. The main theme is the consequences of Murdoch’s moralism for the individual. For
the purpose of this thesis, that is, to render a fair evaluation of Murdoch´s moral philosophy,
especially with respect to the ostensible tension between individual moral agency and social
context, the metaphysical framework will be assumed as a starting point. This chapter will treat
Murdoch’s idea of moral vision, the notion that the ego and egocentric forces stand in the way
of moral perception, or at very least distort it. The ego, she claims, has a tendency to ´veil
reality´ (SGC: 82). Her central idea of ‘unselfing’, the mostly conscious effort to transcend the
ego and its illusions as means of seeing reality clearly, will be worked out. In chapter 4, I present
and discuss criticism, mainly from two philosophers whose ideas have informed the formulation
of the research question of the thesis. I have chosen Lawrence Blum, and Martha Nussbaum as
representative critics because, while their positions are distinct, there is substantial overlap with

2
regard to the question of Murdoch’s treatment of the relationship and respective roles of the
individual and the collective in the context of moral formation. I address their arguments
individually, and conclude that, valid points notwithstanding, the main criticism is not
convincing. I argue that this is mainly because the criticism relies on too narrow an idea of the
self and individual agency, as well as of what can constitute egoistic fantasies. I further argue
that the critique fails to acknowledge that some collective forces actually are recognized and
treated by Murdoch, but conceptualized as egoistical fantasies. Lastly, in chapter 5, I will
discuss my findings and provide a short summary of the thesis, before going on to discuss the
relevance of the topic of my thesis and Murdoch’s moral philosophy more broadly.
Murdoch’s philosophical work is wide-ranging, and I will not attempt a general
analysis of her philosophy as a whole. In this thesis, I rely most heavily on Murdoch’s three
essays in The Sovereignty of Good (1970), together with relevant sections of Metaphysics as a
Guide to Morals (1992) and a few of the essays contained in Existentialists and Mystics (1997)1.
Aside from being a prominent philosopher, Murdoch was a prolific and literary author who
published 26 novels, many with philosophical and existential themes. These will not be
addressed within the limited confines of this thesis.2

2. Murdoch’s metaphysics
This chapter lays out Murdoch’s account of why metaphysics is fundamental to morality and
moral philosophy. It begins with a presentation and discussion of her claim that the anti-
metaphysical movement in philosophy of her time had missed its mark. In their reluctance to
explicitly engage with metaphysical thinking, she argued, philosophers had simply allowed
metaphysical assumptions about the nature of reality and its structures to remain implicit and
in the main go unnoticed.
Murdoch insists that metaphysical notions, whether acknowledged as such or not,
are unavoidable. In this chapter, I will sketch out Murdoch’s criticism of the philosophical
worldviews dominant at her time, and why she calls into question the assumptions guiding

1
The three essays that together constitute The Sovereignty of Good are also included in Existentialists and
Mystics.
2
For a discussion of the relationship between Murdoch’s philosophy and her novels, see for example Forsberg
(2013).

3
them. I then will lay out Murdoch’s own position, that of moral realism, and what she takes as
evidence for the plausibility of it being a better alternative to the views she opposes.

2.1 Why metaphysics?

In what is by many considered to be her magus opus, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992),
Murdoch sets out on a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of how our metaphysical
assumptions about the world, what we take to be real, guides our moral orientation. This theme
is found in different form in many of her other works as well (very much in The Sovereignty of
Good, and in some essays in Existentialists and Mystics). Metaphysical assumptions can be
made explicit through conscious reflection and thinking. But quite often they are not.
Fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality may be implicit in our thinking regardless
of the extent to which we are aware that we have made them. In either case, the general trend
in 20th- century philosophy was to separate morality from metaphysics. Murdoch was very
critical of this anti-metaphysical stance in contemporary philosophy, and in particular with
respect to the ‘unavoidable implications’ this has for ethics (ME 1956/EM: 63).
One such implication is the facile distinction between the questions, “’What is my
morality?’ and ‘What is morality as such?´”, which she thinks is pervasive in modern
philosophy (VCM 1956/EM: 76). Murdoch took the separation between individual morality
from a broader understanding of morality as a universal concept to be misguided. In ignoring
the need for a basis in ‘natural or metaphysical structure’, the picture of morality and moral
behavior presented by contemporary moral philosophy was a ‘stripped and empty scene’. On
her account, this condition is the end result of a long history of criticism of metaphysics that
has been a more or less a permanent part of ‘our tradition’. (ME 1956/EM: 63) Murdoch was
herself critical to much of traditional metaphysics (ME 1956/EM: 71), i.e. the attempt to
formulate a universal theory to explain how the world works. This kind of metaphysical
theorizing can be characterized as a top-down approach. Murdoch’s own way of philosophizing
was bottom-up, appealing to experience and theorizing on the basis of it.
In discussing Murdoch’s attitude to metaphysics, Hämäläinen and Dooley assert:
“All thinking, even in a disenchanted world, and even in twentieth-century anti-
metaphysical philosophy, rests on metaphysical assumptions. A naturalist metaphysics is
a metaphysics too. Although such metaphysics, and a worldview based on it, has been

4
 widely considered morally neutral, it has moral and other evaluative commitments built
in from the start” (2019: 6–7)
Schools of thought that posit value as unreal, such as the otherwise largely incompatible schools
of existentialism and behaviorism, have not reached this position by a careful scrutiny of what
things are like, but rather by excluding the reality of value a priori. This is a reasonable
assumption within a naturalistic worldview, since there is no place for value within its axiomatic
metaphysical framework. But these assumptions can nevertheless be questioned. One might
address the problem of value from the other pole, and posit value as ontologically primary,
something that human beings have not invented but discovered. As we will see, much of
Murdoch’s work centers around value(s), and the question of how our conception of ‘the real’
affects our moral orientation, and vice versa.

2.2 The ´current view’

Before laying out Murdoch’s own philosophical view, I will illustrate some features of the
dominant philosophical atmosphere to which her philosophy was a response. 3
Although contemporary philosophy was not unitary in any sense, ‘the elimination of
metaphysics from ethics’ can be seen as one unifying characteristic (M&E 1957/EM: 63). Two
of the dominant schools of philosophy that Murdoch criticized were behaviorism and
existentialism. Since these schools of thought are fundamentally different, and even
incompatible, it might seem strange that Murdoch clumps them together when describing ‘the
current view’ (See for example VCM 1956/EM: 77). Her reason for doing this was what she
thought they had in common, namely, certain implicit presuppositions guiding them both. At
times she even describes western moral philosophy as ‘existentialist behaviorism’ (SW
1972/EM: 237; AD 1961/EM 293)
I will not delve into the vast differences between existentialism and behaviorism within
the strict confines of this thesis. For present purposes, I take it to be enough to understand what
Murdoch was critical of in each of these positions, and where they overlap. In brief, Murdoch
saw in behaviorism and existentialism a similarly distorted view of man:

3
Worth mentioning is that since Murdoch starts from different assumptions and has an unorthodox style of
argumentation, her moral philosophy are often thought to be difficult to assimilate to, or even compare with,
most contemporary academic moral philosophy. (Blum, 2023: 1)
.

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 “... the moral life of the individual is a series of overt choices which takes place in a
series of specific situations” where “the individual’s ‘stream of consciousness’ is of
comparatively little importance’”, to the degree it is even noticed. In short it is solely by overt
actions that it is possible to either mentally or morally characterize ourselves or other persons
(VCM/EM: 77, Cf SGC, 7-9).
In this perspective, morality revolves around conscious choices and outward actions,
relegating the significance of the inner moral life to a secondary role (and often dismissing its
existence as inconsequential). It presupposes that moral significance is contingent upon
immediate actions, discounting the importance of inner moral deliberation. Alternatively, even
if inner moral activity is acknowledged, its significance is deemed negligible unless it
culminates in overt acts or choices. This viewpoint reflects a behaviorist conception, positing
that morality fundamentally pertains to observable behavior. (VCM 1956/EM: 79-80). And it
is existentialist in its unrealistically strong belief in the agents freedom, which ultimately resides
in his choosing will (see for example OGG: 52-54; SGC 78). Within contemporary English
ethics there is an ‘exclusive emphasis on acts and choice, and its neglect of the ‘inner life’.
Here, oddly enough English philosophy and popular existentialism is on the same side, with
their urgent cry of ‘we have to choose’(KV 1956/EM: 159). Some of the philosophers whose
views she critiques and discusses are Stuart Hampshire, Richard Hare, and Gilbert Ryle, all
associated with a more behavioristic philosophy, and on the other hand, the existentialist Jean-
Paul Sartre, representing existentialism.
Murdoch readily admitted that it is unlikely that anyone completely adheres to the exact
position that she sketches, but hoped that it would sound ‘familiar’ and function as a general
characterization of popular philosophical views of the period (VCM 1956/EM: 77). She also
notes that since the moral agent is portrayed as rational, responsible and free, it makes it an
appealing view to hold. (Ibid; SGC, 8-9) For all its appeal, she thinks that it is still wrong.
The conception of the self within the ‘current view’ belongs to a worldview in which
there is no such thing as a moral reality. In this view, values attach to individuals, hence there
are no values to be discovered in the world which render certain kinds of behavior and practices
better or worse. Rather, on this view, the will is taken to be the ‘creator’ of value. Freedom is
assumed to be the sovereign moral concept, closely linked with will (SGC: 78-9). However,
Murdoch argues that the view of the self and the will central to the ‘current view’ is deeply
flawed. For support, she turns to Freud’s discoveries about the human mind, which, she argues,
if taken seriously, requires a revision of how we view the will and motives, and, by extension,

6
of how we should conduct moral philosophy. She cites especially Freud’s analysis of the psyche
as
“an egocentric system of quasi-mechanical energy, largely determined by its own
individual history, whose natural attachments are sexual, ambiguous, and hard for the
subject to understand or control. (OGG: 51)
Here the self and the will are internally constrained, much more than within the ‘current view’.
For the most part, we are not in control and cannot steer the often pernicious emotions, motives
or attachments that impede with moral motivation and action. And to the extent that choice is
necessarily accompanied by freedom, she argues, that freedom is not very great (SGC: 78).
Taking the Freudian analysis of the self into account when doing moral philosophy raises all
sorts of questions and challenges, the most pressing of which is how to deal with “the fact that
so much of human conduct is moved by mechanical energy of an egocentric kind” (OGG: 51).
In the Murdochian view, the ‘fat relentless ego’ is the enemy of moral life, and moral
philosophy, properly understood, should discuss this ego and potential ways to ‘defeat’ it.
(OGG: 51), As we will see in chapter 3, this is what Murdoch tries to do in her own moral
philosophy.

2.3 Murdoch’s own metaphysics

For Murdoch, morality is not one branch of philosophy among others, but its core, or first
philosophy. This view has a long legacy, from Plato to Levinas, but she may be the first modern
Anglophone philosopher to embrace it (Larsson 2009: 12). Being a moral realist, her starting
point is that value is real. She sees morality as something existing in the world, and not merely
in our heads. Moral life, in Murdoch’s view, is something that goes on all the time, and not just
in between moments of explicit ethical choice (IP: 37), as the ‘current view’ would have it. She
argues that we find it in our everyday experiences, if we actually attend to them. As said,
Murdoch was not concerned to construct a metaphysics “top-down”. Instead, her project is more
descriptive, starting from experience and building upwards. Our metaphysical orientation, she
asserts, should be understood as ‘fundamental forms of our awareness of our condition’ (SGC,
75). The naturalist metaphysics of ‘current times’, which excludes value and the good as real,
is based on a misunderstanding of ‘where we are.’ She insists that the Good is something both
absolute and a real part of people’s ordinary experience. (MGM, 412) Everyday life tells us,
Murdoch thinks, that kindness, foolishness, mean-spiritedness etcetera are real properties of the

7
world, and thus, getting to know these properties is to attain knowledge of some aspect of reality
(See especially IP 36-41; OGG 57-58, SGC 88).
How did Murdoch arrive at this conclusion? Why did she not adopt the ‘current
view’? On what basis did she come instead to defend a sort of Platonic realism? It is hard to
speak or write about the Good, as it is often said to be indefinable. And this is a problem for
any philosophy that aims to define concepts as clearly as possible. Murdoch suggests that this
leads to a tendency to explain away what cannot be clearly defined, to the detriment of actual
experience. But she thought that while the Good cannot be represented or defined (SGC: 78),
human beings can recognize it in their own experiences, if they can learn to attend to them with
enough care. She repeatedly reminds us that we experience goodness and badness in everyday
life, ‘it is evidently and actively incarnate all around us’ (MGM, 478) and that we perceive this
as something real existing independently of our personal conditioned desires and hopes (MGM:
412, 508). “The ordinary person does not, unless corrupted by philosophy, believe that he
creates values by his choices. He thinks that some things really are better than others and that
he is capable of getting it wrong.” (Murdoch, 2001: 95)
Most philosophy is, of course, ‘corrupted by philosophy,’ and therefore unable to
acknowledge this. The philosopher cannot understand what he cannot define, and what he
cannot understand likely does not exist (or if it does exist, it is of no philosophical interest).
From this viewpoint, attempting to explain something one cannot understand will at best end
up in explaining it away. Yet the existence of the Good, and value in general, cannot be thought
away, according to Murdoch. Its reality is independent of our recognition of it. Nevertheless, it
is possible to be incognizant of it, ignore it, or refuse to see it. Morality, and value, are not
constructed or invented by us, but discovered by us if we attend properly to reality.
In the essay The Idea of Perfection, Murdoch presents an illustrative case
involving a moral activity of the inner life, famously cited in secondary literature for its
depiction of how moral transformation can occur solely within the mind. The example revolves
around a mother (M) and her daughter-in-law (D). Initially, M holds unflattering views about
D, considering her ‘pert and familiar, insufficiently ceremonious, brusque, sometimes
positively rude, always tiresomely juvenile.’ Despite these harsh judgments, M maintains
outwardly polite behavior towards D. Over time, though, M undergoes a significant shift in
perception, entirely within her own mind. Murdoch underscores this by supposing that D has
either emigrated with M’s son or passed away, emphasizing the internal nature of the
transformation. Through deliberate reflection and self-criticism, M challenges her initial
prejudices and 'looks again' at D, and luckily, she is capable to give ‘careful an just attention to

8
an object which confronts her’ (IP: 17). Gradually, her vision of D evolves, revealing a more
nuanced and accurate understanding. Instead of seeing D as ‘vulgar’, ‘undignified’, and ‘noisy,’
M discovers her to be ‘refreshingly simple’, ‘spontaneous’, and ‘gay’. (Ibid)
This example serves to illustrate some of Murdoch’s metaphysical ideas and
highlights the importance of attention in moral development. Additionally, it functions as an
argument for her realism. If we accept Murdoch’s description that a genuine moral change
occurs within M’s mind and acknowledge her ability to see 'justly or lovingly,' then we can
conclude that M’s new vision is truer to D's actual character (Broackes, 2012: 46). This
realization represents a moral improvement on M’s behalf, supporting Murdoch's argument for
the objective reality of moral truths.

2.4 Murdoch’s epistemology

In this section, I will expand briefly on the relationship between Murdoch’s metaphysical views
and her epistemology. How can we attain knowledge of moral reality, according to Murdoch?
According to Murdoch, the moral and the epistemological ‘are always very
closely connected’ (M&E 1957/EM: 68). Apprehending moral reality as it is, is an arduous task,
requiring ‘moral effort’ (SGC: 375). We are ‘anxiety-ridden animals’, and our restless minds
tend to fabricate again and again ‘an anxious, usually self-preoccupied, often falsifying veil
which partially conceals our world’ (SGC: 82). Our minds are more or less constantly engaged
in egocentric ways of perceiving, almost by default. And this habit of the self often inhibits us
from seeing what is really there.
Central on this account is that vision precedes choice – one can only choose that
which one can ‘see, in the moral sense of ‘see’’. And, “...at the crucial moment of choice most
of the business of choosing is already over” (IP: 36). However, egoism is on Murdoch’s account
an epistemic condition, having its roots in the structure of human consciousness and perception
(Antonaccio 2009, 254). And the self-deception that it entails must be overcome in order for us
to perceive what is in front of us.

2.5 Conclusion

I this chapter I have tried to establish the Murdochian view that there is no escape from

9
from metaphysics. The way you view the world will largely rely on the metaphysical
assumption about the world that you hold. And if these are not explicit and recognized, they are
implicit or unconscious,4 since it is impossible for humans not to make assumptions. Given the
limited and finite creatures that we are, we cannot have perfect knowledge of the world. One’s
initial presuppositions will inevitable be conditioned and structured by factors such as language,
perceptual and cognitive abilities and so forth. And different presuppositions will result in
different conclusions about the world, which in turn will result in different moral philosophies.
However, the initial presuppositions one makes are not self-evident and vary greatly across
different cultures and time spans. And Murdoch makes other metaphysical assumptions than
what is done within the ‘current view, and this leads to a moral philosophy that is essentially
different, as we will see in the next chapter.

3. Murdoch´s moral philosophy

What does the foregoing mean for Murdoch’s moral philosophy? To begin with, as discussed
in the previous chapter, Murdoch’s metaphysics is the foundation for her moral philosophy, and
what guides it. How one approaches and ultimately evaluates Murdoch’s moral philosophy, like
any philosophy, will depend in large part on what one brings to the table. What is considered
to be a convincing argument, and what makes it convincing, can and often will differ between
people (Martinich, 2016: 18). In what follows, it is presumed that different readers will have
somewhat different metaphysical and epistemological starting points.5 For the sake of the
argument, the reader should simply take Murdoch’s moral realism as axiomatic for her moral
philosophy, and thus for the arguments of this thesis. One might think of it in terms of a thought
experiment – if moral realism in the Platonic sense were true, what would the implications be
for ethics, on the one hand, and for the individual’s moral obligations, on the other? The aim
here is not to argue for Murdoch’s metaphysical views, but to show how it informs her moral
philosophy.

4
Karl Jaspers wrote: “There is no escape from philosophy. The question is only whether a philosophy is
conscious or not, whether it is good or bad, muddled or clear. Anyone who rejects philosophy is himself
unconsciously practicing a philosophy." (Jaspers, 1954: 12) Murdoch argues similarly about holding
metaphysical views, asserting that there is no way to escape them.
5
This is what R.G Collingwood (1940) would call ‘absolute presuppositions’.

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 Aside from this introduction, the chapter consists of two main sections. In the first
part (3.1), I will explain why vision is the most important aspect of morality for Murdoch. On
her account, the world contains morality as part of its fundamental structure, and, if we learn to
see the world as it is, what is actually there, the knowledge of reality we gain from that
undistorted vision or attention to reality will help us act in the right way. Attention is a very
central theme here. Having made that argument, in the second part (3.2) I will continue by
working out the implications for what the individual moral agent can and should do, bearing in
mind that clear vision does not come naturally to us, due to our egoistic nature. This will be
done by engaging in key notion involved in Murdoch’s attempt to answer the question:
“are there any techniques for the purification and reorientation of an energy which is
naturally selfish, in such a way that when moments of choice arrives we shall be sure of
acting rightly?” (OGG: 53/344)
Murdoch argues that there are techniques for overcoming this selfish veil of ignorance and
illusion (F&S, 1977/EM: 426). First and foremost, moral effort is required, which in turn
necessitates a long process of ‘purification of consciousness’, since consciousness is the
‘fundamental arena for morality’ (MGM: 494). Techniques exist for turning one’s attention
away from the self, and onto the world, which, properly used, can result in what Murdoch calls
‘unselfing’, a process in which the otherwise so persistent ego is held back, if only for a
moment, allowing the world to appear as it really is. But first, let us turn our attention to vision.

3.1 Vision and attention

Suspending judgment about whether Murdoch’s version of moral realism is plausible, we can
focus on Murdoch’s moral philosophy and investigate what it means for the individual and if
that account is reasonable. According to Murdoch’s moral realism, there is a real world that has
certain features that are independent of how our minds conceive them. Among these features
are moral properties. While every individual contributes to the reality he experiences, much of
reality is what it is apart from any particular individual’s conceptions. From this it follows that
“... there is a relationship there – something to be true to for the individual. Assuming there is
something there to know implies that some understanding will inevitably be better than others”
(McGilchrist 2021, 379-380). This quote captures a crucial aspect of Murdoch’s moral
philosophy. In her own words: ‘The authority of morals is the authority of truth, that is of
reality’ (SGC: 88). The aim of morality is to approximate the truth, to come closer to reality.

11
And coming close to reality is very much a matter of vision, and learning to see what is actually
there. She writes:
“Of course virtue is good habit and dutiful action. But the background condition of such
habit and such action, in human beings, is a just mode of vision and a good quality of
consciousness. It is a task to come to see the world as it is. “(SGC: 89)
For Murdoch then, morality is fundamentally about seeing what is actually there, which is a
capacity that has to be cultivated by conscious moral effort, since we do not necessarily see
what is before our eyes. We most often do not, since we are almost by default so blinded by our
egocentric habits of perceiving. Seeing beyond our own selfish interest and inclinations is
therefore both a moral and epistemic accomplishment. Again, according to Murdoch, moral
philosophy should be about how to go about transcending the ego (OGG, 51).
Learning to see what is really there is a process that is heavily dependent on our
ability to pay attention. If we cannot attend to what is in front of us, we have no way of getting
to know it as it is in itself. On Murdoch’s account, ‘attention’ is the process by which we can
get to know reality. She borrows the term from Simone Weil, using it to refer to the 'idea of a
just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality'. This ‘gaze’ is for Murdoch ‘the
characteristic and proper mark of the active moral agent’ (IP: 33). On this account attention is
to be understood as an ideal, the successful attempt to see something with a ‘just and loving
gaze’. A telling quote from Weil that Murdoch emphasized is “We should pay attention to such
a point that we no longer have the choice.” (KV 1956/EM: 159). Attention thus triumphs over
the usual conception of choice as the most important aspect in moral philosophy. Not to have a
choice might sound like a kind of determinism, i.e. as denying individual agency. Murdoch
means something else. To be able to orient our attention is the primary expression of our
freedom, and as such the core of moral action. And this freedom can be exercised at any given
moment, not just in extreme situations, such as in instances in which we must make a choice.
The latter is what happens when ‘most of the business of choosing is already over’. Murdoch
argues that we can understand this if we ‘consider what the work of attention is like, how
continuously it goes on, and how imperceptible it builds up structures of value round about us’
(IP: 36). Considering this help us to realize that moral life is something that goes on all the time,
and not just when explicit ethical decisions must be made (IP: 37). What we attend to and how
we attend to it continually shapes us as moral beings; it is part of the process of moral formation.
There is no time off, and ‘every moment matters’ (MGM: 484).
The ability to really pay attention and see reality as it is, is associated with a
specific sense of freedom, that is very different from how it is usually understood within most

12
of moral philosophy. Murdoch state: “Freedom is not strictly the exercise of the will, but rather
the experience of accurate vision which, when this becomes appropriate, occasions action.”
(OGG 65; cf IP: 17-18, 22). The freedom that is a proper human goal, according to Murdoch,
is ‘freedom from fantasy’, since fantasy distorts reality and hinders clear vision. What is called
will, in fact, often belong to fantasy, as she argues is the case in both existential and behaviorist
philosophies. Fantasy (again, often called ‘will’ or ‘willing’), she argues, is ‘the proliferation
of binding self-centered aims and images’ (OGG: 66) which, in her view, constitutes a powerful
system of energy requiring exertion to overcome. The ego is intrinsically disinclined to value
anything other than that which is directly connected to its own aims and interests. This stands
in the way of an accurate apprehension of the world (Denham 2001: 624). This unwillingness
is thus a disability that only with great effort can be remediated. The illusions of the self can
take many forms, for instance, ‘obsession, prejudice, envy, anxiety, ignorance, greed [and]
neurosis’ (F&S, 1977/EM: 426), but egoism is the most generic name for them taken together.

3.2 Unselfing

A prerequisite for the reality of others to appear is hence to transcend the self, if only for a
moment. By mitigating the force of the ego, we allow reality to reveal itself to us. This is
however, as we have seen (and perhaps experienced), no easy task: ‘the exercise of overcoming
one's self, of the expulsion of fantasy and convention [...] is indeed exhilarating. It is also, if we
perform it properly, which we hardly ever do, painful. (SBL 1959/EM: 216.)
There is however possible for us to get intimations of unselfing without conscious
effort. The most evident thing that can occasions unselfing is the experience of beauty. Murdoch
notes that most recent philosopher do not like to speak about beauty, since they are so caught
up with reason, while neglecting the importance of experience (SGC, 82). To illustrate how
such a temporary encounter with beauty can occasion unselfing, and at the same time be
pleasurable, Murdoch writes:
”I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of
my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly
I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with
its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to
thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something
which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of
selfish care.” (SGC: 82)

13
Here, there is an abrupt purification of the observer’s mind, transitioning from a state of
dwelling on egoistic matters to a state of unselfing (Hämäläinen, 2023: 169). This example
illustrates how intimations of selfless states can be reached more or less randomly. It's important
to note the difference from the example involving the mother (M) and her daughter-in-law (D),
presented in Chapter 2. In that scenario, the transformation within M's mind does not occur by
chance but rather through her engagement in self-criticism, prompting her to 'look again' (IP:
17). Altogether, overcoming the ego, more than occurring in such brief moments, requires
conscious moral effort. This can be done by finding sources of energy other than the
‘mechanical energy of an egocentric kind’, (OGG: 51) that usually has us in its firm grip. In the
process of unselfing, the salience of our ‘fantasy’ (OGG: 65) is held back. Fantasy should here
be understood in a broad sense that includes all sorts of autobiographical narratives and self-
images and ideas about other people. Ohlsson, commenting on this tendency of ours, writes:
In the narratives of our lives we often cast ourselves as the protagonists, as a centre around
which other things revolve. The greatest threat to morality is the creativity of our own
mind and its tendency to narrate where there is no story, to fabricate, to make the
contingent whole, and to embed meaning in that which is meaningless.” (Ohlsson 2018,
168)
This comes from the psyche’s wish to make existence tolerable by satisfying the ego’s drive to
control the world by placing itself at the center, so that everything and everyone revolves around
it (SGC 76-77). The process of ‘un-selfing’ is thus a de-centering of the self, and a detachment
from own abilities and autonomy; it is an ‘abandonment of hubristic claims’ (Cooper, 2007:
361). The experience of unselfing radically shifts one’s perspective, and one’s place in the
world can appear in a whole new light (Scarry, 1999). Note that this can happen in encounters
with others, but it may also happen by turning one’s attention towards something other than
oneself. It is the acknowledgement of realities other than one’s own, and a humble attempt to
apprehend them, that is the key. One instance of this can be learning something new. If it is
approached with an open mind and a humble attitude, it can have the potential to aid unselfing.
Learning a new language, for instance, that require one’s attention, can have such an effect:
If I am learning, for instance, Russian, I am confronted by an authoritative structure which
commands my respect... Love of Russian leads me away from myself towards something
alien to me, something which my consciousness cannot take over, swallow up, deny or
make unreal. The honesty and humility required of the student—not to pretend to know
what one does not know—is the preparation for the honesty and humility of the scholar
who does not even feel tempted to suppress the fact which damns his theory. (SGC: 87)

14
Learning a language requires humility and an acceptance of the reality of the language that is
beyond our control. And this relation that we have with the foreign language we are trying to
learn is non-reciprocal (MGM: 478). It is of course possible to adopt a self-centered approach
to learning, as it is to any subject, human or non-human. If the subject is approached as mere
pieces of information, and one is trying to fit it within a personal scheme, then there is a
significant risk that the reality of that other is reduced in a way that fails to capture its reality in
all its particularity and complexity. This will mean that the learning is impaired, and a state of
unselfing will not be achieved.

3.3 Summary

The possibility of unselfing is central to the project of Murdoch’s moral philosophy.6 The
process of unselfing leads to perspectival changes, where the salience of the ego is reduced, and
(a) less egocentric perspective(s), is gained. This leads to a better and truer understanding of
reality, although it is a matter of degree and requires effort at every level. Although it is unlikely
that one can ever arrive at seeing reality wholly without egoistical influences and tendencies, it
is nevertheless both desirable and at least not impossible in principle as a regulative ideal, even
if perfection is in practice unattainable for beings such as ourselves (F&S, 1977/EM: 426).
Attending to the world in unselfish ways, and seeing what is actually there, will
shape the subject. The practice of these states and modes of attending to the world, if engaged
in properly, will lead to different modes of being 7 and will likely change one’s relation with
values, and even the act of evaluating. The mind that is conquered by the ego will sees an
illusory world of its own making, and will ascribe value to the wrong things. On the other hand,

6
It has been argued that the concept itself has received more attention than it perhaps deserves (Milligan, 2010:
174). I attribute this view to see unselfing in a too narrow sense, a failure to recognize how it is central to much
of Murdoch’s project. As mentioned earlier, she takes proper moral philosophy to be about ‘the discussion of this
ego and of the techniques (if any) for its defeat’, and claims that we have seen examples of it in the past,
especially in religious and mystical traditions (OGG, 51). The idea of unselfing resembles many other ideas
about ways to overcome one’s egocentric perspectives by engaging in practices that alter one’s state of mind.
Different techniques for training one’s attention and cultivating virtues can be understood as methods of
unselfing. (Kähonen 2020, 43) highlights how many different forms of ethical and spiritual self-cultivation,
including Buddhism, certain philosophical schools of antiquity and many contemplative branches of various
religions have used techniques that aim to shift from an egocentric perspective towards a more universal one
(Pagnoni 2019; Burbea 2014; Millière 2017; Millière et al. 2018; Hadot 1995; 2004). Unselfing can therefore
arguably be seen as a perennial theme that has played an important role in many religions and philosophical
traditions.
7
These different modes of being resemble ideas formulated by Erich Fromm (1976), who distinguished between
the 'having mode,' which he saw as characterized by an egocentric, instrumental way of relating to the world, on
one hand, and the non-instrumental 'being mode' on the other, which opens our attention to the world and
reduces the salience of egocentric ways of perceiving.

15
where absolute values are experienced and recognized as existing in the world, and available to
the ‘instructed and morally purified mind’ to discover, that is, when one’s attention is directed
away from the self and towards the world, it can come to see ‘reality clearly’ (F&S, 1977/EM:
426). And although the actual process occurs at the level of the individual, Murdoch emphasizes
the need to promote practices that alters the quality of consciousness towards the direction of
‘unselfishness’ (SGC: 82). Murdoch has a broad conception of fantasy that includes what I have
called “collective fantasies”, and she does not seem to put much weight on whether a fantasy
has its source in an individual or in a group or society. In whichever case, it is up to the
individual to overcome it. Murdoch’s strong emphasis on the individual is one aspect where she
has been criticized. In the next chapter, I will present and discuss some criticism about this that
has informed the research question of my thesis.

4. What about the critique?

Murdoch’s way of doing philosophy has been highly influential, especially in recent years, but
not without its critics. In this chapter, I will discuss critiques of Murdoch’s moral philosophy
with respect to the central problem of this thesis, namely:
Murdoch has been criticized for neglecting the effects of collective (social and political) forces
in moral formation. On close inspection of her own arguments, to what extent are these
criticisms justified?
In what follows, I will focus on two philosophers, Martha Nussbaum and
Lawrence Blum, who have both questioned Murdoch’s strong emphasis on the individual in her
analyses of moral formation and agency, which, they claim, leads her to neglect cultural and
social aspects. Blum’s and Nussbaum’s critiques will be presented and evaluated separately, as
they represent distinct positions.

4.1 Lawrence Blum

Lawrence Blum is an important commentator and interpreter of Murdoch who has engaged
extensively with her work. He acknowledges that his greatest intellectual debt is indeed the one
that he owes to Murdoch. (Blum, 1994: vii).

16
 When discussing how moral formation in the Murdochian sense occurs, Blum
(2023) distinguishes between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ forces, arguing that Murdoch’s stated view
exaggerates the role of the former, and that she has failed to theorize passive forces. The active
dimension has to do with the aspects of the mental life that the agent has (potential) control
over, while the passive forces operate in the background of one’s mental life and are beyond
the purview of the agent’s direct control. The Freudian account of the intrapsychic drives
steering much of our behavior and thought processes is intended to show that there are such
limitations on self-conscious agency. And, according to Murdoch, it will be recalled, egoism is
natural, whereas unselfing and the ability to see reality ‘as it is’ is something that has to be
learned. Blum sees here something of a contradiction, since Murdoch’s stress on the psyche’s
egoistical energies would seem to imply that our capacity to focus attention and overcome these
tendencies is quite limited. (Blum, 2023) Hence, Blum argues, there is a form of passivity
involved here, and these egoistic energies could therefore be understood as “passive forces” in
his terms, to the extent that they are beyond the individual’s control, which he thinks Murdoch
implies they largely are. One might respond to this objection by stressing the difference between
the difficult and the impossible. Overcoming the illusions fostered by egoism requires
substantial and continual moral effort, but it is not unthinkable. Nonetheless, Blum’s point
deserves consideration. Murdoch does suggest that we are more or less victims of our own
egoism, implying a passive role in moral development, but at the same time she insists that it is
possible to overcome these egoistic tendencies, albeit with considerable difficulty. In doing so,
individuals may exercise some degree of agency, or at least recognize in themselves the
potential for such agency. One can interpret Murdoch's perspective in two ways. On one hand,
it may appear contradictory, as Blum suggests it is. On the other hand, it could be viewed as
shedding light on the complexity of the distinction between active and passive forces in moral
formation. Perhaps this distinction should not be seen as fixed, as we can become conscious of
unconscious forces and thus attain some degree of agency over them.
In addressing Murdoch’s perceived failure to adequately theorize passive forces
in moral formation, Blum adds the criticism that there is a ‘striking absence’ of attention to
‘distinctly social’ sources of negative moral formation. (2023: 36) What makes this absence
striking, the argument goes, is that Murdoch so often emphasizes that moral formation is going
on all the time, and that our fabric of ethical being is constantly under construction.8 When
Murdoch focuses on this issue, however, she discusses intrapsychic forces but not social ones.

8
See for example (IP: 37)

17
This is a problem according to Blum, since social forces may play a significant role, perhaps
even greater than that of intrapsychic factors. One example of the influence of social factors is
how our perception of others is influenced by shared representations of categories of persons
(2023: 37). These preconceived notions may hinder an agent from seeing the reality of
individuals in a ‘just and loving’ way. Stereotypes, prejudices and other forms of illusory
representations are common in any society, and attached to various kinds of both group identity
and personal attributes. These ‘figurations’9 are almost always evaluative in character. And the
influence of these, which is inevitable (although not insurmountable), will contribute to social
agents’ evaluative take on the world. It follows, then, that they should be understood as
contributing factors in the process of moral formation, since such representations potentially
affect whether or not we pay or can pay loving attention to, respect, have compassion for, or
even merely acknowledge individual members of those groups in their particularity has human
beings.
Moreover, Blum (2023: 37) argues, insofar as such figurations constitute
obstacles to loving attention towards individual realities, they influence our views on people
who are unknown to us to a far greater degree than intrapsychic forces do. He calls these
representations “social stereotypes”, and states that we often do not even recognize their
existence. This lack of awareness means that we cannot see their effects on our moral
judgments.10 To the extent that we are conscious of the existence of (our own uncritical
assumptions of) social stereotypes, it is not clear that we are able to overcome them. On Blum’s
account, social stereotypes of the kind mentioned are not the only socially produced barriers to
loving attention. Political ideologies are another example of a socially produced framework for
the interpretation of people and events in ways that can contribute to negative moral formation.
What are we to make of Blum’s criticism? To begin with, it seems certain that
forces and effects of the kind that Blum mentions do exist. It is difficult to imagine a culture
where there are no shared collective representations, and evaluative figurations accompanying
them, regarding both themselves as a group and others. Further, Blum’s point that these social
stereotypes are comparable to the fantasies and other forms of egoism that Murdoch discusses
is apt, and that they often stand in the way of loving attention in similar ways as egoism and
other fantasies seems reasonable. The question is whether or not he is correct in his claim that

9
As they are called by Diana Meyers. See Meyers 1994, in Blum 2023.
10
Some recent work on 'implicit bias' suggests empirical support for this. However, these studies are subject to
various interpretations and have faced substantial criticism, particularly for their lack of contextualization. For
instance, over 40 articles in a repository critique the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the method used to reveal
implicit bias (Jussum et al, 2023)

18
Murdoch ignores the existence of these ‘figurations’, or deems them morally irrelevant. And if
she does, what is her reasoning? The answer I propose is that Murdoch does acknowledge that
these kinds of socially produced barriers to loving attention exist. Evidence of this can be found
in the example of M and D, where she describes how M’s first impression of D is transformed
as she engages in self-criticism, reminding herself that she is ‘old fashioned and conventional’
and may be ‘prejudiced,’ ‘narrow minded’ and ‘snobbish’ (IP: 17). Here M is battling inherited
ideas about others (‘prejudice’), the parochial attitudes that guide her thinking (“narrow-
mindedness”) and the effects of class on her perceptions (“snobbishness”). Paying attention to
her own shortcomings and starting points is a first step toward seeing D as she is, and not as M
would categorize her. It is crucial for Murdoch that this kind of self-improvement, despite
obstacles and difficulties along the way, is possible.
Murdoch would agree with Blum’s observation that there exist all sorts of
evaluative images, categories and concepts that the individual inherits or acquires from his
surroundings. But while these might heavily influence this moral orientation, on my reading,
Murdoch would consider them fantasy-like, products of our egos, at the collective level.
Murdoch does not discuss the origin stories of specific fantasies in any detail, but it seems fair
to say that, in Murdoch’s philosophy, they should be understood broadly to include inclinations
that we do not always think of in terms of egoism. Arguably, M’s behavior toward D and her
initial impressions of her from which it emanated, are properly be understood as expressions of
the egocentric energies operating within M’s mind. Murdoch mentions explicitly that the
illusions of the self can take many forms, such as ‘obsession, prejudice, envy, anxiety,
ignorance, greed, neurosis and so on,’ and that these all are example of tendencies to wall off
reality (F&S, 1977/EM: 426). Even if their source is in collective representations, that collective
is itself made up of individual psyches that are inclined to fictionalize and create self-serving
narratives. From that perspective, Murdoch’s broad category of egoism and other ‘illusions of
the self’ can include social stereotypes, which defuses some of the force of the criticism. In this
respect, the issue could be understood at least partly a conceptual one, where egoism includes
collective forces. Still, it is the case that she does not explicitly delve into a detailed discussion
on the matter, nor how we should deal with these figurations, other than individually trying to
overcome them, as we should do with all fantasies.
At the same time, this is not the task Murdoch has set herself. Her concern is to
develop an ethics in which attention plays a central role as a moral concept. For the purposes
of articulating that concept, Murdoch’s focus on the individual is the most interesting level of
analysis since, on her view, a collective is ultimately nothing more than the shared practices of

19
individuals. “Man” as such does not exist; men do. Man is merely an abstraction.11 Despite
shared inheritance of various sorts of evaluative concepts and figurations, it is in the end up to
the individual to transcend these. Murdoch’s claim is that this can only be done by paying
proper attention to what is actually there, instead of being satisfied with unreflect categories
(or, in Murdoch’s terms, fantasy).

4.2 Martha Nussbaum

Nussbaum has both praised and criticized Murdoch’s views. They have in part similar ethical
agendas, both are inspired by ancient Greek thought, and they share a critical view of dominant
theoretical options in modern moral philosophy (Antonaccio, 2012: 254). Nussbaum has noted
that the three essays that make up The Sovereignty of Good ‘had a transformative impact’ on
the discipline of philosophy, in showing the importance of inner life in morality. She says of
the work that it constitutes ‘the most forceful articulation’ of Murdoch’s challenge to moral
philosophy (Nussbaum, 2012: 267). But Nussbaum has also written extensively about what she
thinks is missing in Murdoch’s philosophy 12. A central issue is the role attributed to individual
agency and social context, respectively. Nussbaum thinks that Murdoch’s philosophy does not
take sufficient account of social and political factors and how they influence the process of
moral formation. Much of her criticism overlaps with Blum’s. In Nussbaum view, Murdoch
seems almost entirely to lack interest in the political and social determinants of a moral
vision, and in the larger social criticism that ought, one feels, to be a major element in
the struggle against one’s own defective tendencies’ (Nussbaum 2012: 268)
In particular, Nussbaum criticizes Murdoch for neglecting how different kinds of prejudice,
such as racial or sexual prejudice, thwart perception and have significant moral
consequences.13 The lack of engagement with social prejudice is troublesome for Nussbaum

11
This idea is expressed eloquent by Hannah Arendt: “men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world”
(2018: 7)
12
Some of Nussbaum’s criticism, not an insignificant part, focuses more on Murdoch as a person than on her
written arguments. Nussbaum has noted that Murdoch wrote, 'For me, philosophical problems are the problems
of my own life' (Nussbaum, 2012: 266). Interpreting Murdoch’s philosophy as an extension of her personal
struggles with both sadomasochism and narcissism, Nussbaum writes, 'Murdoch's life, like her work, was shaped
by a moral struggle against the forces of destructiveness and sadism' (Nussbaum, 2012: 262). Forsberg (2013) is
one of the philosophers who has suggested that Nussbaum’s personal memories with Murdoch might be a
contributing factor to her not being an ideal reader of Murdoch, although there are other, more philosophical
factors at play.
13
Nussbaum identifies two exceptions where Murdoch explicitly discusses sexual and racial prejudices: gay men
and Jews. While her treatment of the lives of gay men is, according to Nussbaum, characterized by an
acknowledgment of the social and political obstacles to an apt vision, Murdoch’s treatment of Jews is somewhat

20
because she thinks that serious consideration of the causes and effects of poverty and prejudice
can lead to making a real difference in the world. She worries that Murdoch’s failure to reflect
on the “big questions” of social justice makes her moral philosophy ‘superficial’, and leads her
to reduce morality to the individual’s search and struggle for self-perfection. For Nussbaum,
this is ‘a hopelessly egoistic vision of life. (2012: 269) Here we see two conflicting notions of
justice. On Nussbaum’s account, justice is something that is to be attained on an aggregated
level. In contrast, for Murdoch, justice is a metaphysical concept. To learn about justice is to
learn about paying attention, that is, about seeing the reality of the world. According to
Murdoch, a just mode of vision is a necessary condition for seeing the world, and a thus
prerequisite for engaging in truly just action (SGC: 91). We will return to this central issue of
justice further below.
Nussbaum suggests that the possibility of overcoming the ego and clarifying one’s
moral vision is oversimplified and unrealistic in Murdoch’s philosophy. Now Murdoch does
stress that this is a long and painstaking process, especially when the starting point is an
unconscious negative judgment. But Nussbaum insists that there are modes of thinking,
especially those formed early in life, that are extremely resistant to change, since we are ‘deeply
invested through reliance and habit’ on them (2001: 233). And this is true, according to
Nussbaum, even if the pattern of thought is not emotionally laden. Evaluative and emotionally
laden thinking is all the more difficult to change, and we might even very well be ‘ignorant’ of
just which thoughts are most emotionally laden. Finally, if we can come to recognize and
identify them, they might be nonetheless very hard to overcome. “It would be naive to expect
that projections of these negative emotions onto other people will not take place - although we
may certainly hope to moderate their number and intensity (Nussbaum, 2001: 234).
Attempting to align every emotion with an ideal sets unreasonably high standards,
on Nussbaum’s view. Human ‘ambivalence and neediness’, along with the emotions that
accompany them, indicate the unlikelihood (if not impossibility) of realizing such an ideal
(Ibid). The suggestion here is that Murdoch’s views are based on an unrealistic hope that we
can overcome our egoistical tendencies and the emotions involved in them.
There are thus two main points of contention worth noting in the disagreement
between Murdoch and Nussbaum: i) the possibilities and limitations of individual agency, and
ii) the nature of justice. While these two issues are connected, they can be addressed separately.

problematic due to her ‘erotic longing for, and anxiety about, Jews”. (Nussbaum, 2012: 269) Here Nussbaum
engages in an almost purely ad hominem style of argumentation which is difficult to respond to.

21
Nussbaum’s depiction of the individual allows for less agency than Murdoch’s, for which
reason the individual is accorded less responsibility for his own moral formation than the
collective. In sum, Nussbaum does not seem to think that it is possible for the individual to
transcend the kind of egoistical forces and social projections described by Murdoch. Thus, it is
‘naïve’, she thinks, to believe it possible to hold them at bay. Murdoch’s response would be to
say something like, “yes, it is extremely difficult work that needs to be performed every day,
and we will all too often fail. But if we never even try because we have already decided that it’s
impossible, we doom ourselves to failure from the outset.”14
There’s a similar conflict in their respective views on action. Nussbaum takes
Murdoch’s supposed lack of focus on action to be an ‘acute problem’. In the end, she contends,
“it matters what one does” (2012: 269). As a criticism of Murdoch, this argument is at best
misguided. One of Murdoch’s main points is that the quality of consciousness is a starting point
for morality, that is, that is a precondition for right action. “[O]ur ability to act well “when the
time comes” depends partly, perhaps largely, upon the quality of our habitual objects of
attention.” (OGG: 56; see also 65, 67, 69, 91f; SGC 91; IP, 17-18, 22).
The disagreement concerning individual agency, what is and is not at least
potentially within the individual’s control, is related to their different conceptions of justice.
For Murdoch, justice is about paying proper attention. She defines attention as the ‘idea of a
just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality’ (IP: 33). Thus the way to act in a just
manner is to pay proper attention to other human beings and other possible experiences of the
world. In that sense, we can come to know justice by desiring it enough to pay attention to what
it requires of us, which is to say, by loving it. If we love it enough, it will be more important to
us than our private interests and personal desires. Directing oneself toward this higher good is
what Murdoch calls ‘unselfing’. Nussbaum does not think it is possible to overcome the ego’s
self-interested inclinations. And, if we cannot distance ourselves from others’ expectations,
prejudices and desires, and the sanctions and benefits involved in living up to them, then we
cannot be “moral” in the sense that Murdoch intends. In contrast, Nussbaum proposes that
instead of placing unrealistic demands on the individual, we should attend more to social forces,
and try to aim at achieving justice on a broader collective scale at an aggregated level. Since
justice is not within the individual’s reach qua individual, but only as a member of the

14
Murdoch repeatedly writes about the difficulty associated with transcending the self: “To silence and expel the
self, to contemplate and delineate nature with a clear eye, is not east and demands a moral discipline” (OGG:
63). “It is also, if we perform it properly, which we hardly ever do, painful.” (SBL 1959/EM: 216) However, if
we don't even believe that success is possible, as Nussbaum seems convinced, then we have no good reason to
try.

22
collective, the individual’s striving to achieve a just and loving gaze is irrelevant, in
Nussbaum’s view.

5. Conclusions and closing discussion

The purpose of my theses has been to analyze the relationship between individual moral agency
and collective forces of moral formation within Murdoch’s philosophy, and to do so within the
context of her own metaphysical and epistemological framework. In doing this, I started off by
sketching out Murdoch’s metaphysical views, and how metaphysical views guide our moral
orientation. That chapter (Ch. 2) provided the context for her moral philosophy as well as her
view of the self. The latter is of central importance for Murdoch’s moral philosophy and
accordingly the purpose of this thesis. In order to engage in Murdoch’s philosophy on her own
terms, the thesis brackets the question of the tenability of Murdoch’s metaphysics. Instead, it
addresses its consequences for her ethics, and the individual’s moral obligations laid out in it.
This was the theme of chapter 3, where I outlined central aspects of Murdoch’s moral
philosophy. First, I tried to show why moral vision is of such centrality for Murdoch. I then
discussed her ideas about attention and unselfing, and how these are to be employed and
practiced as ways of transcending the ego’s egoistical tendencies which veil reality for us. On
Murdoch’s account, removing this veil is necessary in order to develop a relationship with
reality that is characterized by a ‘just and loving gaze’ (IP: 33). In the subsequent chapter, I put
forward critiques of Murdoch formulated by Lawrence Blum and Martha Nussbaum, who
object to the absence of discussion of collective forces of moral formation in Murdoch’s moral
philosophy. I argue that despite relevant observations, their main arguments rely on
interpretations of Murdoch’s philosophy that I argue are misleading. One of these has to do
with their ideas of selfhood. Neither Blum nor Nussbaum can accept Murdoch’s position on the
powers of human agency. In some sense, this is a metaphysical disagreement about the nature
of the human being. If one sees people as fundamentally incapable of overcoming obstacles
such as inner compulsions or outer influences, then it makes sense to focus not on the individual
but on the obstacles. But, as I argue, Blum and Nussbaum interpret Murdoch’s analyses of
egoistic ‘fantasies’ too narrowly. My suggestion was that these may or may not have a collective
origin, but it’s not the specific source of illusion that is Murdoch’s main concern, but rather
how to overcome them. And this can only be achieved, Murdoch argues, through a process of

23
unselfing, which, although it can be promoted and practiced collectively, is in the last analysis
an individual endeavor.
This is the answer to the research question guiding the thesis: Murdoch has been
criticized for neglecting the effects of collective (social and political) forces in moral formation.
On close inspection of her own arguments, to what extent are these criticisms justified? I
conclude that, given Murdoch’s metaphysical premises (moral realism), the criticisms have
little force, since they i) rely on a too narrow idea of the self and individual agency, and ii)
interpret Murdoch’s view of fantasies in a deficient manner, by not allowing for the inclusion
of collective forces.
The central problem that Murdoch addresses is how we can be morally better, that
is to say, a problem that is at once both individual and collective. It is collective in that it pertains
to every human being, and it is individual since any collective, from a small group to the human
race, consists of individuals. One way of reading Murdoch’s view is that she thinks that the
solution to the collective problem is to acknowledge that we best solve it by noting that the
solution is an individual one. However, she does this by highlighting individual responsibility,
and not calling for political action, which Nussbaum (just to name one) would think to be more
appropriate. In view of the large scale and systemic problems we are facing today, calling for
individual action, and attributing individual responsibility is often met with skepticism, as the
critique against Murdoch indicates. It’s even regarded as irresponsible sometimes, and the
underlying ideas are that systemic and large-scale problems are for the politicians and other
people in power to solve. The philosopher and cultural critic Ivan Illich thought that the type of
system thinking that he saw arise around the 1970’s was starting to undermine people’s agency.
Illich's impression was that it is becoming much more difficult for people to take actual moral
responsibility, due to a decline in the belief in our agency. He argues that moral responsibility
requires that we believe that it is within our power to change the world to the better (Cayley
2005). I think that Murdoch would probably agree with Illich view. Let us presume that Illich
is right, where would that leave us? If Illich is correct, and it becomes increasingly difficult for
individuals to believe in their own agency, leading to a widespread decline in agency over time,
there may eventually be a point where most people believe they have no agency whatsoever.
Although I am not sure that Murdoch would agree on the plausibility of that idea, it is still
interesting to consider. Arguably, Murdoch would agree that any individual might turn up in a
position where he or cannot believe in his or her agency. Let us imagine someone suffering
from severe drug addiction and behaves like a slave under the substance. Or, an even more
popular addiction, that of our smartphones. Here one can say that it is not easily to overcome

24
these objects of our habitual attention once our minds get caught. And this arises the problem
of attention, that is by all account a more severe one that at the time of Murdoch.
Is there any hope for collective solution for this problem of attention? Perhaps the
collective could (and perhaps should) point out the direction, as it has often done before.
Religions and other wisdom traditions have pointed out what and where one should direct one’s
attention, and how one should act in order to behave morally. The problem is that any particular
perspective is always incomplete and insufficient, and a culture can (and often does) become
dogmatic and rigid, even if some guidance may be better than none. Contemporary culture in
the Global North is more autodidactic than ever before. One is supposed to create one’s own
life, and one’s own happiness. The dominant ideal is that the individual knows best what is best
for her. But this freedom might be more than most can handle, and there are clear connections
with the individual will, resembling the ‘current view’ that Murdoch opposed. Some have
attributed this individualistic tendency to a loss of confidence in guiding principles.15 Yet, if
there is no guidance or direction pointed out by the broader culture, and the dominant worldview
is that there is no hierarchy of value (since organizing things in hierarchies is believed to be
inevitably arbitrary and perhaps tools of power and privilege), the very idea of qualitative
differences is implicitly rejected.
To summarize, the critique of Murdoch's emphasis on the individual as the level
of analysis holds some utility by raising interesting questions about the relationship between
the individual and the collective. However, it fundamentally misses Murdoch's primary point.
When discussing morality and moral formation, Murdoch is not primarily interested in
providing a causal explanation for why a particular subject holds any given (moral) view of the
world. Instead, the most central aspect is understanding moral agency and moral responsibility.
Our belief (or disbelief) in our own agency greatly impacts our actions. The act of reflecting on
one's moral behavior, how one attends to the world, and believing or not believing in one's
agency and responsibility are all of great importance for shaping one's moral character.

15
This arguably stems much from the loss of grand narratives, accelerating in the 20th Century, which has left us
in a postmodern cul-de-sac according to John Vervaeke (2019). Vervaeke argues further that the 20th century was
the age of ‘pseudo religious ideologies’, which grew out of what he calls an ‘autodidactic void’.

25
Bibliography
A. Books and Papers by Iris Murdoch
A.1 Books
[SG] 1970, The Sovereignty of Good, New York: Routledge, 1970.

[MGM] 1992, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, New York: Penguin.

[EM] 1997, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature, Peter Conradi
(ed.), New York: Penguin Books.

A.2 Articles

[KV] 1956, “‘Knowing the Void’: Review of Simone Weil’s Notebooks”, The Spectator,
November 1956: 613–614; reprinted in [EM], pp. 157–160.

[VCM] 1956, “Vision and Choice in Morality”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume:
Dreams and Self-Knowledge, 30: 32–58; reprinted in [EM], pp. 76–98.

[M&E] 1957, “Metaphysics and Ethics”, in D. F. Pears (ed.), The Nature of Metaphysics,
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[SBL] 1959, “The Sublime and the Good”, in Chicago Review, 1959: 42–55; reprinted in [EM],
pp. 205–220.

[AD] 1961, “Against Dryness”, in Encounter, 1961; reprinted in [EM], pp. 287–295.

[IP] 1964 [1970/1997], “The Idea of Perfection”, 1962 Ballard Matthews Lecture in the
University College of North Wales, first published 1964, The Yale Review, 53(3): 342–380.
Collected in [SG], pp. 1–45; reprinted in [EM], pp. 299–336.

[DPR] 1966, “The Darkness of Practical Reason: Review of Stuart Hampshire’s Freedom of
the Individual”, Encounter, July 1966: 46–50; reprinted in [EM], pp. 193–202.

[SGC] 1967 [1970/1997], “The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts”, Leslie Stephen
Lecture, 14 November 1967, first published as a pamphlet by Cambridge University Press,
1967. Collected in [SG], pp. 77–104; reprinted in [EM], 363–385.

[OGG] 1969 [1970/1997], “On ‘God’ and ‘Good”, first published in 1969, The Anatomy of
Knowledge; Papers Presented to the Study Group on Foundations of Cultural Unity, Bowdoin
College, 1965 and 1966, Marjorie Grene (ed.), Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
Press. Collected in [SG], pp. 46–76; reprinted in [EM], pp. 337–362.

[SW] 1972, “Salvation by Words”, first delivered to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
at its annual ceremonial, 17 May 1972; reprinted in [EM], pp. 235–242.

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[F&S] 1977, “The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists, Oxford: Clarendon Press;
reprinted in [EM], pp. 386–463.

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Fromm, E. (1976). To Have or to Be? Harper & Row.

Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault.
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Hadot, P. & Chase, M. (2004). What is ancient philosophy? Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of
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Hopwood, M. (2018). “‘The Extremely Difficult Realization That Something Other Than
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(ed.) Iris Murdoch and the Moral Imagination (Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Co.),
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Vervaeke, J. (2019), Ep. 25 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - The Clash, Available at
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