person1919–1999

Iris Murdoch

Disciplines:

Summary

Irish-British philosopher and novelist — author of Under the Net, The Sea the Sea (Booker Prize), and The Sovereignty of Good — who combined philosophy (Platonic ethics, moral psychology) and fiction in a unique way — died of Alzheimer's disease.

Core Contribution

Creates the moral psychology of attention — Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good argues that morality begins not with decision but with attention: with the quality of perception we bring to other people; this unsentimental Platonism (that the good is the real) is the most distinctive philosophical ethics produced by a 20th century British thinker.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Her Alzheimer's disease was documented by her husband John Bayley in his memoir Iris, and filmed in the movie Iris (2001) with Judi Dench — the philosopher of moral attention and Platonic vision losing her memory and language is the most heartbreaking narrative arc in 20th century British intellectual biography
Had an affair with Elias Canetti during her marriage to John Bayley — kept a private diary, maintained the affair for years while being publicly intellectual and domestically devoted; the gap between the philosopher of attention to others and her private life is a biographical complexity she acknowledged in her fiction but rarely in interviews

Notable Works & Achievements

Under the Net

The Bell

The Black Prince

The Sea, The Sea

The Sovereignty of Good

The Fire and the Sun

Historical Influences

Plato Simone Weil Ludwig Wittgenstein

Intellectual Lineage

Dublin Badminton School, Bristol Oxford Cambridge

Contemporaries & Peers

Elizabeth Anscombe Philippa Foot Mary Midgley

Minds Influenced

British moral philosophy

Intellectual Posterity

The Sovereignty of Good Moral attention theory Booker Prize 25 novels

Discussing

Iris Murdoch

Ask anything about Iris Murdoch — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

person1919–1999

Iris Murdoch

Disciplines:

Summary

Core Contribution

Key Spikes & Highlights

Her Alzheimer's disease was documented by her husband John Bayley in his memoir Iris, and filmed in the movie Iris (2001) with Judi Dench — the philosopher of moral attention and Platonic vision losing her memory and language is the most heartbreaking narrative arc in 20th century British intellectual biography
Had an affair with Elias Canetti during her marriage to John Bayley — kept a private diary, maintained the affair for years while being publicly intellectual and domestically devoted; the gap between the philosopher of attention to others and her private life is a biographical complexity she acknowledged in her fiction but rarely in interviews