The Sovereignty of Good

Murdoch's argument in this paper progresses through three stages. She first describes what she takes to be the accepted philosophical view of man as a moral agent, referring mainly to Stuart Hampshire's Disposition and Memory and Thought and Action. She concludes that the contemporary paradigm of "man" in both analytic and continental philosophy (which she characterizes as Kantian and surrealistic existentialism respectively) is "behaviourist, existentialist, and utilitarian". The behaviourism relates to this view's "connection of the meaning and being of action with the publicly observable", existentialism to its "elimination of the substantial self and its emphasis on the solitary omnipotent will", and utilitarianism to its "assumption that morality is and can only be concerned with public acts".[2]^: 8–9

After remarking that she objects to this characterization on empirical, philosophical and moral grounds, she goes on to examine the philosophical basis for the dominant view. She locates the source of its fundamental claim that "mental concepts must be analyzed genetically and so the inner must be thought of a parasitic upon the outer", in an argument within the British empiricist tradition about the ontological status of private sense-data.[2]^: 9–10 She credits Wittgenstein with having effectively put an end to the question by showing that "no sense can be attached to the idea of an 'inner object' ", but notes that he did not draw any "moral or psychological" conclusions based on this observation. Others, however, including Hampshire, Ryle, Hare, and Ayer, have illegitimately extended Wittgenstein's argument into these areas.[2]^: 12

Murdoch then introduces, as an example of moral activity that has no outward manifestation, the changing attitude of a mother (M) toward her daughter-in-law (D). M at first dislikes D, but gives no outward hint of this and "behaves beautifully" toward her. Over the course of time, however, "by giving careful and just attention" to D, M comes to see her as "not vulgar but refreshingly simple, not undignified but spontaneous .... and so on".[2]^: 17 Murdoch claims that while reflecting on D in this way, M has been engaging in moral activity, but the problem is that this cannot be said within the accepted paradigm.[2]^: 19

In the second stage of the argument Murdoch rejects the underlying conception of reality that excludes everything that is not publicly observable, and proposes a different one.[8]^: 41 She argues that philosophy's attachment to observability as a criterion of reality stems from its adoption of an "uncriticized conception of science".[2] ^: 24 The result is that philosophy is incapable of accounting for the living person who changes inwardly over time. Morality does not fit into the world describable by science, so philosophy needs to liberate itself from the limits of science. Murdoch argues that "the central concept of morality is 'the individual' thought of as knowable by love", and connects this concept with the idea of perfection since "morality is connected with change and progress" toward "an ideal limit".^: 28–29

In the third stage Murdoch applies her conception of morality to the idea of freedom. Both analytic and continental existentialist moral philosophy located individual freedom in the moment of choice, when a person decides to act in the world. According to Murdoch's view of morality as loving attention to reality, as displayed by M toward D, freedom comes from increasing knowledge of reality, which allows the individual to see clearly. With complete clarity of vision, one would not be distracted by one's own prejudices and biases and would be able to act simply in accord with reality instead of choosing more or less blindly. She notes that the "notion of will as obedience to reality, an obedience which ideally teaches a position where there is no choice" is one which is familiar to artists, and claims that her conception of moral psychology is uniquely able to accommodate both art and morals as compatible activities.[2]^: 41

Murdoch begins by stating the need for a moral philosophy that, among other requirements, takes seriously the views of Freud and Marx, and gives its central place to "the concept of love".[2]^: 45 She characterizes the commonly accepted analytic and existential philosophical views of moral psychology as "unambitious and optimistic" compared to Christian theology with its representation of "goodness as almost impossibly difficult, and sin as almost insuperable and certainly a universal condition".[2]^: 49 She notes that philosophers have tried to ignore or deny Freud's pessimistic, but in her view realistic, account of "the psyche as an egocentric system of quasi-mechanical energy" with a "deep tissue of ambivalent motive" in which "fantasy is a stronger force than reason".[2]^: 50 She sees the "fat relentless ego" as the secular analogue of original sin, and insists that moral philosophy's task should be "the discussion of this ego and of the techniques (if any) for its defeat".[2]^: 51

Murdoch suggests the religious practice of prayer as an example of a technique for turning one's attention away from one's own egocentric desires and concerns, and goes on to explore its possible adaptation to a secular world. She defines prayer as "an attention to God which is a form of love", and God as "a single perfect non-representable and necessarily real object of attention".[2]^: 54 She examines each of these attributes (in the following order: object of attention, unitary, transcendent, perfect, necessary, and real) with the aim of comprehending a single non-religious concept of Good to which they could all be attributed. She notes that for a religious person sincere attention to God can give rise to grace, a form of energy that inspires the person to be virtuous. She connects this with the mundane human experiences of falling in love and of focussing attention on "things which are valuable".[2]^: 55 She uses the apparent interdependence of the virtues, which have to be described in terms of each other, to show a form of unity of good. Transcendence is analyzed in terms of realism, in the sense of the attention being directed away from one's egocentric fantasies, and with reference to the experience of beauty. Perfection is seen as necessarily implied by our sense that there are degrees of goodness, so that we can always conceive of better, though indefinable, goodness beyond what we can experience for ourselves.[8]^: 63 Finally, the attributes of necessity and reality are again connected with realism, in the sense of "the ability to see things as they are".[8]^: 66 In this case the activity of the good artist who is able to "silence and dispel self, to contemplate and delineate nature with a clear eye" is seen as paradigmatic.[2]^: 63

Having set up the concept of Good as analogous to God, Murdoch returns to her earlier question whether there can be a secular substitute for prayer. She says that Good in itself is not visible but agrees with Plato's characterization of the Good (similarly to the Sun in the Allegory of the Cave) as the source of light by which reality can be seen. Contemplation of the Good directly may not be possible but "Good is the focus of attention when an intent to be virtuous co-exists... with some unclarity of vision".[2]^: 68

Murdoch begins by placing her argument within the philosophical tradition of "image-play", in which metaphorical concepts such as vision and movement are used in an attempt to answer philosophical questions.[2]^: 75 In this paper the question is how human beings can become morally better, given what is known about human nature. Underlying her arguments are the assumptions that humans are "naturally selfish", and that there is "no external point" to human life.[2]^: 76 She notes that, for believers, prayer can help in the attainment of a more virtuous character and can provide energy for good action. She sees this as supporting the claim that virtue is encouraged by "anything that alters consciousness in the direction of unselfishness, objectivity and realism".[2]^: 82

Murdoch describes a "progressive education in the virtues" which involves engaging in practices that turn our attention away from ourselves toward valuable objects in the real world.[8]^: 80 Citing Plato's Phaedrus, she identifies the experience of beauty as the most accessible and the easiest to understand. She attributes the "unselfing" power of beauty both to nature and to art. Also following Plato, she locates the next and more difficult practice in intellectual disciplines. She uses the example of learning a foreign language as the occasion to practice virtues such as honesty and humility while increasing one's knowledge of "an authoritative structure which commands my respect".[2]^: 87 She says that the same quality of outward objective attention to the particular is needed for developing and practicing virtues in ordinary human relations.

Murdoch argues that Plato's concept of the Good applies to and unifies all these ways of learning and practicing the virtues. In her discussion of the concept, she refers to three sections from Plato's Republic: the Analogy of the Sun, the Analogy of the Divided Line, and the Allegory of the Cave. The concept of Good, Murdoch says, involves perfection, hierarchy, and transcendence, and is both unifying and indefinable. She suggests that "a sort of contemplation of the Good" in the sense of "a turning away from the particular" is possible and "may be the thing that helps most when difficulties seem insoluble".[2]^: 99 However, this practice is difficult and carries with it the danger that the object of attention might revert to the self.