In her philosophy, she's going to have to distinguish the different kinds of love and say, well, it's that real love? There are so many examples of people who are creating art who are actually wrapped up in fantasies. And really the work which they're producing is not from love in the sense of the kind of love which breaks through the selfish ego. But it's just another kind of fantasy. It's another way of trying to control other people and not recognize their existence. So i don't think she gives us any easy answer for these cana cases. She might be wrong about what to say about te particular cases, but that seems to me a good question to askThese
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999). In her lifetime she was most celebrated for her novels such as The Bell and The Black Prince, but these are now sharing the spotlight with her philosophy. Responding to the horrors of the Second World War, she argued that morality was not subjective or a matter of taste, as many of her contemporaries held, but was objective, and good was a fact we could recognize. To tell good from bad, though, we would need to see the world as it really is, not as we want to see it, and her novels are full of characters who are not yet enlightened enough to do that.
With
Anil Gomes
Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Oxford
Anne Rowe
Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Iris Murdoch Archive Project at Kingston University
And
Miles Leeson
Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre and Reader in English Literature at the University of Chichester
Producer: Simon Tillotson