Iris Murdoch's Defense Of Moral Realism

Iris Murdoch(1919-1999)is best known as a post-war British novelist.Her prolific literary career,starting from Under the Net,receives broad critical attention.Her literary works present the unsettled inner obsession and struggle that permeate people's mind in a theory-bound demythologized world.Murdoch tries to put forth her moral realistic contemplations by re-presenting the spiritual and worldly challenges that ordinary people face during the process of achieving independence,freedom and love.Although the relationship between Murdoch's philosophy and literary writing is a topic that has been much looked into by critics,it has not received enough attention from the perspective of moral realism.Some scholars take Murdoch's moral realism for granted and analyze her abstract philosophical themes such as humanity,love,goodness or freedom,etc.as manifested in her writing.Others often solely pay attention to Murdoch's moral philosophy at the expense of her literary achievements.This thesis,combining Murdoch's moral philosophy and her creative writing,is to use Moore's notion of moral realism to help achieve a better understanding of Murdoch's moral realistic thinking over modern people's ordinary moral life.This thesis will examine Murdoch's defense of moral realism reflected in three of her novels Under the Net(1954),The Black Prince(1973),and The Sea,the Sea(1978)from three perspectives,namely,Murdoch's criticism of existentialism,psychoanalysis and scientism(rationalism and empiricism).It consists of five chapters.Chapter One begins with an introduction to Iris Murdoch and her works,followed by a literature review of overseas and domestic studies on Murdoch.It also introduces Murdoch's adoption and development of Moore's notions of moral realism.Chapter Two concentrates on Murdoch's first novel Under the Net,pointing out that in this novel Murdoch rejects the continentally influential existentialistic views about the solitary individuals and their freedom.She emphasizes that individual's attention and reflection upon the causal world is an important determinant of freedom.Chapter Three takes The Black Prince as an example to illustrate Murdoch's rejection ofpsychoanalytic attempts to reductively label people.The evaluation activity should be a dynamic process of appreciating the instrumental value and intrinsic value in moral consciousness and conducts.Chapter Four probes into The Sea,the Sea to analyze Murdoch's reassessment of the ideological influences of scientific thinking,technology and the relevant utilitarian rationalism and empiricism.What Murdoch advocates is to reestablish the moral confidence in the practical achievement of moral progress toward the indefinable Good.Chapter Five concludes that Murdoch shows great sympathy for modern people who are bombarded endlessly by various prevalent skeptical ideologies.Through her novels,she gives people practical suggestions to regain confidence in their moral pursuits against those narcissistic theoretical attempts to unify.She reiterates the importance of moral realism which holds morality(the valuable humane faculty)as practical and spiritual,inward as well as outward.