About Iris

"I’m profoundly Irish and I’ve been conscious of this all my life"

Iris Murdoch was born on Blessington Street, Dublin, in 1919, an inner city street just a stone’s throw from the fictional home of Joyce’s Leopold Bloom. Her parents moved to London when Iris was still a baby, but the family often holidayed by sea in Dún Laoghaire, just outside the capital. Murdoch tended to mythologise the land of her birth – for her, Ireland was ‘a land of spells’. She prided herself on imbibing a bit of an Irish brogue  – ‘I may have misleading Oxford overtones – but the vowels are Irish’. She was defensive with those who charged that she was not ‘really’ Irish, referring to herself as ‘Irish’ to the end of her life, in 1999.[1]

The Irish literary canon has not completely neglected Murdoch as an Irish writer - she was, after all, the first ever Irish writer to receive the Booker Prize. Still, though she wrote 26 novels and a book of poetry, her name does not spring easily to mind when recounting women Irish writers.

Even less well-known is her status as one of the most profound moral philosophers of the 20^th Century. Together with Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley and Philippa Foot, Murdoch is one of a ‘Quartet’ of remarkable women philosophers who were undergraduates at Oxford together from 1938, when most of their male contemporaries were away at war. Together, through hundreds of books and papers, they came to articulate a new moral philosophy that was responsive to the horrors, the depravity and disorder, of WW2.

[1] See Anne Rowe, forthcoming, ‘Writing the Landscape: The Island of Spells and the Sacred City’

"Art and morality are ... one.  The essence of both of them is love.  Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality."

Iris Murdoch, The Sublime and the Good

Murdoch’s philosophy, like other members of the Quartet, begins from the observation that we are animals living together in social settings that have been historically shaped. We not disembodied egos or 'selves' and we are not isolated or wholly autonomous. Relationships of love, dependence, hate, friendship and family are central to our way of life. Though this seems straightforward, in mid-century philosophy it was a radical idea, and in some circles, it remains so. Think, for example, of the idea that all we really are is our brains, or that the most important thing is taking care of number one.

Murdoch is interested in the qualities that we need to live well together – things like honesty, courage and kindness. Such virtues are often regarded as Christian but they are also found in ancient philosophy – in Plato and Aristotle. Murdoch also thinks that a good person will be able to see reality more clearly. They will look carefully, justly and lovingly at people they encounter in their lives and will not let prejudice or fantasy cloud their vision.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a novelist, Murdoch thinks that great Art can help us see each other more clearly. A great artist will picture humans and their relations realistically and lovingly. By showing us what kinds of patterns that human life can takes, the artist can help us see what is important in life - and what is unimportant.

Murdoch recognises that we can be selfish – she talks of the ‘fat relentless ego’ inside all of us. As human animals, we have a tendency to fantasize. She contrasts fantasy and imagination. While fantasy is ego-driven, we can use our imagination to help to see reality more clearly. Murdoch thinks that using the imagination in this way can lead to what she calls ‘unselfing’, the unseating of those fantasizing parts of ourselves  - our prejudices and selfish desires and drives. For Murdoch, this is a task that is endless and infinitely perfectible.

• Look at a timeline of Murdoch’s life and works

"Philosophy in world of women ...  I reflected, talking with Mary, Pip and Elizabeth, how much I love them"

Murdoch’s journal: 12 June 1948

Iris Murdoch was one of a remarkable Quartet of women philosophers, all enjoying their centenary year. Iris met Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley at Oxford University during WWII. The four became friends and flourished philosophically while many of the male philosophers were away, conscripted into the intelligence services and the army. In the years immediately following the war the four women met regularly at Philippa Foot’s house in north Oxford to set out a detailed and comprehensive philosophical response to the dominant conception of human nature, perception, action and ethics in Modern Western philosophy. Though previously unrecognised as such they are a unique case of an all-female philosophical school.

Clare and Rachael are writing a book on the Quartet.

• Learn more about the Quartet of women philosophers that include Murdoch
• Listen to a radio programme about the story of the Quartet