The Authority of Love. Why Iris Murdoch Matters (original) (raw)

2015

Abstract

According to Iris Murdoch, the chief experience in morality is the recognition of others, and this is the experience of love. I would like to share some considerations about Murdoch’s view of love, which I find both intriguing and problematic. Murdoch claims that love is an independent source of moral authority, distinct from the authority of reason. It is independent because it can be attained through moral experiences that are not certified by reason and are not achieved by rational deliberation. This view of love calls into question a cluster of concepts, such as rational agency, activity, and rational control, which figure prominently in the Kantian characterization of “the moral experience”, and especially in the characterization of the struggle that virtue seems to require. Part of her polemic against Kantian rationalism is meant to retrieve metaphysics as a guide to morals, arguing that to reclaim metaphysical concepts is a necessary stept to account for the experience of moral transformation. Her critique of the rationalist model brings to the fore a crucial issue, which concerns the legitimate source of moral authority. Some of her most popular arguments are based on an oversimplified view of the impact of reason in moral life, and perhaps they owe their fortune to this oversimplification. I will argue that such arguments miss their target, but I hope to show that some less discussed strands of Murdoch’s work identify a distinct model of moral agency that represents a genuine alternative to any theory of practical reason.

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