Murdoch’s negative view of prevailing moral discourse may thus be summed up in four points:
1. The Utilitarian definition of moral goodness is inadequate, even as qualified by J.S. Mill or by Richard Hare (Antonaccio 1996, 84-95), because of lack of substance in that conception of the Good. This inadequacy was only partly remedied by G.E. Moore’s indefinability condition.
2. Murdoch alleged that a natural consequence of ‘Oxford philosophers’ not recognising the Good as real was an undue emphasis on ‘ordinary language’ analysis or on ‘language games’ played within the court rules of a Kantian morally autonomous will or freedom of choice.
3. She considered Gilbert Ryle’s (1949} behaviourist picture of the mind unreal and unhelpful in understanding or advancing moral life.
4. ‘Oxford philosophy’ had failed to develop a defensible theory of moral motivation; she asked: if the moral quality of an action depended on choice, should not what prepares a person to make that choice be important? (1970, 53). For Murdoch it was the quality of consciousness (Vision) that does and should determine the choice. A discriminating Vision of the Good is achieved by attending.
From Joseph Malikail, “Iris Murdoch on the Good, God and Religion”, Minerva, Vol 4 (online).