Abstract

One recent advance in contemporary moral philosophy is Iris Murdoch' s unique understanding of the concept of the moral self. Murdoch attempts to remedy the account of the moral self she associates with traditional ethics, which mainly focuses on the will. Drawing from the world of art appreciation, Murdoch holds aesthetic perception to be the necessary component of moral regard for others. She claims that a moral person becomes suitably other-directed through the practice of aesthetic perception through ego "unselfing." In contrast to the Aristotelian emphasis upon the rewards of virtue, Murdoch posits the self-interested “ego” as the chief obstacle to correctly seeing others and, following from this, not rightly exercising virtue towards them, for the ego cannot love. Hence, Murdoch's concept of virtue is a rigorous one, since it advocates the perfection of one's moral vision as an end-in-itself, thus presenting a concept of virtue which comes much closer to the holiness of the saint than to the excellence of a hero. However, the critical question remains: Can an aesthetic construal of the goodness in others become a sufficient basis for knowledge claims about virtue? To answer this question, the article analyzes Murdoch's process of obtaining aesthetic "seeing" through development of a “virtuous consciousness,” a process of empathic experiencing, that provides the only true path of practicing virtue towards others.