Abstract

Murdoch’s metaphysics attends to different forms of thought and practice, showing connections and differences. She recognises the sheer refractoriness of aspects of experience while tracing intimations of order and aspirations to goodness and moral perfection. In her review of politics and morality in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals she separates and relates the two spheres. She perceives how in personal morality individuals can develop perfectionist goals, but in doing so they rely upon the security that is provided by political order. Politics, for Murdoch, in the wake of the collapse of Marxist regimes in Eastern Europe, is not to be utopian, but rather is to avoid repression and injustice and secure order and justice to safeguard individuals, who, in their personal lives can pursue perfection.