MURDOCH'S THE IDEA OF PERFECTION
AND ITS IMPERFECTIONS |
| JUD EVANS |
INTRODUCTION
'Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited
Men who think they can digest without eating!
[1] (Murdoch. 1988. p. 22)
Writing self-confessedly as one of Murdoch's
ignorant conceited men unsympathetic to the
creative culinary arts of Platonic fare,
yet ever hungry for any tasty crumb of ambrosial
wisdom, which falls from her tabletop, ‘The Idea of Perfection’ was a gourmet meal. As a piece of writing
Murdoch's masterly anti-analytic and professedly
anti-existentialist polemic is a philosophical
piece de resistance – a dialectical dish consummately prepared
and perfectly served as a chef-d'oeuvre which I found to be exquisitely agreeable
and reassuringly digestible.

I have been a life-long devoted reader of
all of Murdoch's more popular novels and
have long admired her literary plot lines
in which she sequestrates sundry abstracta
from the multitude of reifications that pepper
her Platonic universe and skilfully insinuates
them into the lives of the extended cast
of loving, then unloving, (then sometimes
loving again) literary agonists that populate
her pages.
There is a comforting predictability in a
typical Murdochean storyline, where goodness
(usually) satisfyingly triumphs over moral
insensibility. The element of illuminating
didacticism in her fictional writing is always
richly informed by her philosophical wisdom.
I find it interesting and instructive that
she saw fit to introduce the fictional mother
- daughter-in-law relationship by way of
exemplifying and making clear a philosophical
point. It would be a lot to expect of her
that she had taken care to avoid a certain
multilateral commingling of her fictional
and philosophical oeuvre.
FACING UP TO THE FORMS
Having made my sincere obeisances, a strict
ontological commitment now forces me to state
my philosophical position rather than my
literary appetites, and to put my more relaxed
writer-reader relationship with Murdoch on
hold. In interpreting her novels I have suspended
my disbelief for years. But now, having thanked
my benefactress for past delights, I turn
to her philosophical rather than fictional
genre. Thus (almost reluctantly) I must first
salute her as a noble opponent, and then,
suppressing my feelings of affection - reach
for my pen.
It is vital to state exactly what Murdoch
meant by 'perfection?' She defined it as:
'Absolute good and necessary existence.'
[2] (Murdoch 1970. p. 61)
Any account of Murdoch which lacked an account
of her psychological Grundbegriffe, the platonic
forms which underlie the basic habituated
concepts of her impossible worlds would be
worthless.
If (in some possible world) I was to believe
in the abstraction she calls ‘perfection,’
(which I do not) the notion would only make
sense to me as being relative or applicable
to material objects, including neurologically
equipped human beings. For me the abstract
noun ‘perfection’ or the adjective ‘perfect’
are only meaningful when construed as referring
to the state of some object that is fully
realized as a current entiatic actuality
as opposed to a reified potentiality.
If I were ever to use such a term (which
I would not) then it would have to be in
conjunction with conatus, the striving or
‘natural tendency inherent in a body to develop
itself,’ leading to an eventual, if only
temporary: ‘perfected material presence.’
Further defining my attitude, as compared
to Murdoch’s, requires a more pragmatic interpretation
of the human existential process we call
'our life.' For me ALL objects
(including all humans) are physically ‘perfect.’
Every entity concretely and momentarily represents
the current, most suitable catenulate outcome
appropriate to their individual conative
telos possible.
Onto-deterministically, if they could have
evolved otherwise – they would have done.
The physical determinates of the material
existential imperative (the 'physical imperia'
or ‘laws of nature’) countenance and authenticate
the entiatic viability of all that can be
found in the universe. Man anthropocentrically
proposes (and categorially attributes) but
the material imperium disposes (and cosmically
allocates.) Therefore the very notion of
'perfection' is a redundancy - for all objects
are 'perfect' and cannot be otherwise in
‘the “eyes” of nature.’. As T. S. Eliot put
it in ‘Burnt Norton,’
What might have been is an abstraction Remaining
a perpetual possibility Only in a world of
speculation. What might have been and what
has been Point to one end, which is always
present. [3] (Eliot. 1975. p. 171)
Murdoch’s mother character is therefore always
in a state of natural ‘onticity,’ the correct
rendering of the meaning and reality of ‘perfection.’
In spite of Murdoch’s efforts to pursue her
relativised reification ‘perfection’ and
apply it, or appraise it against the objects
or circumstances of her world, it remains
forever unattainable – for it is already
attained. The purposeful intention tag with
which Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and others
before her characterised the alchemistical
'will' with which she, as Plato’s sorcerer’s
apprentice, seeks to transmute the ‘mother
character’s’ spiritual dross towards her
daughter-in-law into a glowing bonhomie of
perfected, aureate goodness is simply the
covert machinations of her thaumaturgical
ego – a metaphysical maven from which there
is no escape, in spite of what Simone Weil
and the Buddhists claim to the contrary.
Entities cannot be judged to exist in an
anthropocentrically deficient condition of
reliqua desideratur - where (homocentrically)
certain properties are considered imperfect,
inadequate or ‘missing’. ‘Nature’ never slips
up. The existential process is one of: ‘Vollendung
zu Vollendung, ' nicht ' Unvollkommenheit
zu Vollendung.’
If Murdoch’s mother figure despises her daughter-in
law, there are very good reasons for doing
so, for the mother is psycho-predispositionally
as much an egoistical child of nature as
the rest of us. Deterministically and ontologically
speaking the old saying: ‘Nothing’s Perfect,’
might be suitable as a natural language term
to describe and come to terms with the disappointing
behaviour of others, but ontologically speaking
and as far as nature is concerned –
‘Everything’s Perfect!’
TAKING ON ‘TO MAE ON.’
As is customary with ontological claims,
I abide by the long-held convention that
it is the responsibility of the claimant
to prove the existence of any ontological
objects or assertions they make. The querulous
eliminativist sceptic has no obligation to
prove their non-existence. The text that
Murdoch parlays into public discourse is
a denotative agenda that provides an assumptive
paradigm of terminological discourse.
My initial reaction when confronted with
such gerundial givens, is to read through
the textual proof provided and distinguish
any credible evidence for their onticity.
Though, with the great Eleatic thinker, I
hold that only ‘to on haei on’ - or material
(beings as such) exist, unlike Parmenides,
who believed that ‘to mae on’ '(that which
is not') cannot be spoken of, the fact that
the author may provide no evidence for the
existence of her mental accessories does
not mean that her mode of conceptually instantiating
fictions cannot be discussed.
To discuss ‘to mae on’ with someone who believes
that ‘that which does not exist’ exists,
is actually to explore the neurological processes
of such a person’s brain. If only from a
perspective of the Philosophy of Mind, such
an exploration is valuable and interesting,
and surely no ‘mind’ is more interesting
to enquire into than Iris Murdoch’s?
Having read through the book in question
hermeneutically I find that she offers no
new evidence for the existence of the abstract
Platonic objects to which she lays claim.
As applied directly to the essay question,
in the sense of what she hoped to achieve
and whether she was successful – my answer
is: 'Not for me personally.'
Perhaps the most charitable thing that can
be said of Murdoch in this connection is
that she can find nothing to account for
her reificational behaviour other than an
intuitive need to concretise her conceptions?
Accordingly we must accept that for her they
simply exist in such a manner as could not
be otherwise, as an article of faith for
which she finds her evidence in her intellectual
and emotional ability to viscerally recognise
'good' when she comes across it.
But surely we are entitled to ask if it is
really the 'good' that we recognise when
we encounter it - or is it simply the good
person or persons doing good deeds that we
come upon? Of course others have the right
to deny the existence of her abstracta perfecta
and good, for as David Hume famously remarked:
'Whatever we can conceive as existent, we
can also conceive as non-existent. There
is no being, therefore, whose non-existence
implies a contradiction.' [4] (Hume. 1988.
Part IX.
If the existence of abstract forms depends
on God, then it depends upon first proving
that God exists. Her renunciation of the
traditional God renders such a theological
proof unnecessary:
'There is in my view, no God in the traditional
sense of that term; and the traditional sense
is perhaps the only sense. Equally the various
metaphysical substitutes for God – Reason,
Science, History – are false deities.’ [5]
(Murdoch. 1970. p. 79.)
So from whence comes her reliance upon the
conceptual entification separated from embodiment
that comprises the entablature of her ethical
system? It is a question she asks us to address
in what she terms her ‘genetic analysis of
mental concepts.’ The answer seems to me
obvious, both for her and all of us – our
antecedal experiential biography.
Whilst speaking of ‘perfection,’ she attempts
to justify the employment and reification
of such fictions in terms of their usefulness,
in that the comparative form of an adjective
(including the superlative: ‘perfection’)
in some way guarantees their promotion from
abstractive to ontic status: :
'Well, is it important to measure and compare
things and know just how good they are? In
any field which interests or concerns us
I think we would say yes.’ [6] (Murdoch.
1970. p. 61.)
For me we have now arrived at the paradoxical
pivot upon which Murdoch’s reificational
door swings.
With all the strength of mankind’s primitive
instincts her self-confessed psychological
egoist anima thrusts one way, while her ethical
egoist self struggles to push in the opposite
‘more moral’ direction. The result? Moral
resolution is blocked by the stubborn equilibria
of the appositive precepts. It is a tension
that can only be resolved by self-deception
and the deception of others.
I refer to the inwardly hostile but extrinsically
congenial behavioural pretence of the disdaining
mother towards her daughter-in-law, before
its eventual acknowledgement by the discomfited
ego which prompts her to ‘will a change.’
I will now move on to deal with what Murdoch
hoped to achieve in her book in general and
with the mother and daughter–in-law episode
of the essay in particular.
EGOISM OUT OF THE CLOSET
Writing ‘The Idea of Perfection’ in 1964
as a recovering existentialist, Murdoch shrinks
back from the excesses of the self and the
narcissistic indulgence which is so characteristic
of a philosophy of immoderate individualism.
This apparently altruistically motivated
decision to initiate a change of heart or
moral reappraisal of the other is no more
than an egoistical stress-removing therapy
for her own psychic benefit ultimately based
upon her desire to rid herself of an attitude
considered by society to be morally hypocritical.
Murdoch writes interestingly of the decision-making
process in which a our choices sometime seem
to be made independent of the chooser, little
realising that the decision-making process
only appears mysterious because it is really
the sovereign ego exercising its authority
often in the guise of a putative altruism.
The mother’s selfish deliberations are a
pseudo-moral act in spite of the lack of
outward behaviour, thus it follows that her
later attitude towards her son’s wife is
in no way ethically preferable for either
party. There is nothing new in it for the
younger woman at all. In keeping with the
psychological egoist she is Murdoch remarks:
'The psyche is a historically determined
individual restlessly looking after itself...
reluctant to face unpleasant realities...
designed to protect the psyche from pain.
Even its loving is more often as not an assertion
of self.’ [7] (Murdoch. 1970. p. 78.)
Plainly we can see that only the agential
mother psychologically and emotionally benefits.
Psychologically Murdoch certainly seems to
have had difficulty in detecting or coming
to terms with her ego and realising that
in her case, and perhaps in all our cases,
there is no sovereignty of the good at all,
but a self-governing, despotic, sovereignty
of the ego?
Murdoch’s approach depicts philosophical
analyticity as an post-enlightenment faith
gone wrong that has robbed humankind of its
inherent complex of attributes that make
up its compositional character of individuate,
independent points of departure. Each person
is seen as a new egoistical beginning, able
to will its way in the world.
The nature of Murdoch's introspectabilia
is refreshingly meta-platonic in the sense
that she raises the level of the discussion
from the stage of an interrogation of individual
virtues to a consideration of whether there
is a single, ultimate, overarching principle
in the united world of the virtues towards
a possible unification of the moral domain.
CONCLUSION
The well-intentioned Murdoch’s agenda was
to promote and recommend ‘unselfing,’ which
probably had its provenance in the Greek
term metanoia, as a way of moral improvement,
a way of changing our vision of the world
and of ourselves. She promises a new way
of loving others. For me Murdoch fails to
accomplish her purposes in her discussion
of the mother and mother-in-law allegory.
That does not mean that what she writes may
not make perfect sense for other thinkers.
For herself, and for philosophers partial
to such ontological interpretations and those
who she successfully influenced it was a
triumph.
That she gloriously succeeded is evidenced
by the rich benison of predominantly female
philosophers who have appeared in academia
recently to pick up the torch which fell
from her tragically stricken hand when the
dark curtain of Altzeimer's robbed us of
her genius.
For the last fifty years, with her as my
guide, I have strolled hand in hand down
leafy country lanes, nibbled cucumber sandwiches
and sipped tea in many an English drawing
room of the imagination whilst listening
to her shimmering prose. I shall certainly
not cease to do so, or let a few stray reifications
come between us.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot
bear very much reality. Time past and time
future What might have been and what has
been Point to one end, which is always present.
[8] (Eliot. 1975. p. 171)
END
REFERENCES [1] Murdoch. Iris. 'The Book and
the Brotherhood' p. 22. Penguin Books, London,
1988. [2] Murdoch. Iris. 'On God and Good.'
p. 61. Penguin Books, London, 1970. [3] Eliot.
Thomas Stearns. ‘Burnt Norton.’ p. 171. from
‘The Four Quartets.’ The Complete Poems and
Plays of T. S. Eliot.’ 1975. Faber and Faber
Limited, 3 Queens Square, London. WC1. [4]
Hume. David. Part IX ‘Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion,’ Penguin Books, London,
1988. [5] Murdoch. Iris. 'The Sovereignty
of the Good Over Other Concepts.' p. 79.
Penguin Books, London, 1970 [6] Murdoch.
Iris. 'On God and Good.' p. 61. Penguin Books,
London, 1970. [7] Murdoch. Iris. 'The Sovereignty
of the Good Over Other Concepts.' p. 78.
Penguin Books, London, 1970 [8] Eliot. Thomas
Stearns. ‘Burnt Norton.’ p. 171. from ‘The
Four Quartets.’ The Complete Poems and Plays
of T. S. Eliot.’ 1975. Faber and Faber Limited,
3 Queens Square, London. WC1.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Obumselu. Ben. In 'Iris Murdoch
and Sartre,'1975. The Johns Hopkins University
Press. ELH, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Summer, 1975),
pp. 296-317. Accessed via JSTOR. 29.10.2007.
Murdoch. Iris. ‘Metaphysics as a Guide to
Morals.’ (London, Penguin) Mackenzie. Rod.
Education and the Journey of the Soul: From
Paranoia to Metanoia' http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/pdfs/Saturday/Mackenzie.pdf.
Nussbaum. Martha C. reviewing Peter Conradi’s:
‘Iris Murdoch: A Life’ in ‘The New Republic
Online.’ Jan 17th, 2002.
Addendum The results of an interesting, but
of course not necessarily authoritative internet
ontological poll conducted on my philosophy
site: ‘The Athenaeum Library.’ The percentages
show that the reifications and abstractions
which Iris Murdoch relies upon so much are
overwhelmingly rejected by the great majority
of those philosophically-minded visitors
who voted. It will be seen that a massive
86% considered that there is no such thing
as ‘Being,’ and that objects simply exist.
Only 14% believed in the existence of such
transcendentalist notions. A similar pattern
emerges with the analogous question regarding
the reification ‘Movement.
The poll results can be viewed by clicking
here:
|