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For Iris Murdoch, morality is about love, not duties and rules

For Iris Murdoch, morality is not about duties and rules but stopping our ego fantasies and attending to others with love

As William Godwin memorably put it in 1793: ‘What magic is there in the pronoun “my”, that should justify us in overturning the decisions of impartial truth?’ I might especially love and care for my friends, my family and so on – but this might seem to have little to do with morality. These can plausibly feed a person’s ego in different ways, such as by making them feel privy to some kind of elite knowledge, or reinforcing their complacency in their own social standing. And although the claim that love is central to morality might sound strange to contemporary ears, it is an idea that has been, for millennia, at the heart of many religious and cultural traditions such as Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism.

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