Iris Murdoch and the Ethics of Attention - The Deeper Thinking Podcast

Iris Murdoch and the Ethics of Attention

The Deeper Thinking Podcast

A quiet meditation on fiction as a moral act, and the rare discipline of letting others remain.

What does it mean to look at someone without needing to understand them? In this episode, we turn toward Iris Murdoch, whose ethical vision of literature repositions the novel not as self-expression but as moral attention. Drawing from her ideas on moral realism, the sublime, and the discipline of unselfing, this episode explores how fiction can become a space where others are neither used nor resolved, but simply allowed to be.

This is not a biography or critique. It is a slow encounter with Murdoch’s belief that to write—or read—well is to resist possession. That the most radical act may be to remain beside someone without asking them to explain themselves. With passing nods to Simone Weil, Rachel Cusk, and aesthetic moral philosophy, this essay reflects Murdoch’s central place within The Deeper Thinking Podcast—not as subject, but as method.

Reflections

Here are some reflections that surfaced along the way:

• Real attention doesn’t grasp. It waits. It softens. It witnesses without control.
• The novel becomes not a mirror, but a door—toward someone other than ourselves.
• Style is never neutral. It reveals how we choose to see others.
• When we write—or read—with love, we stop trying to finish people.
• The sublime isn’t always vast. Sometimes it’s just what we can’t interpret, sitting quietly beside us.
• The most moral art doesn’t teach. It makes room.

Why Listen?

• Discover Iris Murdoch’s unique moral philosophy through tone and structure—not just theory
• Reconsider fiction as a form of ethical presence
• Explore how “unselfing” creates space for love and regard
• Reflect on how literature can train us to see others more justly

Listen On:

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

Support This Work

If this episode stayed with you and you’d like to support the ongoing work, you can do so gently here: Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you for being part of this slower conversation.

Bibliography

• Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. Routledge, 1970.
• Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Harper Perennial, 2001.
• Cusk, Rachel. Outline. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Bibliography Relevance

• Iris Murdoch: Develops a vision of fiction as moral attention and art as a means of unselfing
• Simone Weil: Influence, Murdoch’s understanding of attention as spiritual and ethical discipline
• Rachel Cusk: Contemporary novelist whose formal choices embody character opacity and moral subtlety

We do not write to express ourselves. We write to become capable of meeting someone else.

#IrisMurdoch #MoralPhilosophy #Unselfing #TheSublime #SimoneWeil #RachelCusk #Attention #LiteraryEthics #TheDeeperThinkingPodcast #QuietThinking #PhilosophyOfArt

This episode was shaped in quiet conversation with the moral vision of Iris Murdoch—particularly as expressed in her 1959 Bergen Lecture at Yale.