Widdows’ main misgiving about Murdoch’s ontological argument is that it impliesthat either God, or the Good, is an object. Widdows herself lacks clarity here butseems to suggest that, for Murdoch, the argument works in the case of the Goodbecause the Good is not an object (despite occasional references which suggest that, atleast in some sense, it is), but fails in the case of God because God is an object.Widdows objects that there has been a long tradition in Christianity which teachesthat God is not an object or ‘a person’, either, but nevertheless exists. This, she thinks,threatens Murdoch’s distinction between God and the Good; if the argument worksfor the Good, it works for God, too. But, Widdows suggests, although God is not ‘aperson’, he is ‘personal’ in that he has ‘a character which is interested and intervenes inhuman affairs’ (pp. 83–84); by contrast, the Good is impersonal, and it is this which‘allows it to escape from the criticisms of the ontological argument’ (p. 84).Presumably this is because it is easier to conceive of the impersonal Good as aubiquitous aspect of our world, the existence of which is supported by experience,than it is to conceive of an objectively-existing personal deity. Many believers would,however, disagree, claiming that the existence of the latter is also supported by humanexperience. But despite her attempt to rehabilitate Murdoch’s ontological argumentfor the Good, Widdows thinks that Murdoch would have been well advised to avoidthe ontological argument altogether; even if she never intended to suggest that theGood was anything more than ‘the end-point of the search for perfection andgoodness’ (p. 82), the argument’s associations with the Kantian debate aboutpredicates and attributes implies the existence of an object to which attributes belong(p. 85). Widdows suggests that those who cannot read the argument without itsassociated criticisms should disregard it in favour of Murdoch’s argument from (to)perfection and the Platonic degrees of goodness argument (p. 85). But thesearguments, almost indistiguishable from each other, are a crucial part of Murdoch’sversion of the ontological argument; they represent the human experience whichsupports belief in the necessary existence of the Good. It would therefore appear thatWiddows has focused on an insignificant reason for rejecting an argument which, inother guises, she is happy to accept.The main purpose of this book, then, is to offer a clear and systematic exposition of

Murdoch’s philosophical ideas, and for this I would commend it in particular to thosewho are just beginning to get to grips with her views. But I would encourage the readerto make his or her own assessment of the constructive aspects of Murdoch’sphilosophy.

Heythrop College, University of London Elizabeth Burns

Iris Murdoch: A Re-assessment. Edited by Anne Rowe. Pp. xix, 217, Basingstoke,Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, $65.00.

This collection of 16 papers, many of which were presented at the second IrisMurdoch Conference in September 2004, is ‘broadly divided into theology,philosophy and fiction’ (p. 1). Since much of the book is, however, concerned withthe relationship between philosophy and literature, these divisions are not clear-cut.The collection is a ‘reassessment’ in that it offers not only new interpretations andassessments of Murdoch’s work, and dialogues with other writers; it also challengescommon interpretations of Murdoch’s thought and, in places, Murdoch’s ownunderstanding of her views.For example, despite the objections to poststructuralism in general and Derrida in

particular in Chapter 7 of theMetaphysics as a Guide toMorals ((London: Chatto andWindus, 1992), henceforth MGM), Suguna Ramanathan argues that Murdoch

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herself practices deconstruction. She remarks that Murdoch’s pronouncement that‘[e]verything is relative, incomplete, not yet fully real, not yet fully true, dialectic is acontinual reformulation’ (MGM, p. 488) ‘sounds suspiciously like Derrida’s‘‘differance’’ ’ and claims that, ‘in the theology of the later novels undecidabilityfinds a more complete expression’ (p. 35). Ramanathan notes that views which arerejected in Murdoch’s philosophy are sometimes given equal weight in these novels,and that, as in Hinduism and Buddhism, there is no certainty about transcendentalprinciples; there is certainty only about ‘a change of consciousness, a purification ofmind and desire’ (pp. 35–36). Similarly, Anne Rowe, in her comparison of Murdoch’sThe Black Prince with Ian McEwan’s Atonement, maintains that both novels require‘the perception of multiple perspectives simultaneously’, on the grounds that ‘[s]eeingonly one possible truth engenders fanaticism’ (p. 152).Murdoch’s writing is, indeed, sometimes characterised by ambiguity, apparent

contradiction, and uncertainty (perhaps, as others have suggested, due at least in partto the onset of Alzheimer’s, which can begin up to 20 years before obvious symptomsoccur (Rivka Isaacson, p. 207)). But it would be strange to find such a vehementrejection of poststructuralism in both philosophy and literature (e.g. MGM, p. 206)combined with the simultaneous practice of deconstruction. The sentence from theMetaphysics quoted by Ramanathan must not be read apart from its context. In thepreceding sentence, Murdoch argues that ‘Hegel’s Geist is the energy whichperpetually urges the ever-unsatisfied intellect . . . onward toward Absolute reality’(p. 488). Further on, she speaks of overcoming the incomplete and making progresstoward ‘what is more true, more real, more harmoniously integrated’ (ibid). Therelativism to which she refers in the sentence quoted by Ramanathan is thereforemerely a temporary state or appearance with which we must struggle in our attempt toperceive objectively-existing truth.Murdoch argues that effective contemplation of the Good will lead us to a single,

correct solution to every moral problem (e.g. The Sovereignty of Good (London:ARK, 1985), henceforth SG, p. 40). But this is not necessarily incompatible with whatwe find in her later novels. As Rowe points out in her introduction (p. 1), forMurdoch, a great work of art provides us with ‘a large hall of reflection’ (‘Literatureand Philosophy: A Conversation with Brian Magee’ in Peter Conradi (ed)Existentialists and Mystics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999), p. 28); it offers us ‘atruthful image of the human condition in a form which can be steadily contemplated’(SG, p. 87). Since moral struggle is part of the human condition, it is therefore notsurprising that we often find the characters in Murdoch’s novels wrestling withseveral, often contradictory, solutions to their moral problems (SG, p. 22). While itmay be simplistic to argue that there is never more than one correct solution to amoral problem, reflection on these moral struggles does not necessarily indicate thatthere is no objective moral truth; it may be that such reflection shows only thedifficulty of identifying the possible solutions from which we may legitimately choose.Thus, perhaps the view of Alex Ramon is to be preferred. He argues that CarolShields’ ‘middle way’ between postmodernism and realism owes much to theprecedent for ‘formal experimentation while retaining a commitment to realism’(p. 145) which may be found in the writings of Murdoch. In other words, the structureof Murdoch’s later novels may, indeed, have something in common with the fluidforms of poststructuralism; but, I would suggest, she is not a poststructuralist in anyother sense.The second issue on which I wish to focus is that of the relationship between

morality and the inner self. The collection contains important contributions on thistopic by Samatha Vice, Christopher Mole, and Maria Antonaccio. DespiteMurdoch’s emphasis on the unceasing moral reflection which, she thinks, shouldform the background to our actions, she also argues that much human conduct is‘moved by mechanical energy of an egocentric kind’ (SG, p. 52) and that ‘suppression

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of self is required before accurate vision can be obtained’ (SG, p. 66). But Vice arguesthat there is more to self than self-interest (p. 62); the self is the means by which we seethe world, and we must therefore pay attention to it in order to improve the quality ofthe consciousness from which our actions arise. She claims that, inMurdoch’s famousexample of the mother-in-law, ‘M’, who struggles to develop a more sympatheticattitude towards her absent or dead daughter-in-law, ‘D’, ‘the self-knowledgepresupposed by M’s inner activity is only possible if M reflects on the kind of personshe is’ (p. 64). By contrast, Mole claims that ‘morally important states of mind’ are not‘inner occurrences taking place on the private stage of consciousness’; rather, they are‘world involving’ (p. 73). Mole acknowledges that states of mind are morallyimportant because analysis of our intentions can often help us to determine whetheran action is moral, but, he argues, this does not imply that attention to the self isnecessary in order to act well. He points out that, for Murdoch, the struggle to begood requires us to keep our attention away from the self because it offers us‘consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy and despair’ (SG, p. 91); rather, ‘[i]t iscareful understanding of the world that reveals our failures of virtue as failures’(p. 83).Thus, Vice argues that moral action demands self-knowledge, while Mole claims

that ‘world-knowledge’ is the fundamental requirement for morality. Vice notes thatMurdoch does refer to self-knowledge as ‘a scrutiny of the fantasy mechanism’ (p. 67).But Murdoch says that such knowledge is usually a delusion; it is ‘an attachment towhat lies outside the . . . mechanism, and not a scrutiny of the mechanism itself, thatliberates’ (SG, p. 67). Nevertheless, while Mole’s view is closer to that of Murdoch,Vice and Antonaccio may be right to identify an inconsistency in Murdoch’s view;although, for Murdoch, focus on that which is not self should be the moral agent’sprimary aim, this is achieved by means of techniques for the purification of states ofmind such as contemplation of works of art, attention to beauty in nature (SG, p. 84),or ‘a kind of undogmatic prayer’ (SG, p. 101). In so far as these techniques alter thequality of our consciousness and ‘provide an energy for good action which would nototherwise be available’ (SG, p. 83), they support the view that concern for thecondition of the self is important for the moral agent. But, paradoxically, Vice,Antonaccio and Mole are all, to some extent, right; in order to focus effectively onthat which is not self we need to purify the self, but we do this by focussing on thatwhich is not self; ‘The vision achieved by unselfing is not a vision utterly devoid of self,but a subjectivity purified of selfishness – a consciousness . . . in which imagination hastriumphed over fantasy’ (Antonaccio, pp. 94–95).

Heythrop College, University of London Elizabeth Burns

Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere. Edited by JagoMorrison and SusanWatkins. Pp. xii, 219, Basingstoke, PalgraveMacmillan, 2006,d45.00.

The novel has always challenged the validity of public moralities implicitly at least bylocating an alternative authority in private consciences shaped by personalexperience. Reading a novel is usually a silent encounter between reader and text, apassive consumption of something that does not pretend to be anything more than afiction and it is remarkable that in its three hundred year history this intimate processhas been regarded as potentially subversive of public order and has provokedresponses ranging from sour disapproval to downright condemnation and sometimespublic prosecutions. In their introduction to this collection of essays, Jago Morrisonand Susan Watkins suggest some of the reasons for the apparently irrational and

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