Iris Murdoch: we can change how we see another person

Iris Murdoch, a twentieth-century philosopher and novelist, asks us to examine how we see other people. Her moral philosophy makes room for attention and inner life as well as outward decisions. Our starting question is simple: once we have decided that someone is unpleasant, which parts of their story might we stop noticing? It is a question about our own view, not just somebody else’s behaviour. [1]

One of her examples concerns a mother and her daughter-in-law. The mother starts with hostile judgements, then questions her own jealousy and prejudice. The younger woman does not have to change to satisfy her: the mother’s view changes. Philosopher Christopher Cordner stresses that this kind of attention is more than gathering extra details. It also concerns approaching another person with fairness and care, rather than simply looking harder. [2]

Yet the philosophical meaning of seeing, looking and attention is not settled beyond dispute. The introduction to a 2018 University of Oxford conference records scholarly disagreement about this theme. We are offering an entry point, not a formula that sums up everything Murdoch thought. Paying attention does not guarantee perfect knowledge of another person. Nor does it give us permission to decide on their behalf what they must be feeling. [3]

Here is a situation invented by our editors. During group work, a classmate says little. We quickly label them uninterested. Instead, we could ask whether they have an idea and allow time for an answer. We could also offer a different way to take part. We do not know beforehand why they are quiet. The small change is to stop reducing them to our first label. They may surprise us, or correct the question itself. [2]

In our example, changing our attention does not mean inventing a comforting explanation and treating it as true. Try making two columns: what we observed and what we assumed. They said little belongs in the first; they do not care at all belongs in the second. Then add a respectful question. This is not an exercise copied from Murdoch’s books. Our editors devised it to explore a problem raised by her philosophy. [1]

Finally, try telling somebody the same story without immediately handing out the roles of good person and bad person. Which details did you choose? Which words might be too strong? There is room for disagreement: we can discuss whether our account has become fairer or simply more forgiving. We do not need the last word before we begin. We need to accept that the other person is not a character written entirely by us. [3]