Iris Murdoch: Love Is the Discovery That Something Outside Us Is Real

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), an Irish-born British novelist and philosopher, published The Sovereignty of Good in 1970, one of the most influential texts of twentieth-century moral philosophy. At the center of the book is an idea that has crossed decades while staying surprisingly relevant: most of our moral failures don't come from weak will, but from a distorted way of seeing others, filtered through anxiety, jealousy, resentment, or simply our own needs. From this comes her most famous line: "Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real."

Murdoch calls this work "unselfing" and describes it through the image of someone absorbed in anxious thoughts who looks up and happens to see a kestrel hovering in flight: for an instant, the attention paid to that outside detail sweeps away self-absorption and returns us to the real world. Explicitly indebted to philosopher Simone Weil, whom she deeply admired, Murdoch argues that real moral progress happens not so much at the moment of decision, but before it: in the patient discipline of learning to truly see another person, without the self-serving fantasies we usually project onto them.

An exercise inspired by this idea: next time someone close to you irritates or disappoints you, try asking yourself — am I really seeing them, or am I seeing my own anxiety, my own story about them? Try describing them mentally as objectively as possible, as if explaining them to a stranger who has never met them. Often that small shift in perspective is enough to make room for a truer — and kinder — reaction.

Sources

• Murdoch, I. (1970). The Sovereignty of Good. Routledge & Kegan Paul.