Abstract

One recent advance in contemporary moral philosophy is Iris Murdoch' s unique understanding of theconcept of the moral self. Murdoch attempts to remedy the account of the moral self she associates withtraditional ethics, which mainly focuses on the will. Drawing from the world of art appreciation, Murdochholds aesthetic perception to be the necessary component of moral regard for others. She claims that amoral person becomes suitably other-directed through the practice of aesthetic perception through ego"unselfing." In contrast to the Aristotelian emphasis upon the rewards of virtue, Murdoch posits the selfinterested“ego” as the chief obstacle to correctly seeing others and, following from this, not rightlyexercising virtue towards them, for the ego cannot love. Hence, Murdoch's concept of virtue is a rigorousone, since it advocates the perfection of one’s moral vision as an end-in-itself, thus presenting a concept ofvirtue which comes much closer to the holiness of the saint than to the excellence of a hero. However, thecritical question remains: Can an aesthetic construal of the goodness in others become a sufficient basis forknowledge claims about virtue? To answer this question, the article analyzes Murdoch's process ofobtaining aesthetic "seeing" through development of a “virtuous consciousness,” a process of empathic experiencing, that provides the only true path of practicing virtue towards others