Talk of Lovers in a Great Hall of Reflection: Rereading Iris Murdoch’s The Fire and the Sun and The Bell

Abstract

Love is a crucial notion in Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy. In “On ‘God’ and ‘Good’” she writes: “We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central” (Sovereignty 337).1 This statement is now fifty years old and yet it seems as if it did not catch the attention of philosophers until very recently. The last few years in particular have seen a significant number of publications with “love” and “Iris Murdoch” in their titles.2 Love is, as Murdoch admits, ambiguous. Love can be heavenly and it can be possessive and destructive. Love can be of the Good, of people, and even of simple objects like stones. The makers of the 2001 film Iris chose wisely when they included this single sentence from Murdoch’s work: “Human beings love each other, in sex, in friendship, and love and cherish other beings, humans, animals, plants, stones” (Metaphysics 497).3 The sentence emphasizes the central role of love for Murdoch, its diverse expressions (including sex), and its focus on this world. Yet, as far as the current “philosophical culture”—in contrast to film—has been inspired by a “plain-speaking, down-to-earth, commonsensical focus on exactitude” and has cultivated a “suspicion, nay horror, of grand bold claims and sweeping assertions,” it should perhaps not surprise that it has taken some time for philosophers to start considering a notion that describes such a wide range of experiences (Chappell 89, 90).