Abstract
In Chapter 18 of Murdoch’s Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals the concept of ‘void’ is offered as a label for a fourth dimension of moral thought, after ‘axioms, duties and Eros’ in the preceding chapter. Void, unlike the others, does not provide a mode of structuring a normative conception of some area or aspect of the moral life. It is rather described as a ‘tract of experience’—of evil, darkness, desolation, hopelessness, pain—offered as an antidote to overly optimistic readings of her ethics of Eros. Murdoch draws heavily on Simone Weil’s work here, but a closer look at the chapter discloses a dissonance in her use of ‘void’, which in turn reveals a difference between these two thinkers.
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Hämäläinen, N. (2019). Which Void? (MGM Chapter 18). In: Hämäläinen, N., Dooley, G. (eds) Reading Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18967-9_17
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