Contra a aridez: Iris Murdoch e o papel da literatura na filosofia moral

Abstract

This dissertation consists of reviewing the philosophical project of Iris Murdoch, aiming to understand the role of literature regarding moral philosophy and philosophical argumentation. The possible contributions from literature to these purposes has been examined by contemporary authors who accept two different positions: on one hand, there are those authors who support that literature can work as an expanded form of moral argumentation, and on the other are those who support that literature can work as illustration for moral arguments, but it cannot be understood as close to moral philosophy itself. This tradition was questioned in the first chapter, in which we exposed how literature would work as moral argument, considering Crary‘s interpretation about the perspectives envisioned by Ryle, Raphael Nussbaum and Diamond. Crary understood the connection between philosophy and literature through two concepts, namely, the narrower conception (it keeps the standard syllogistic argumentative form of philosophy, and literature works as illustration for moral contexts) and the wider conception (arguments must overcome its classic/standard form including emotional responsiveness, and so it is not wrong to say that literary texts are close to philosophy in value). The second chapter is an overview of Murdoch`s philosophical project. She criticized the traditional perspective that the moral life is limited to the deal with normative purposes which should be a guide to the right action, in accordance to a Kantian or utilitarian point of view. Following Murdoch, the moral agency does not need to focus only on a normative behavior, but pursue a personal self-improvement, overwhelmingly determined by the correction of our vision or texture of life. That means that human beings are subjectively complex, and it strongly influences how they act in the world and comprehend it. Thus, the task of morality is to ‗repair‘ the subjects‘ inner life, that is, to support us in overcoming our selfishness and delusions. This moral correction would depend on the Good (platonic) which exists transcendentally, and directs us to objectivity, altruism and virtue. The fruition of the Good occurs through external objects which contain it, such as literary texts and various technai (language learning, crafts) which requires humility in order to grasp them. In the third chapter, we analyzed more specifically the role of literature in Murdoch`s philosophy. She argues that literature provides the learning of virtues as far as we observe the characters' features, and select which ones are desirable or bad, and from this we obtain the opportunity of improving our character. Literary texts are objects which contain the Good, they remove us from our natural selfishness because they make us realize the qualities we need to pursue or abandon, and it is a moral exercise. At last, we tried to pinpoint elements in order to support the thesis that Murdoch accepts literature as a way of thinking about morality, yet literature and philosophy are very different intellectual productions, and they have to be part of human