M and D and Me Iris Murdoch and Stanley Cavell on Perfectionism and Self-Transformation

Abstract

This paper is an investigation into Iris Murdoch's variety of moral perfectionism. It starts off from Stanley Cavell's reservations against Murdoch's view, grounded in a discussion of Murdoch's famous example M and D. Cavell's principle complaint is that, as the example is set up, there's no reason to think that the mother in law, M, comes << to see herself, and hence the possibilities of her world, in a transformed light >>. This, Cavell argued, differentiates Murdoch version of moral perfectionism from the form Cavell favors. In this paper, it is argued that Cavell has pointed out a genuine deficiency of Murdoch's example, but that he nevertheless misunderstands her position; more specifically of her views of conceptual change, attention, love and perception.