The Gifford-Driven Genesis and Subliminal Stylistic Construction of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

Abstract

This essay begins with fresh research into Iris Murdoch’s drafts for her Gifford Lectures recently acquired by the Iris Murdoch archive in Kingston University and into her comments in letters and journals about her experience of writing and giving those lectures. It considers the reception of both her lectures and the ensuing book before turning to a close reading of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. It therefore moves from a macro-view of the text, looking at how Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals came to be written, to a micro-view of how Murdoch creates the style and, despite herself—‘Good philosophy should have style but no tone’ she wrote in her journal on 18 September 1979—the tone, of her writing in her late, great, magnum opus.