Adventures in Openmindedness, Part II

Well, I finished that Murdoch book. It was, at least, more satisfying than A Severed Head, though I suspect the discrepancy owes much to the different circumstances in which I read each: one was drudgery — and, as it seemed, not morally or intellectually profitable drudgery — while the other was my own choice to read, upon the recommendation of (relatively trustworthy) counsel.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat belongs in that class of books, along with The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lolita, in which people do wicked things — things which lead readers to denounce the books as immoral — but eventually receive their comeuppance — a fact that is often ignored by the outraged sort of reader. Such books have, as Wilde observed of his book, "a terrible moral". (This is, of course, the older and more etymologically correct meaning of terrible: "causing terror", not "very bad".) Murdoch's work differs from those two books, however, in that justice is not visited upon all transgressors equally. Indeed, the peccadilloes of relatively good characters result in harsh consequences, while far worse offenders go, for the most part, unpunished.

If a morality can be gleaned from this book, it is a decidedly anti-consequentialist one. We've all discussed the hypothetical scenario: it's 1941 and you're hiding Jews in your attic: when the Gestapo officer asks you whether you're hiding anyone, is it immoral to lie? If it is always immoral to lie, then the moral thing to do is to tell him, "why yes, they're in the attic." However, if morality is determined by the consequences of one's actions, and the result of honesty in this case would be the death of innocents, then the consequentialist would lie (normally a moral evil) to effect the saving of lives (considered — we must assume! — a good). But in Murdoch's world, even the best-intentioned lies lead to disaster and despair. It is, perhaps, a reminder that we are ultimately ignorant creatures, quite unable to judge the consequences of our actions, regardless of our intentions. It is not a reässuring moral.

In any case, I have reconsidered my opinion of Dame Iris. I don't believe I'd get along with her very well if we were to meet, but then, that is rarely the case with authors and composers and artists I admire. (Dürer or Mahler would probably be rather irritating in person, I suspect.) Hers is not a world I wish to inhabit, but it is an acceptable one — perhaps even a necessary one — to visit.