Introduction

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher of extraordinary breadth and originality. Her work emerged in the middle of the twentieth century as a response to the dominant tradition in analytical moral philosophy, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge. It offered a radical re-thinking not only of the standard moral theories put forward by the philosophical establishment, but of the very methodology and overall worldview that underpinned those theories. Together with Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Philippa Foot, Murdoch is now regarded as being part of a distinctive philosophical ‘school’ of female philosophers who studied together at Oxford during the Second World War. ¹