ABSTRACT
The concept of attention stands out in Murdoch’s ethics: it is one of the markers of her original thinking, and one in which other significant aspects of her philosophy are reflected, particularly moral realism and the importance of the inner life. The first part of the chapter aims to clarify what Murdoch meant by attention, briefly comparing her concept with the one used in psychology and ordinary language; I then observe Murdoch’s various uses of attention in the context of visual metaphors, and the distinction between the attempt to attend and successful attention. The second part of the chapter looks at how attention can be exercised, and addresses three problems that arise from thinking of attention as a moral practice: whether attention is active or passive, the role of self-knowledge in attention, and the meaning of ‘unselfing’ in the exercise of attention.
