Ethics and the Third Party in Iris Murdoch’s The Green Knight

Abstract

Am I acting ethically if I refrain from judging my brother who has just attempted, and failed, to murder me? Maybe; but is my action still ethical if I side with my brother against the person who has risked his life and rescued me? Probably not. Iris Murdoch in her novel The Green Knight complicates this whole affair even further when she draws clear parallels between her characters and Emmanuel Levinas’s idea of ethics. This paper discusses Murdoch’s engagement with Levinas’s concept of ethics and sheds light on those places where Murdoch’s philosophy clearly diverges from Levinas’s.