¹ Cf. Murdoch, I., ‘The Idea of Perfection’, in Conradi, P. (ed.), Existentialists and Mystics. Writings on Philosophy and Literature, London: Chatto & Windus 1997, 320-321Google Scholar.

² Cf. I. Murdoch, ‘Metaphysiscs and Ethics’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 70.

³ Cf. Ibid.

⁴ As noted also by Piergiorgio Donatelli. Cf. Donatelli, P., ‘Iris Murdoch: concetti e perfezionismo morale’, in Donatelli, P., Spinelli, E. (eds.), Il senso della virtù, Rome: Carocci, 2009, 101-121Google Scholar.

⁵ Cf. Murdoch, I., Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, London: Chatto & Windus 1992Google Scholar, in particular 211.

⁶ I. Murdoch, ‘The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 269.

⁷ I. Murdoch, ‘The Sublime and the Good’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 216.

⁸ Murdoch, ‘Metaphysics and Ethics’, 70.

⁹ Cf. Antonaccio, M., ‘Form and Contingency in Ethics’, in Antonaccio, M., Schweiker, W. (eds.), Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 111Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Murdoch, ‘The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 271.

¹¹ I. Murdoch, ‘Vision and Choice in Morality’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 87.

¹² As observed by Cattaneo, F., Etica e narrazione. Il contributo del narrativismo contemporaneo, Milan: Pensiero, Vita e, 2011, 64Google Scholar.

¹³ Cf. Antonaccio, ‘Form and Contingency’, 112.

¹⁴ I. Murdoch, ‘The Idea of Perfection’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 299.

¹⁵ I. Murdoch, ‘The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 378-379.

¹⁶ Cf. Cattaneo, Etica e narrazione, 75.

¹⁷ I. Murdoch, ‘The Sublime and the Good’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 215-216.

¹⁸ Cf. I. Murdoch, ‘On ‘God’ and ‘Good’’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 337: “A moral philosophy should be inhabited”. For the expression “house of theory”, cf. the homonymous essay ‘A House of Theory’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 171-186.

¹⁹ Murdoch, ‘The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts’, 371.

²⁰ Murdoch, ‘The Idea of Perfection’, 327.

²¹ I. Murdoch, ‘The Darkness of Practical Reason’, in Conradi, Existentialists and Mystics, 198-199.

²² Cf., for example, Murdoch, ‘The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts’, 378.

²³ Cf. Blum, L.A., Moral perception and particularity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ It must be said that, although I find Blum's analysis of moral perception extremely useful, I disagree with him in making Murdoch a moral particularist.

²⁵ Murdoch, ‘Vision and Choice in Morality’, 82.

²⁶ Ibid., 91.

²⁷ Cattaneo, Etica e narrazione, 84.

²⁸ Murdoch, ‘The Idea of Perfection’, 329.

²⁹ Cf. Crisp, R., Slote, M., ‘Introduction’, in Idem (eds.), Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 11Google Scholar.

³⁰ Cf., among many others, Melina, L., La conoscenza morale. Linee di riflessione sul Commento di San Tommaso all’Etica Nicomachea, Rome: Città Nuova, 1987Google Scholar; Abbà, G.., Lex et virtus. Studi sull'evoluzione della dottrina morale di san Tommaso d'Aquino, Rome: LAS, 1983Google Scholar; Westberg, D., Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action and Prudence in Aquinas, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994Google Scholar; Pope, S.J. (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas, Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2002Google Scholar.

³¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 1, art. 4, co.: “Absolutely speaking, it is not possible to proceed indefinitely in the matter of ends, from any point of view. For in whatsoever things there is an essential order of one to another, if the first be removed, those that are ordained to the first, must of necessity be removed also. Wherefore the Philosopher proves (Phys. viii, 5) that we cannot proceed to infinitude in causes of movement, because then there would be no first mover, without which neither can the others move, since they move only through being moved by the first mover”. See also ST I-II, q. 1, art. 5, co.: “It is impossible for one man's will to be directed at the same time to diverse things, as last ends. Three reasons may be assigned for this. First, because, since everything desires its own perfection, a man desires for his ultimate end, that which he desires as his perfect and crowning good. Hence Augustine (De Civ. Dei xix, 1): ‘In speaking of the end of good we mean now, not that it passes away so as to be no more, but that it is perfected so as to be complete.’ It is therefore necessary for the last end so to fill man's appetite, that nothing is left besides it for man to desire. Which is not possible, if something else be required for his perfection. Consequently it is not possible for the appetite so to tend to two things, as though each were its perfect good”.

³² ST I-II, q. 1, art. 6, ad 3.

³³ Cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1144a 7-1144b 1.

³⁴ It must be mentioned here that, according to Aquinas, even if moral virtue is the measure of prudence, since it fixes the ends towards which practical perception is oriented, it is in turn measured by an objective res, that is, nature, as it is grasped by reason's highest powers. Only in this case it can reach what Aristotle and Thomas call practical truth. The very idea of practical truth, therefore, suggests a very strong form of moral realism, according to which reason grasps an objective moral truth, and by so doing it informs the virtues, which in turn give a certain moral orientation to prudence. Sententia Libri Ethicorum VI, l. 11, n. 2-3 and Ibid. VI, l. 2, n. 8. In paragraph 3 and in the Conclusion of this paper I will briefly try to discuss this important point, showing how it can be compatible with a non-deductivist reading of Thomas.

³⁵ Cf. R. Crisp, M. Slote, ‘Introduction’, 11.

³⁶ Cf. Nussbaum, M.C., ‘The Discernment of Perception: An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality’, in Ead, ., Love's Knowledge. Essays on Philosophy and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, 54-105Google Scholar.

³⁷ Cf. in particular SLE VI, l.1, chap. 15.

³⁸ Flannery, K.L., Acts Amid Precepts. The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid., 71.

⁴⁰ Cf. Abbà, Lex et virtus, 222-225.

⁴¹ ST II-II, q. 48, art. 1, co.

⁴² Of these parts, six derive from Macrobius's commentary on the Somnium Scipionis (cf. 1 In Somn. Scip., c.8), memory from Cicero (Cf. 2 De Invent. Rhet., c. 53) and shrewdness from book 6 of Nicomachean Ethics.

⁴³ SLE VI, l. 9, n. 20.

⁴⁴ Cf. ST II-II, q. 49, art. 3.

⁴⁵ ST II-II q. 53 a. 4 co.

⁴⁶ ST II-II, q. 49, art. 7, co.

⁴⁷ Cf. De malo, q.2, a.6.

⁴⁸ Cf. Murdoch, ‘Metaphysics and Ethics’, 70.

⁴⁹ Cf. for example ST I-II, q. 73 art. 1 ad 3: “The love of God is unitive, in as much as it draws man's affections from the many to the one; so that the virtues, which flow from the love of God, are connected together. But self-love disunites man's affections among different things, in so far as man loves himself, by desiring for himself temporal goods, which are various and of many kinds: hence vices and sins, which arise from self-love, are not connected together”. And ST II-II, q. 179, art.1 co.: “Wherefore also in men the life of every man would seem to be that wherein he delights most, and on which he is most intent”.

⁵⁰ Choice (electio) is for Thomas only one of several steps which constitute his reconstruction of human action, and certainly not the most important. Cf. Westberg, Right Practical Reason.

⁵¹ Cf. Cattaneo, Etica e narrazione, 90.