CONCEPT
The M-and-D Example
Murdoch's canonical illustration: a mother-in-law's inner revision of her unjust perception of her daughter-in-law — the paradigm of moral work that produces no visible action.
The M-and-D example appears in 'The Idea of Perfection' and is among the most cited passages in twentieth-century moral philosophy. M disapproves of her son's wife D, finding her unpolished, juvenile, insufficient. M's outward behavior is faultless — courteous, fair, correct. But M's inner picture of D is distorted by the ego's self-protective needs. Through sustained attention, M gradually revises her picture: not unpolished but spontaneous, not juvenile but refreshingly direct. No one else observes the revision. No behavior changes. And yet this inner revision, Murdoch insists, is the paradigmatic moral act. The example is designed to force an uncomfortable recognition: morality cannot be reduced to behavior, and the most important moral work may be entirely invisible.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The example was constructed against the mid-century behaviorist tendency in moral philosophy, which located morality in observable conduct and treated inner states as epiphenomenal. Murdoch's insistence that M's private perceptual revision is morally significant — perhaps more significant than any outward act