Overview

After 1945, Britain wanted to be a new country. The authority of state and church were giving way, the Empire was dismantled, and it was no longer clear who was leading whom in matters of morals. Individuals were left to reinvent their ethical lives anew. The lives and works of the philosophers discussed in this book were caught up this sea-change. Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, Richard Wollheim, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre were all characters in search of a moral England, with a particular vision of the good society. From communitarianism to swinging Sixties’ individualism, and radical theories of art – which understood questions of ambiguity, error and forgiveness more than the state ever could – this is the story of their sometimes convergent but often discrepant ideas on ethical life in the second half of the twentieth century. Undoing the Moral Empire is a work of biography, social history and the history of ideas that masterfully reconstructs the shifting sentiments of the post-war era, reconfiguring enduringly relevant questions of freedom, virtue, and society.

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9781350457744

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Reviews

In this absorbing narrative, Chamberlain deftly stitches together the personal lives and philosophical ideas of her six chosen thinkers so as to locate them amid the shifting moral climate of their times. * John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Reading, UK *

In this absorbing narrative, Chamberlain deftly stitches together the personal lives and philosophical ideas of her six chosen thinkers so as to locate them amid the shifting moral climate of their times. * John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Reading, UK * Undoing the Moral Empire is a lucid, humane, and intellectually bracing study that rethinks postwar British philosophy, weaving history, politics, and moral reflection into a compelling, authoritative narrative with clarity and precision. * Miles Leeson, Director of the Irish Murdoch Research Centre, University of Chichester, UK *

Author Information

Lesley Chamberlain is a critic, novelist, and historian of ideas whose non-fiction work includes Nietzsche in Turin (1996), The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud (2000), Arc of Utopia: The Beautiful Story of the Russian Revolution (2017), and Rilke: The Last Inward Man (2023).

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