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The Sovereignty of Good

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The Sovereignty of Good

By: Iris Murdoch
Narrated by: Daisy-May Parsons
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About this listen

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything—even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions—and her own conclusions—can be found here.

Iris Murdoch was one of the great philosophers and novelists of the twentieth century and The Sovereignty of Good is her most important and enduring philosophical work. She argues that philosophy has focused, mistakenly, on what is right to do rather than what is good to be, and that only restoring the notion of 'vision' to moral thinking can this distortion be corrected. This brilliant work shows why Iris Murdoch remains essential: a vivid and uncompromising style, a commitment to forceful argument, and a courage to go against the grain.

The Sovereignty of Good is masterfully narrated by Daisy-May Parsons.

Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

©1971 Iris Murdoch (P)2024 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC Ethics & Morality Philosophy Morality
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whoever was narrating had no idea about what she was reading, awful pronunciation. A sad choice given the genius of Iris Murdoch

badly read narrator

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The good doesn't extend to the narrator, who has a pleasant voice but clearly no appreciation or understanding of the text. This actually makes the book harder to follow, because her stress and intonation is so often misplaced and misleading.

Poor performance

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The narrator's diction sounds conspicuously as if their authentic voice were used to generate an AI replica in order to save time. In any case, it does not do justice to the clarity and precision with which these essays were originally written.

This performance is suspect

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Iris philosophy is worthy of multiple relistens. Very interesting and engaging. I learn something new each time. On looking up the narrator phrasing it turns out many my concerns on pronunciations are correct for example Kierkegaard, and some of the cutting out I beleive was due to listening at double speed.

an Excellent book

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Great content, shame about the reading. Mispronunciation of words and strange emphasis of words as though the reader did not understand what they were reading, to the point where I wondeted if the voice had been sampled for AI reading.

Poor reading

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