Rather than framing moral philosophy as just another form of epistemology (how can we know what to do?), Iris Murdoch was asking a more classical question: “How can we make ourselves morally better?” she asks. “These are the questions the philosopher should try to answer.”
Oftentimes we find that the people on the other side of a hot-button issue are motivated by good reasoning and deeply held values. They are not the enemy.
Under a remarkably convincing recreation of 1819 England is both the brutality and the self-righteousness exhibited by the haves, when the have-nots ask for more.