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Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? , the sequel to After Virtue , is a persuasive argument of there not being rationality that is not the rationality of some tradition. MacIntyre examines the problems presented by the existence of rival traditions of inquiry in the cases of four major Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Hume.
422 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Alasdair MacIntyre
77 books492 followersAlasdair Chalmers MacIntyre was a British-American philosopher who contributed to moral and political philosophy as well as history of philosophy and theology. MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981) is one of the most important works of Anglophone moral and political philosophy in the 20th century. He was senior research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP) at London Metropolitan University, emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and permanent senior distinguished research fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. During his lengthy academic career, he also taught at Brandeis University, Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and Boston University.
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July 29, 2016
MacIntyre's After Virtue is one of my favorite books of all time, so I was excited to begin this book which is a follow-up to that one. It is a follow-up, but I found it much tougher to get through. After Virtue was a book that any person interested in philosophy and ethics, whether a pastor or just a person who reads that type of book for fun, could work through and appreciate. I found this book more difficult because of the subject matter. Here MacIntyre takes us on a history of ethics, ultimately laying out four philosophical traditions: Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume and modern liberalism. I just wasn't super interested in the details of things like ancient Greek philosophy leading up to Aristotle. So if the history of philosophy is your thing, then this book is for you.
For me, the best chapters were when MacIntyre got to modern liberalism and began discussing the challenges of different philosophical traditions interacting. The problem, which is a large point in After Virtue, is that each tradition speaks its own language and defines itself on its own terms and thus appears rational on the inside. But there is no common ground to speak between traditions, which is why people seem to talk past each other. Further, since the modern liberal mindset appears to us the default, our culture sees the other traditions as irrational or old fashioned. Once we realize modern liberalism is a tradition among others, the problem shifts. Now those other traditions are not just outmoded systems, but powerful stories alongside what actually is another tradition rather than the default, "just way things are".
Overall, I'd say read After Virtue first and if you're interested in the subject, tackle this one too.
For me, the best chapters were when MacIntyre got to modern liberalism and began discussing the challenges of different philosophical traditions interacting. The problem, which is a large point in After Virtue, is that each tradition speaks its own language and defines itself on its own terms and thus appears rational on the inside. But there is no common ground to speak between traditions, which is why people seem to talk past each other. Further, since the modern liberal mindset appears to us the default, our culture sees the other traditions as irrational or old fashioned. Once we realize modern liberalism is a tradition among others, the problem shifts. Now those other traditions are not just outmoded systems, but powerful stories alongside what actually is another tradition rather than the default, "just way things are".
Overall, I'd say read After Virtue first and if you're interested in the subject, tackle this one too.
October 2, 2016
A very hard text, compared to his other works, but also that much more refined and focused. It gives an account of traditions of thought, their development, context, teaching as to describe their concepts of justice and rationality. The traditions discussed are platonic-aristotelian-augustinian-thomist which MacIntyre himself represents, Scottish calvinist-augustinians, humean and finally liberal tradition.
The dialectic, which takes around 70% of the whole book, leads to certain interesting and hard to dispute conclusions, that rationality and justice, as far as human perception of them goes, are not two concepts, but a myriad which depends on the tradition it a part of. So justice will for the aristotelian be when something is done with virtue with the final teleological goal in view, which of course will be denied by the liberal, for whom there is no such thing as a one good, outside giving freedom to everyone to achieve his own freedom (as put by both Hayek and MacIntyre).
Overall this may as well be the most captivating book on philosophy I've ever read, to the point where I talked about him for 20 minutes to my date. Highly recommended for everyone who has an interest in the essential text of critique of modernity.
The dialectic, which takes around 70% of the whole book, leads to certain interesting and hard to dispute conclusions, that rationality and justice, as far as human perception of them goes, are not two concepts, but a myriad which depends on the tradition it a part of. So justice will for the aristotelian be when something is done with virtue with the final teleological goal in view, which of course will be denied by the liberal, for whom there is no such thing as a one good, outside giving freedom to everyone to achieve his own freedom (as put by both Hayek and MacIntyre).
Overall this may as well be the most captivating book on philosophy I've ever read, to the point where I talked about him for 20 minutes to my date. Highly recommended for everyone who has an interest in the essential text of critique of modernity.
July 30, 2019
9.9/10
Further review forthcoming.
Further review forthcoming.
April 11, 2025
We are all accustomed to measure the length of an object by a rule, which provides a standard according to which the object may be judged in its size. But have you ever wondered by what standard is the rule made? This is exactly the question that MacIntyre wrestles with in this book, albeit regarding not physical length, but rationality.
The central contention therein is that every standard of rationality is confined by its own tradition. A tradition here is not merely a set of inherited customs or doctrines; it is rather a living and developing organism, concerning the goods specific to activities, the nature of justice, and the standards of rational justification. Similarly, Sir James MacMillan has said that tradition is not only what is handed down, but also the process of handing it down, in which there are critical engagements, refinements, and sometimes even radical revisions.
Each tradition, thus defined, comes with its own standards of rationality. In other words, what counts as a good reason, a cogent argument, a fitting conclusion, all depend on the intellectual history and practical life of that tradition. When confronted with injustice, the most rational response is different for Homer and Pericles, for Socrates and Plato, for Augustine and Christian martyrs, and for David Hume. Hence, there can be no appeal to a neutral and universally valid standard of practical rationality that comes from nowhere. Indeed, MacIntyre argues that such is an "enlightenment" rationalistic invention that has largely failed under the vehement critique of Nietzsche.
How, then, does one not lapse into relativism? How could any tradition be judged better or worse than any other? MacIntyre's answer here is rather ingenious: through dialectics. For a tradition is never immune from interrogation, either by its own internal tensions or by rival traditions. When subjected to scrutiny, some traditions are found wanting, unable to answer objections or to resolve their internal difficulties. But those which can respond, by developing new resources and refining existing concepts, emerge vindicated.
But is this dialectical vindication not by a neutral and universal standard independent of any tradition, which he has just exposed as an invention? Yes and no. First of all, this standard is not in fact tradition-free, since this is the golden standard as observed in actual human history, and in this sense it is embedded not in any particular tradition confined by space and time, but in the human tradition as a whole. It emerges through the historical crucible of conflicts amongst rival traditions. Further, we human beings are not aliens to one another, because we share the sweet yokes of embodiment, language, memory, suffering, as well as joy and aspiration. This metaphysical commonality permits the possibility of rational engagement across seemingly incommensurable frameworks. This is how the standard of dialectical vindication is different from the "enlightenment" rational standard: the former is quintessentially human, intelligible only to creatures with our specific kind of conditions; the latter, in contrast, are more like cosmic constants floating around in a Platonic/Kantian transcendental space, which even H. G. Wells' Martians would not fail to recognise. In other words, standard of dialectical vindication is, in a sense, neutral to all particular traditions, but they are not absolutely neutral in the metaphysical sense, since they emerge organically from the human conditions, which is exactly why it has emerged from human history.
What else can I say, then, other than that I've been completely sold on this MacIntyrian thesis? The only comment I have left, apart from on the excellent argument and the remarkable erudition, is that this is a rather difficult book to understand. Some passages required me to reread many times before the real meaning can be cracked, so I cannot say this work is particularly user friendly; or really this can't be said about any work by MacIntyre, for that matter.
The central contention therein is that every standard of rationality is confined by its own tradition. A tradition here is not merely a set of inherited customs or doctrines; it is rather a living and developing organism, concerning the goods specific to activities, the nature of justice, and the standards of rational justification. Similarly, Sir James MacMillan has said that tradition is not only what is handed down, but also the process of handing it down, in which there are critical engagements, refinements, and sometimes even radical revisions.
Each tradition, thus defined, comes with its own standards of rationality. In other words, what counts as a good reason, a cogent argument, a fitting conclusion, all depend on the intellectual history and practical life of that tradition. When confronted with injustice, the most rational response is different for Homer and Pericles, for Socrates and Plato, for Augustine and Christian martyrs, and for David Hume. Hence, there can be no appeal to a neutral and universally valid standard of practical rationality that comes from nowhere. Indeed, MacIntyre argues that such is an "enlightenment" rationalistic invention that has largely failed under the vehement critique of Nietzsche.
How, then, does one not lapse into relativism? How could any tradition be judged better or worse than any other? MacIntyre's answer here is rather ingenious: through dialectics. For a tradition is never immune from interrogation, either by its own internal tensions or by rival traditions. When subjected to scrutiny, some traditions are found wanting, unable to answer objections or to resolve their internal difficulties. But those which can respond, by developing new resources and refining existing concepts, emerge vindicated.
But is this dialectical vindication not by a neutral and universal standard independent of any tradition, which he has just exposed as an invention? Yes and no. First of all, this standard is not in fact tradition-free, since this is the golden standard as observed in actual human history, and in this sense it is embedded not in any particular tradition confined by space and time, but in the human tradition as a whole. It emerges through the historical crucible of conflicts amongst rival traditions. Further, we human beings are not aliens to one another, because we share the sweet yokes of embodiment, language, memory, suffering, as well as joy and aspiration. This metaphysical commonality permits the possibility of rational engagement across seemingly incommensurable frameworks. This is how the standard of dialectical vindication is different from the "enlightenment" rational standard: the former is quintessentially human, intelligible only to creatures with our specific kind of conditions; the latter, in contrast, are more like cosmic constants floating around in a Platonic/Kantian transcendental space, which even H. G. Wells' Martians would not fail to recognise. In other words, standard of dialectical vindication is, in a sense, neutral to all particular traditions, but they are not absolutely neutral in the metaphysical sense, since they emerge organically from the human conditions, which is exactly why it has emerged from human history.
What else can I say, then, other than that I've been completely sold on this MacIntyrian thesis? The only comment I have left, apart from on the excellent argument and the remarkable erudition, is that this is a rather difficult book to understand. Some passages required me to reread many times before the real meaning can be cracked, so I cannot say this work is particularly user friendly; or really this can't be said about any work by MacIntyre, for that matter.
March 14, 2019
Macintyre continues the amazing intellectual work he began in After Virtue by examining four paradigms of practical reasoning, their history, and most importantly, their incompatibility. Macintyre looks at the Homeric and Aristotelian tradition; the Biblical and Thomist; Hume’s theory of passion; and the modern privileging of individual market choice. He observes that each views the individual who is wanting to make a moral decision in a different social capacity that determines how they will make that moral choice. The Aristotelian considers the individual qua a voting (i.e. male landowning) citizen in a specific polis; that is, moral theory does not consider women, slaves, or persons outside the city. The Thomist tradition of course considers the individual in light of God’s commandments; now moral responsibility is extended equally to every person on Earth under one moral law. Hume, who argued that only passions ruled moral decisions and the only goal of moral decision was to protect the satisfying of those passions without bloodshed, considers the individual qua noble landowning citizen. As Macintyre observes, this means that what was formerly considered the vice of greed (pleonexia) has now been transformed into a capitalist virtue. And this individualist capitalism led to modernity, in which each individual makes a choice qua individual, and passions no longer need to be regarded but are a de facto right of the individual in the marketplace.
Macintyre’s depth of reading (particularly in obscure texts that support his argument) is staggering and his writing clear and occasionally humorous. I was most struck by his observation that extending the moral law in the Thomist tradition protects the poor and oppressed in a way that neither Aristotle nor Hume support – Aquinas says that if you have to steal bread to feed your family, that is moral! Likewise, Macintyre does a provocative job of illustrating how Hume’s theory of passions (with which I have been mostly sympathetic) is based on the notion that the best people are rich, classy, landowning Englishmen (Hume explicitly rejected his Scottish heritage because it wasn’t classy enough). Poor people have nothing to be proud of from a Humean view. And Macintyre finally characterizes modernism accurately as pretending to be objective when in fact it is just another socially constructed tradition like Aristotle or Aquinas, one which allows the principles of the marketplace to make moral decisions for the individual – even if the individual thinks they are making decisions themselves. Macintyre’s observations about what it takes to make a good ruler and a good society are painfully necessary in the vicious political cycle in which we find ourselves in postmodern global capitalism. Those of us who subscribe to a tradition that does value the poor and oppressed would do well to read this history. Recommended for philosophers, theologians, and graduate students of philosophy and theology in particular.
Macintyre’s depth of reading (particularly in obscure texts that support his argument) is staggering and his writing clear and occasionally humorous. I was most struck by his observation that extending the moral law in the Thomist tradition protects the poor and oppressed in a way that neither Aristotle nor Hume support – Aquinas says that if you have to steal bread to feed your family, that is moral! Likewise, Macintyre does a provocative job of illustrating how Hume’s theory of passions (with which I have been mostly sympathetic) is based on the notion that the best people are rich, classy, landowning Englishmen (Hume explicitly rejected his Scottish heritage because it wasn’t classy enough). Poor people have nothing to be proud of from a Humean view. And Macintyre finally characterizes modernism accurately as pretending to be objective when in fact it is just another socially constructed tradition like Aristotle or Aquinas, one which allows the principles of the marketplace to make moral decisions for the individual – even if the individual thinks they are making decisions themselves. Macintyre’s observations about what it takes to make a good ruler and a good society are painfully necessary in the vicious political cycle in which we find ourselves in postmodern global capitalism. Those of us who subscribe to a tradition that does value the poor and oppressed would do well to read this history. Recommended for philosophers, theologians, and graduate students of philosophy and theology in particular.
July 31, 2024
The contemporary social philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre made a splash in the academic world with the publication, in 1981, of his After Virtue (University of Notre Dame Press), just reviewed by us here. There, he diagnoses the deep-seated problems at the root of the crisis we experience today in the foundations of moral philosophy (from which theoretical failing a good measure of the practical disorder surrounding us in present-day society stems). His response to the chaos is to suggest a return to the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics. But it is one thing to issue such a prudent pronouncement, another to supply it with enough of a justification to make it stick. Thus, MacIntyre owes us a sustained argument as to why virtue ethics ought to be rationally compelling in the contemporary milieu, knowing everything we know about the course that moral philosophy has taken over the past few centuries since the abandonment of Aristotle’s central place in the curriculum and his replacement by other models of practical reasoning (such as Kantian deontological ethics, the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill, the liberal tradition based on John Locke and Adam Smith, or the energetic refusal to adhere to the norms of any such conventional discourse on the part of Friedrich Nietzsche and his disciples in the twentieth century).
Thus, there is a lot of ground to cover. In After Virtue itself, MacIntrye does a pretty good job of explaining why the Enlightenment project won’t work anymore, after Nietzsche, and why virtue ethics, as continued by the medieval scholastics, represents a well-grounded alternative. Yet, this alone is insufficient. For as MacIntrye himself is wont to stress, the present situation is characterized by a standoff between competing schools of thought, none of which is sufficiently evident to compel the allegiance of everyone else. Therefore, the task he sets himself in the present work, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), is to articulate a meta-theory, as it were, of how theories of moral philosophy evolve and interact among themselves. His goal, then, is to restore some coherence amidst the seemingly incommensurable conceptions of the moral life and, thus, to establish criteria by which to be in a position rationally to evaluate the competing theories and so to choose among them (where, as a secondary objective, he will supply his reasons for holding that the tradition of virtue ethics takes pride of place). As an aside, MacIntyre’s project here bears some resemblance to what Imre Lakatos wants to achieve in the philosophy of science, with his notion of a research program and of the evolution of research programs. For Lakatos is aware that scientific hypotheses do not emerge in a vacuum; rather, a specific hypothesis usually reflects the context of a school of thought, what he calls a research program, and thus the question faced by a practicing scientist is not just to evaluate an individual hypothesis or other here and there piecemeal, but to decide what research program to endorse and to belong to – a higher-level issue. In his Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge University Press, 1978), Lakatos sets forth standards by which to decide among research programs, for a research program in its phase of flourishing will deserve support while once it enters a stage of degeneration, one will want to set it aside in order to concentrate on more promising avenues of research. NB, Lakatos intends his criteria to be objective and rational, unlike Thomas Kuhn, who in his celebrated Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, second edition, 1970) winds up being basically an irrationalist (it will be worth this recensionist’s time to review Kuhn and Lakatos someday, but for now let us return to our main topic of moral philosophy).
MacIntyre unfolds his argument through a series of case studies. Chapter two on the Homeric ethos, centering on the interrelationship between justice or judgment [dikē] and excellence in an assigned social role [aretē], strikes this recensionist as the most interesting, as being the most unfamiliar to everyone today. But the other representative loci MacIntyre investigates (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Scottish Enlightenment and classical liberalism), though long-winded, merit a perusal to see the author’s take on them. Here, MacIntyre’s summarizing paragraph is worth quoting:
This book has presented an outline narrative history of three traditions of enquiry into what practical rationality is and what justice is, and in addition an acknowledgment of a need for the writing of a narrative history of a fourth tradition, that of liberalism. All four of these traditions are and were more than, and could not but be more than, traditions of intellectual history. In each of them intellectual enquiry was or is part of the elaboration of a mode of social and moral life of which the intellectual enquiry itself was an integral part, and in each of them the forms of that life were embodied with greater or lesser degrees of imperfection in social and political institutions which also draw for their life on other sources. So the Aristotelian tradition emerges from the rhetorical and reflective life of the polis and the dialectical teaching of the Academy and the Lyceum; so the Augustinian tradition flourished in the houses of religious orders and in the secular communities which provided the environment for such houses both in its earlier, and in its Thomistic, version in universities; so the Scottish blend of Calvinist Augustinianism and renaissance Aristotelianism informed the lives of congregations and kirk sessions, of law courts and universities; and so liberalism, beginning as a repudiation of tradition in the name of embodied power, whose inability to bring its debates on the nature and context of those universal principles to a conclusion has had the unintended effect of transforming liberalism into a tradition. These traditions of course differ from each other over much more than their contending accounts of practical rationality and justice; they differ in their catalogs of the virtues, in their conceptions of selfhood, and in their metaphysical cosmologies. They also differ on the way in which within each their accounts of practical rationality and of justice were arrived at. [p. 349]
MacIntyre’s analysis of moral reasoning under circumstances dictated by the presence of multiple, conflicting points of view can be nuanced. A relativist along the lines of Thomas Kuhn would, when faced with seemingly incommensurable conceptual frameworks, just toss up his hands and declare the debate and the decision among them a matter of whim. But not so MacIntyre. Why? The following two passages suggest that the key is not just reflexively to insist on the rightness of one’s own point of view, but to enter imaginatively into another’s in order to learn from it and thereby to find the resources on the basis of which either to change one’s mind or to critique the other (for incommensurability can never be absolute; there will always be some common ground with other human beings):
It follows that the only rational way for adherents of any tradition to approach intellectually, culturally and linguistically alien rivals is one that allows for the possibility that in one or more areas the other may be rationally superior to it in respect precisely of that in the alien tradition which it cannot as yet comprehend. The claim made within each tradition that the presently established beliefs shared by the adherents of that tradition are true entails a denial that this is in fact going to happen in respect of those beliefs, but it is the possibility of this nonetheless happening which, as we also noticed earlier, gives point to the assertion of truth and provides assertions of truth and falsity with a content which makes them other than even idealized versions of assertions of warranted assertibility. The existence of large possibilities of untranslatability and therefore of potential threats to the cultural, linguistic, social and rational hegemony of one’s own tradition, either in some particular area or overall, is therefore more and other than a threat. Only those whose tradition allows for the possibility of its hegemony being put in question can have rational warrant for asserting such a hegemony. And only those traditions whose adherents recognize the possibility of untranslatability into their own language-in-use are able to reckon adequately with that possibility. [p. 388]
What rationality then requires of such a person is that he or she confirm or disconfirm over time this initial view of his or her relationship to this particular tradition of enquiry by engaging, to whatever degree is appropriate, both in the ongoing arguments within that tradition and in the argumentative debates and conflicts of that tradition of enquiry with one or more of its rivals. [p. 394]
Why, among all the competing conceptions of justice and rationality reviewed in this book, does MacIntyre favor Aristotelian virtue ethics as appropriated by Thomists? The following adjudication of two episodes in the history of virtue ethics indicates his reasons:
In the first of these Aristotle’s scheme of thought was developed by Aquinas in a way which enabled him to accommodate Augustinian claims and insights alongside Aristotelian theorizing in a single dialectically constructed enterprise. In the second the inability of the Scottish seventeenth-century Aristotelians both to provide a cogent reply to the new epistemological doubts about their first principles and to bring into an adequate relationship their Calvinist Augustinianism and their Aristotelianism led Hutcheson to his reformulations of older positions in terms of the way of ideas, and so rendered the whole Scottish tradition vulnerable to Hume’s critique. By contrast the Aristotelianism and the Augustinianism of the Thomistic dialectical synthesis were not thus vulnerable. That synthesis can provide a very different account of how the justification of first principles is to be carried through and of the relationship of philosophy to theology, one which invites no concessions to the premises from which Hume was to draw his subversive conclusions. Hence the narratives of these two episodes combine to exhibit an Aristotelian tradition with resources for its own enlargement, correction and defense, resources which suggest that prime facie at least a case has been made for concluding...that those who have thought their way through the topics of justice and practical rationality, from the standpoint constructed by and in the direction pointed out first by Aristotle and then by Aquinas, have every reason at least so far to hold that the rationality of their tradition has been confirmed in its encounters with other traditions. [pp. 402-403]
Thus, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is not a great work but a serviceable one, one could say. It does add necessary flesh to the bones of After Virtue but remains incomplete, in that (by the author’s own admission) its treatment of classical liberalism is sketchy and of Nietzschean genealogy almost non-existent. But these latter two positions are far more topical to us in the twenty-first century than are the by-ways in the Scottish Enlightenment reprized here. Therefore, for those with limited time, this recensionist would rather recommend MacIntyre’s next major work, his Gifford lectures published as Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), which says about as much more succinctly and does spell out his thought on classical liberalism and genealogy fairly well. Therefore, let us turn to a review of the latter.
Thus, there is a lot of ground to cover. In After Virtue itself, MacIntrye does a pretty good job of explaining why the Enlightenment project won’t work anymore, after Nietzsche, and why virtue ethics, as continued by the medieval scholastics, represents a well-grounded alternative. Yet, this alone is insufficient. For as MacIntrye himself is wont to stress, the present situation is characterized by a standoff between competing schools of thought, none of which is sufficiently evident to compel the allegiance of everyone else. Therefore, the task he sets himself in the present work, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), is to articulate a meta-theory, as it were, of how theories of moral philosophy evolve and interact among themselves. His goal, then, is to restore some coherence amidst the seemingly incommensurable conceptions of the moral life and, thus, to establish criteria by which to be in a position rationally to evaluate the competing theories and so to choose among them (where, as a secondary objective, he will supply his reasons for holding that the tradition of virtue ethics takes pride of place). As an aside, MacIntyre’s project here bears some resemblance to what Imre Lakatos wants to achieve in the philosophy of science, with his notion of a research program and of the evolution of research programs. For Lakatos is aware that scientific hypotheses do not emerge in a vacuum; rather, a specific hypothesis usually reflects the context of a school of thought, what he calls a research program, and thus the question faced by a practicing scientist is not just to evaluate an individual hypothesis or other here and there piecemeal, but to decide what research program to endorse and to belong to – a higher-level issue. In his Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge University Press, 1978), Lakatos sets forth standards by which to decide among research programs, for a research program in its phase of flourishing will deserve support while once it enters a stage of degeneration, one will want to set it aside in order to concentrate on more promising avenues of research. NB, Lakatos intends his criteria to be objective and rational, unlike Thomas Kuhn, who in his celebrated Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, second edition, 1970) winds up being basically an irrationalist (it will be worth this recensionist’s time to review Kuhn and Lakatos someday, but for now let us return to our main topic of moral philosophy).
MacIntyre unfolds his argument through a series of case studies. Chapter two on the Homeric ethos, centering on the interrelationship between justice or judgment [dikē] and excellence in an assigned social role [aretē], strikes this recensionist as the most interesting, as being the most unfamiliar to everyone today. But the other representative loci MacIntyre investigates (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Scottish Enlightenment and classical liberalism), though long-winded, merit a perusal to see the author’s take on them. Here, MacIntyre’s summarizing paragraph is worth quoting:
This book has presented an outline narrative history of three traditions of enquiry into what practical rationality is and what justice is, and in addition an acknowledgment of a need for the writing of a narrative history of a fourth tradition, that of liberalism. All four of these traditions are and were more than, and could not but be more than, traditions of intellectual history. In each of them intellectual enquiry was or is part of the elaboration of a mode of social and moral life of which the intellectual enquiry itself was an integral part, and in each of them the forms of that life were embodied with greater or lesser degrees of imperfection in social and political institutions which also draw for their life on other sources. So the Aristotelian tradition emerges from the rhetorical and reflective life of the polis and the dialectical teaching of the Academy and the Lyceum; so the Augustinian tradition flourished in the houses of religious orders and in the secular communities which provided the environment for such houses both in its earlier, and in its Thomistic, version in universities; so the Scottish blend of Calvinist Augustinianism and renaissance Aristotelianism informed the lives of congregations and kirk sessions, of law courts and universities; and so liberalism, beginning as a repudiation of tradition in the name of embodied power, whose inability to bring its debates on the nature and context of those universal principles to a conclusion has had the unintended effect of transforming liberalism into a tradition. These traditions of course differ from each other over much more than their contending accounts of practical rationality and justice; they differ in their catalogs of the virtues, in their conceptions of selfhood, and in their metaphysical cosmologies. They also differ on the way in which within each their accounts of practical rationality and of justice were arrived at. [p. 349]
MacIntyre’s analysis of moral reasoning under circumstances dictated by the presence of multiple, conflicting points of view can be nuanced. A relativist along the lines of Thomas Kuhn would, when faced with seemingly incommensurable conceptual frameworks, just toss up his hands and declare the debate and the decision among them a matter of whim. But not so MacIntyre. Why? The following two passages suggest that the key is not just reflexively to insist on the rightness of one’s own point of view, but to enter imaginatively into another’s in order to learn from it and thereby to find the resources on the basis of which either to change one’s mind or to critique the other (for incommensurability can never be absolute; there will always be some common ground with other human beings):
It follows that the only rational way for adherents of any tradition to approach intellectually, culturally and linguistically alien rivals is one that allows for the possibility that in one or more areas the other may be rationally superior to it in respect precisely of that in the alien tradition which it cannot as yet comprehend. The claim made within each tradition that the presently established beliefs shared by the adherents of that tradition are true entails a denial that this is in fact going to happen in respect of those beliefs, but it is the possibility of this nonetheless happening which, as we also noticed earlier, gives point to the assertion of truth and provides assertions of truth and falsity with a content which makes them other than even idealized versions of assertions of warranted assertibility. The existence of large possibilities of untranslatability and therefore of potential threats to the cultural, linguistic, social and rational hegemony of one’s own tradition, either in some particular area or overall, is therefore more and other than a threat. Only those whose tradition allows for the possibility of its hegemony being put in question can have rational warrant for asserting such a hegemony. And only those traditions whose adherents recognize the possibility of untranslatability into their own language-in-use are able to reckon adequately with that possibility. [p. 388]
What rationality then requires of such a person is that he or she confirm or disconfirm over time this initial view of his or her relationship to this particular tradition of enquiry by engaging, to whatever degree is appropriate, both in the ongoing arguments within that tradition and in the argumentative debates and conflicts of that tradition of enquiry with one or more of its rivals. [p. 394]
Why, among all the competing conceptions of justice and rationality reviewed in this book, does MacIntyre favor Aristotelian virtue ethics as appropriated by Thomists? The following adjudication of two episodes in the history of virtue ethics indicates his reasons:
In the first of these Aristotle’s scheme of thought was developed by Aquinas in a way which enabled him to accommodate Augustinian claims and insights alongside Aristotelian theorizing in a single dialectically constructed enterprise. In the second the inability of the Scottish seventeenth-century Aristotelians both to provide a cogent reply to the new epistemological doubts about their first principles and to bring into an adequate relationship their Calvinist Augustinianism and their Aristotelianism led Hutcheson to his reformulations of older positions in terms of the way of ideas, and so rendered the whole Scottish tradition vulnerable to Hume’s critique. By contrast the Aristotelianism and the Augustinianism of the Thomistic dialectical synthesis were not thus vulnerable. That synthesis can provide a very different account of how the justification of first principles is to be carried through and of the relationship of philosophy to theology, one which invites no concessions to the premises from which Hume was to draw his subversive conclusions. Hence the narratives of these two episodes combine to exhibit an Aristotelian tradition with resources for its own enlargement, correction and defense, resources which suggest that prime facie at least a case has been made for concluding...that those who have thought their way through the topics of justice and practical rationality, from the standpoint constructed by and in the direction pointed out first by Aristotle and then by Aquinas, have every reason at least so far to hold that the rationality of their tradition has been confirmed in its encounters with other traditions. [pp. 402-403]
Thus, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is not a great work but a serviceable one, one could say. It does add necessary flesh to the bones of After Virtue but remains incomplete, in that (by the author’s own admission) its treatment of classical liberalism is sketchy and of Nietzschean genealogy almost non-existent. But these latter two positions are far more topical to us in the twenty-first century than are the by-ways in the Scottish Enlightenment reprized here. Therefore, for those with limited time, this recensionist would rather recommend MacIntyre’s next major work, his Gifford lectures published as Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), which says about as much more succinctly and does spell out his thought on classical liberalism and genealogy fairly well. Therefore, let us turn to a review of the latter.
July 29, 2024
A very hard text, compared to his other works, but also that much more refined and focused. It gives an account of traditions of thought, their development, context, teaching as to describe their concepts of justice and rationality. The traditions discussed are platonic-aristotelian-augustinian-thomist which MacIntyre himself represents, Scottish calvinist-augustinians, humean and finally liberal tradition. The dialectic, which takes around 70% of the whole book, leads to certain interesting and hard to dispute conclusions, that rationality and justice, as far as human perception of them goes, are not two concepts, but a myriad which depends on the tradition it a part of. So justice will for the aristotelian be when something is done with virtue with the final teleological goal in view, which of course will be denied by the liberal, for whom there is no such thing as a one good, outside giving freedom to everyone to achieve his own freedom (as put by both Hayek and MacIntyre). Overall this may as well be the most captivating book on philosophy I've ever read, to the point where I talked about him for 20 minutes to my date. Highly recommended for everyone who has an interest in the essential text of critique of modernity.
September 19, 2023
hvem lot han koke...?
September 3, 2023
There were portions of this book that were really difficult. MacIntyre is clearly very bright, and the depth of the discussion here is not lay-level but rather seems best situated for Academia. Nonetheless, there were plenty of portions that were immensely readable, and those portions were just remarkable. The basic argument of the book seems simple enough to follow. It’s the winding paths throughout that are at times difficult to traverse. All in all, this is a five star book if I’ve ever read one. Especially as a Christian, one happily a part of the Reformed Tradition, I found MacIntyre’s work here a heady encouragement full of fruits to be enjoyed in a number of ways. If you find yourself stymied by the idealogical pluralism of the modern public psyche, let alone wondering how to engage humbly and intelligently regarding matters of religion and faith, this is the book for you. A masterclass in moral philosophy.
“It is here that we have to begin speaking as protagonists of one contending party or fall silent…We, whoever we are, can only begin enquiry from the vantage pointed afforded by our relationship to some specific social and intellectual past through which we have affiliated ourselves to some particular tradition of enquiry, extending the history of that enquiry into the present: as Aristotelian, as Augustinian, as Thomist, as Humean, as post-Enlightenment liberal, or as something else. For each of us, therefore, the question now is: To what issues does that particular history bring us in contemporary debate? What resources does our particular tradition afford in this situation? Can we by means of those resources understand the achievements and successes, and the failures and sterilities, of rival traditions more adequately than their own adherents can? More adequately by our standards? More adequately also by theirs? It is insofar as the histories narrated in this book lead on to answers to these questions that they also hold the promise of answering these questions: Whose justice? Which rationality?” (P. 401-402)
“It is here that we have to begin speaking as protagonists of one contending party or fall silent…We, whoever we are, can only begin enquiry from the vantage pointed afforded by our relationship to some specific social and intellectual past through which we have affiliated ourselves to some particular tradition of enquiry, extending the history of that enquiry into the present: as Aristotelian, as Augustinian, as Thomist, as Humean, as post-Enlightenment liberal, or as something else. For each of us, therefore, the question now is: To what issues does that particular history bring us in contemporary debate? What resources does our particular tradition afford in this situation? Can we by means of those resources understand the achievements and successes, and the failures and sterilities, of rival traditions more adequately than their own adherents can? More adequately by our standards? More adequately also by theirs? It is insofar as the histories narrated in this book lead on to answers to these questions that they also hold the promise of answering these questions: Whose justice? Which rationality?” (P. 401-402)
July 3, 2022
I picked this book up because its thesis was so interesting. In 'After Virtue', a fascinating book, MacIntyre laid out critical problems in the way ethics is discussed and demonstrated a major breakdown in our ability to talk and argue with one another about morals. In this book, he was to discuss how to choose between different ethical traditions, and presumably lay out how to know which one was right.
Most of the book was then a study of how ethical traditions form, operate, and interact, particularly focusing on Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, and liberalism. MacIntyre demonstrated the incredible breadth of his scholarship by being able to discuss technical details in the translation of Homer at the beginning; detailed knowledge of the culture of the schoolmen in the middle ages; to an analysis of the various ways critical theorists like Derrida interact with tradition in the 20th century. The writing was dense and difficult and could have used some more footnotes.
Throughout most of the text, the thesis remained obscure and it was only in the final pages that it became clear why he had laid out the history of the various traditions so (almost pedantically) thoroughly. His proposal of how to avoid relativism and perspectivism was good and I've certainly come away from this book with a better appreciation of how traditions work and relate to culture and to ethics. The answer he gives to the question of how to choose between traditions is useful, and the thesis benefits from the detail he has gone into but a similar answer could definitely have been reached without so much detail so that there is a sense of being underwhelmed at the end, even if perhaps I should have known no firmer answer would be given.
Most of the book was then a study of how ethical traditions form, operate, and interact, particularly focusing on Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, and liberalism. MacIntyre demonstrated the incredible breadth of his scholarship by being able to discuss technical details in the translation of Homer at the beginning; detailed knowledge of the culture of the schoolmen in the middle ages; to an analysis of the various ways critical theorists like Derrida interact with tradition in the 20th century. The writing was dense and difficult and could have used some more footnotes.
Throughout most of the text, the thesis remained obscure and it was only in the final pages that it became clear why he had laid out the history of the various traditions so (almost pedantically) thoroughly. His proposal of how to avoid relativism and perspectivism was good and I've certainly come away from this book with a better appreciation of how traditions work and relate to culture and to ethics. The answer he gives to the question of how to choose between traditions is useful, and the thesis benefits from the detail he has gone into but a similar answer could definitely have been reached without so much detail so that there is a sense of being underwhelmed at the end, even if perhaps I should have known no firmer answer would be given.
September 2, 2022
“Justiça de quem? Qual racionalidade?” foi publicado em 1988.
MacIntyre analisa quatro tradições sobre justiça e racionalidade prática: 1) tradição aristotélica; 2) tradição agostiniana; 3) a mistura escocesa de agostinismo calvinista e aristotelismo renascentista; e 4) a tradição liberal.
Argumento de MacIntyre: existem racionalidades conflitantes sobre justiça, mas é preciso fazer uma pesquisa racional para superar os conflitos através da análise das racionalidades em seus contextos.
Do capítulo II ao VIII, MacIntyre discute a tradição aristotélica, mas para isso ele volta à imaginação homérica, passa pela Atenas de Péricles, Tucídedes e Plat��o, e chega à defesa dos bens de excelência sobre os bens de eficácia em Aristóteles.
Do capítulo XIX ao XI, MacIntyre discute justiça para Agostinho e mostra como Tomás buscou superar o conflito das tradições aristotélica e agostiniana.
Do capítulo XII ao XVII, MacIntyre trata da tentativa de mistura escocesa de agostinismo calvinista e aristotelismo renascentista. Aqui temos uma discussão de tentativas protestantes de racionalização da moral até o ceticismo metafísico de Hume e as críticas de Reid.
No capítulo XVII, MacIntyre discute sobre como o liberalismo virou tradição: ao passo que o liberalismo propôs a emancipação da tradição, ele mesmo se revelou uma tradição inconclusa sobre justiça e moral.
Nos três últimos capítulos, MacIntyre 1) argumenta em defesa de uma racionalidade prática das tradições, 2) rejeita o relativismo e perspectivismo moral, 3) trata da dificuldade da comunicação e tradução de conceitos e ideias entre as tradições, 4) e sustenta que a racionalidade depende de quem somos, de nosso contexto e da história das crenças em que estamos inseridos.
MacIntyre analisa quatro tradições sobre justiça e racionalidade prática: 1) tradição aristotélica; 2) tradição agostiniana; 3) a mistura escocesa de agostinismo calvinista e aristotelismo renascentista; e 4) a tradição liberal.
Argumento de MacIntyre: existem racionalidades conflitantes sobre justiça, mas é preciso fazer uma pesquisa racional para superar os conflitos através da análise das racionalidades em seus contextos.
Do capítulo II ao VIII, MacIntyre discute a tradição aristotélica, mas para isso ele volta à imaginação homérica, passa pela Atenas de Péricles, Tucídedes e Plat��o, e chega à defesa dos bens de excelência sobre os bens de eficácia em Aristóteles.
Do capítulo XIX ao XI, MacIntyre discute justiça para Agostinho e mostra como Tomás buscou superar o conflito das tradições aristotélica e agostiniana.
Do capítulo XII ao XVII, MacIntyre trata da tentativa de mistura escocesa de agostinismo calvinista e aristotelismo renascentista. Aqui temos uma discussão de tentativas protestantes de racionalização da moral até o ceticismo metafísico de Hume e as críticas de Reid.
No capítulo XVII, MacIntyre discute sobre como o liberalismo virou tradição: ao passo que o liberalismo propôs a emancipação da tradição, ele mesmo se revelou uma tradição inconclusa sobre justiça e moral.
Nos três últimos capítulos, MacIntyre 1) argumenta em defesa de uma racionalidade prática das tradições, 2) rejeita o relativismo e perspectivismo moral, 3) trata da dificuldade da comunicação e tradução de conceitos e ideias entre as tradições, 4) e sustenta que a racionalidade depende de quem somos, de nosso contexto e da história das crenças em que estamos inseridos.
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November 15, 2023Not even gonna rate this one.
‘After Virtue’ was excellent albeit challenging.
‘Whose Justice? Which Rationality?’ was impenetrable.
A book like this needs a top-tier editor. That need was not met here. I don’t mean that in the sense that there is fat to be trimmed, but rather that concise & digestible sentences are a desperately needed in order to comprehend this guy’s absurdly long and complex trains-of-thought.
The sentences in here are WAY too bloated. It seems like every sentence contains 4 points which each contain a subpoint that all have 3 subpoints - each of which have subpoints of their own - anyways, returning to the n-th degree subpoint to give a counterargument..by the way that counterpoint has 3 subpoints and presupposes at-the-finger-tip knowledge of the philosophies of Hume, Aquinas, and 40 obscure, minor philosophers…. etc.
For every chapter, you tirelessly labor over 20 pages -five minutes or more per page- just to find that the conclusion of the chapter is that there is no conclusion to the arguments laid out, AND that water is wet. Unbearable.
Again, ‘After Virtue’ was difficult - but MANAGEABLE.
This, on the other hand, was simply whack, yo.
‘After Virtue’ was excellent albeit challenging.
‘Whose Justice? Which Rationality?’ was impenetrable.
A book like this needs a top-tier editor. That need was not met here. I don’t mean that in the sense that there is fat to be trimmed, but rather that concise & digestible sentences are a desperately needed in order to comprehend this guy’s absurdly long and complex trains-of-thought.
The sentences in here are WAY too bloated. It seems like every sentence contains 4 points which each contain a subpoint that all have 3 subpoints - each of which have subpoints of their own - anyways, returning to the n-th degree subpoint to give a counterargument..by the way that counterpoint has 3 subpoints and presupposes at-the-finger-tip knowledge of the philosophies of Hume, Aquinas, and 40 obscure, minor philosophers…. etc.
For every chapter, you tirelessly labor over 20 pages -five minutes or more per page- just to find that the conclusion of the chapter is that there is no conclusion to the arguments laid out, AND that water is wet. Unbearable.
Again, ‘After Virtue’ was difficult - but MANAGEABLE.
This, on the other hand, was simply whack, yo.
December 12, 2021
This should be exactly my kind of jam, it's the kind of book that claims you can't understand the modern state of thinking around justice and rationality unless you go back to Homer in Ancient Greece. And his fundamental idea - that it is difficult to speak, reason, and debate around justice because people hold entirely different systems of justice and rationality, so arguing on rational grounds goes nowhere - is interesting and, I think, deeply true. Unfortunately, the bulk of the book that dives into the schools of justice, from Homer to Plato to Aristotle to Augustine to Aquinas to Hume, is really difficult to follow and for that reason, felt tedious. It's a book with fantastic ideas bogged down by ponderous writing.
July 16, 2023
Reads like a prequel to 'After Virtue'. Where 'After Virtue' diagnoses the issues with post-Enlightenment moral philosophy, 'Whose Justice? Which Rationality?' provides the history of traditions of moral inquiry up to the point that necessitates the questions answered by 'After Virtue'. By my reckoning the strongest of MacIntyre's so-called trilogy, and still relevant if not more so than when it was first published (sadly).
September 3, 2018
I'm pretty certain there are some important points in here, but I can't stomach the writing style.
Want to read
August 5, 2020Best book on the topic of justice according to Keller
September 14, 2021
Might stick with Aristotle myself. Too dense for my current context; maybe I'll go back and re-read this after some R&R.
May 5, 2022
Certified banger
February 4, 2023
Eight out of ten.
This wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was good and fulfilled the purpose for which I read it, which was MacIntyre’s explanation of how different rational traditions interact (where they do at all). I hadn’t signed on for the three-hundred-odd pages of the history of Western philosophy that precede that explanation, though whatever forest I could see through the trees was interesting and, at least in the cases of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, helpful. That is, I anticipated MacIntyre’s argument that Thomism is the most complete rational system and found myself more sympathetic to that argument as it developed than I had expected I would be.
In spite of MacIntyre’s statement in the introduction that he intends this book to be accessible to anyone with a serious interest in its argument, I found its structure unorthodox and its syntax more than a little dense and convoluted. It seems Macintyre's thought joins rational traditions in the set of more-or-less-untranslatable things.
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is an intellectual investment, but for the right people it can be a very rewarding one.
This wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was good and fulfilled the purpose for which I read it, which was MacIntyre’s explanation of how different rational traditions interact (where they do at all). I hadn’t signed on for the three-hundred-odd pages of the history of Western philosophy that precede that explanation, though whatever forest I could see through the trees was interesting and, at least in the cases of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, helpful. That is, I anticipated MacIntyre’s argument that Thomism is the most complete rational system and found myself more sympathetic to that argument as it developed than I had expected I would be.
In spite of MacIntyre’s statement in the introduction that he intends this book to be accessible to anyone with a serious interest in its argument, I found its structure unorthodox and its syntax more than a little dense and convoluted. It seems Macintyre's thought joins rational traditions in the set of more-or-less-untranslatable things.
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is an intellectual investment, but for the right people it can be a very rewarding one.
August 26, 2016
In “After Virtue”, MacIntyre laid down the foundation for a new way of thinking about philosophical moral discourse (and philosophical discourse in general, I would say), namely, by looking at the traditions within which the issues are framed and solved, or at least are tried to be solved. For it is only within a tradition (its language, its methodologies, its standards of evaluation; in short, its rationality) that theories can be understood. However, this new foundationalist project was left incomplete. MacIntyre faced the objection that his “traditionalism” left the door open for relativism. If a theory can only be understood and evaluated within its own tradition, and there are many traditions (Greek, Medieval, Modern, etc.), there seems to be no way to adjudicate between them. In “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” MacIntyre expands his conception of a tradition and likens it to a scientific model. A tradition, therefore, can be judged as superior or inferior to another by its explanatory power or by the kind of progress it makes in solving its own internal problems. If a tradition leaves too many things unsolved, if it generates too many inconsistencies, etc., then it is judged poorly. Obviously, there are many more interesting and intriguing details involved, including implications for the philosophy of language; this is just a grossly condensed version of the main idea. It can be found in chapters 1, 18, 19, and 20. The rest of the book (chapters 2 through 17) serves mostly to illustrate it by taking a look of how the concept of justice has been dealt with by 4 different traditions: Greek, Medieval, Scottish and Liberal. Now, why would MacIntyre structure his book this way, i.e. stating his main thesis in the first and final chapters, leaving the rest to be mere illustration of his points? Honestly, I think this was ill conceived. The book could have been split into two, the first (very short) one containing just the main thesis, and the second one consisting of the histories of the main philosophical traditions, which would have facilitated the reading and spread of MacIntyre’s ideas. As it is, the reader is bound to get disoriented quickly after the first chapter, when history takes over the philosophical development of After Virtue. I also have to fault MacIntyre for the same deficiencies of his previous book, that is, his writing style. It is dry as the Sahara desert and heavily academic to the point of tedium. Excessive use of the passive construction, of nominalizations, of weak verbs, all make reading very difficult. This is a shame, considering that the ideas are of enormous value, especially in the area of ethics, where a good many conflicting theories, subsumed under the heading of a tradition, can be reduced in number and judged more easily. Were it not for the philosophical content, I would rate this book more poorly, but since the ideas are of such enormous consequence (in my opinion), I will rate this 4 stars. Very recommended, but be very patient.
March 2, 2023
Homesickness: the urge to be at home everywhere.
October 4, 2022
MacIntyre's sequel to 'After Virtue', 'Whose Justice? Which Rationality?' takes up where its prequel left off by offering a fuller portrait of his argument that justice and rationality are inseparable, and stem from a tradition - some of which are in better shape as ethical models for how to shape society. (That's only part of his project, for MacIntyre does SO much more to attack much of the absurdity of modern moral-ethical discourse through his book.) Another of his projects here is to argue that Thomistic Aristotelianism is the best ethical tradition in terms of how well it can be sustained in practice without suffering from moral relativism and contradiction. It's a wonderful book.
(What MacIntyre's true project has to do with is that universality of ethics, reason, and argument all emanate from some tradition and cannot exist in isolation. This is contra Enlightenment views, as well as postmodern Feminist/SJW views, though for different reasons.)
The first chapter begins ingeniously - he calls out individuals who demand impartiality in assessing ethical and rational traditions as being biased, and this is where the fun starts. A key feature of Mr. MacIntyre's work is that he's always devoted to being as objective as possible, even if that means dismissing impartiality as deluded bias because it forces liberal individualism to beg the conclusions it reaches in the argument it articulates. (It's circular logic - feminism/SJW/and other modern movements that deem themselves ethical and rational all defeat themselves by chewing the conclusions they proffer in the premises of their arguments.)
(What MacIntyre's true project has to do with is that universality of ethics, reason, and argument all emanate from some tradition and cannot exist in isolation. This is contra Enlightenment views, as well as postmodern Feminist/SJW views, though for different reasons.)
The first chapter begins ingeniously - he calls out individuals who demand impartiality in assessing ethical and rational traditions as being biased, and this is where the fun starts. A key feature of Mr. MacIntyre's work is that he's always devoted to being as objective as possible, even if that means dismissing impartiality as deluded bias because it forces liberal individualism to beg the conclusions it reaches in the argument it articulates. (It's circular logic - feminism/SJW/and other modern movements that deem themselves ethical and rational all defeat themselves by chewing the conclusions they proffer in the premises of their arguments.)
September 4, 2008
Written to address some of the criticism leveled against After Virtue, I think this book is the best of the "trilogy" (including the follow-up, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. MacIntyre's comprehension of the historical development of the ground of ethical reasoning is astonishing, and his ability to write about this development in such a readable way is also quite a feat. What makes MacIntyre really worth reading is that he is able to integrate or deflect a lot of the post-modern critique of traditional ethics while remaining essentially Aristotelian (of the Thomistic variety).
January 3, 2009
A long and somewhat inconclusive book. When I finished, I felt that I understood thoroughly what MacIntyre means by “tradition,” and was convinced that he's right about the basic dynamics of traditions of enquiry. Worth reading because it fleshes out what he says in After Virtue, and (perhaps unintentionally) hints at ways in which liberal democracy can be conceived of and appreciated as such a tradition.
September 4, 2011
A tremendously influential work but a difficult read as compared to 'After Virtue'; probably because most of the readers including myself are not well familiar with all the moral, philosophical and cultural traditions referred in the book. I loved the last part about Hume and the Chapter about resolving the conflict between traditions. Overall, an amazing read supplying lots of important questions.
April 11, 2021
MacIntyre's history of ethical debate, and defense of Aristotelianism and Thomism. It's marred by vague meandering writing, by his sneering attitude towards contemporary liberalism (with no acknowledgement of the flaws of the systems that liberalism is a reaction to), and by his straw-man account of relativism. Nevertheless he has a good historical sense and may be worthwhile for anyone studying this particular historical train of ethical debate.
December 9, 2011
A splendid piece of intellectual history. MacIntyre unfolds several different rationalities at odds with one another, confronting modern society with the unrecognized depth of the disagreement between different "views." A follow-up to his After Virtue.
September 1, 2014
Difficult concepts must be struggled with. This is a book to keep re-reading and extracting the idea of justice. MacIntyre is definitely an idea maker to be wrestled with, a modern Thomasist and Aristotlean of great import to all our lives.
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November 21, 2009None
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