Review of Alasdair MacIntyre's 'Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity'

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Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) ｒｅｖｉｅｗ＠ｏｆ＠ａｌａｓｄａｉｒ＠ｍａｃｉｎｔｙｒｅＧｓＬ＠ｅｔｈｉｃｓ＠ｉｎ＠ｔｈｅ＠ｃｏｎｆｌｉｃｔｓ ｏｆ＠ｍｏｄｅｒｎｉｔｙ＠ａｎ＠ｅｓｓａｙ＠ｏｎ＠ｄｅｓｉｒｅＬ＠ｐｒａｃｔｉｃａｌ＠ｒｅａｓｏｎｉｎｇＬ ａｎｄ＠ｎａｒｒａｔｉｖｅＬ＠ｃａｍｂｒｉｄｇｅＺ＠ｃａｍｂｒｉｄｇｅ＠ｕｎｉｖｅｒｓｉｔｙ＠ｐｒｅｓｓＬ ＲＰＱＶＬ＠ＳＳＲ＠ｐＮ ｄ｡ｶｩ､＠ｋｲ･ｴｺＬ＠ｇｲ･ｧｯｲｹ＠ｌ･ｮｮ･ ｐｲ･ｳｳ･ｳ＠､･＠ｓ｣ｩ･ｮ｣･ｳ＠ｐｯ＠ＨｐＮｆＮｎＮｓＮｐＮＩ＠ｼ＠ﾫ＠ｒ｡ｩｳｯｮｳ＠ｰｯｬｩｴｩｱｵ･ｳ＠ﾻ＠ ＲＰＱＸＯＱ＠ｎﾰ＠ＶＹ＠ｼ＠ｰ｡ｧ･ｳ＠ＱＲＹ＠￠＠ＱＳＳ ＠ ｉｓｓｎ＠ＱＲＹＱＭＱＹＴＱ ｉｓｂｎ＠ＹＷＸＲＷＲＴＶＳＵＴＸＵ ａｲｴｩ｣ｬ･＠､ｩｳｰｯｮｩ｢ｬ･＠･ｮ＠ｬｩｧｮ･＠￠＠ｬＧ｡､ｲ･ｳｳ･＠Ｚ ＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭ ｨｴｴｰｳＺＯＯｷｷｷＮ｣｡ｩｲｮＮｩｮｦｯＯｲ･ｶｵ･Ｍｲ｡ｩｳｯｮｳＭｰｯｬｩｴｩｱｵ･ｳＭＲＰＱＸＭＱＭｰ｡ｧ･ＭＱＲＹＮｨｴｭ ＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭ ｐｯｵｲ＠｣ｩｴ･ｲ＠｣･ｴ＠｡ｲｴｩ｣ｬ･＠Ｚ ＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭ ｄ｡ｶｩ､＠ｋｲ･ｴｺＬ＠ｇｲ･ｧｯｲｹ＠ｌ･ｮｮ･ﾫ＠ｒ･ｶｩ･ｷ＠ｯｦ＠ａｬ｡ｳ､｡ｩｲ＠ｍ｡｣ｉｮｴｹｲ･ＧｳＬ＠ｅｴｨｩ｣ｳ＠ｩｮ＠ｴｨ･＠ｃｯｮｦｬｩ｣ｴｳ ｯｦ＠ｍｯ､･ｲｮｩｴｹ＠ａｮ＠ｅｳｳ｡ｹ＠ｯｮ＠ｄ･ｳｩｲ･Ｌ＠ｐｲ｡｣ｴｩ｣｡ｬ＠ｒ･｡ｳｯｮｩｮｧＬ＠｡ｮ､＠ｎ｡ｲｲ｡ｴｩｶ･Ｌ＠ｃ｡ｭ｢ｲｩ､ｧ･Ｚ ｃ｡ｭ｢ｲｩ､ｧ･＠ｕｮｩｶ･ｲｳｩｴｹ＠ｐｲ･ｳｳＬ＠ＲＰＱＶＬ＠ＳＳＲ＠ｰＮ＠＠ﾻＬ＠ｒ｡ｩｳｯｮｳ＠ｰｯｬｩｴｩｱｵ･ｳ＠ＲＰＱＸＯＱ＠Ｈｎﾰ＠ＶＹＩＬ ｰＮ＠ＱＲＹＭＱＳＳＮ ｄｏｉ＠ＱＰＮＳＹＱＷＯｲ｡ｩＮＰＶＹＮＰＱＲＹ ＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭＭ ＠ ｄｩｳｴｲｩ｢ｵｴｩｯｮ＠￩ｬ･｣ｴｲｯｮｩｱｵ･＠ｃ｡ｩｲｮＮｩｮｦｯ＠ｰｯｵｲ＠ｐｲ･ｳｳ･ｳ＠､･＠ｓ｣ｩ･ｮ｣･ｳ＠ｐｯ＠ＨｐＮｆＮｎＮｓＮｐＮＩＮ ﾩ＠ｐｲ･ｳｳ･ｳ＠､･＠ｓ｣ｩ･ｮ｣･ｳ＠ｐｯ＠ＨｐＮｆＮｎＮｓＮｐＮＩＮ＠ｔｯｵｳ＠､ｲｯｩｴｳ＠ｲ￩ｳ･ｲｶ￩ｳ＠ｰｯｵｲ＠ｴｯｵｳ＠ｰ｡ｹｳＮ ｌ｡＠ｲ･ｰｲｯ､ｵ｣ｴｩｯｮ＠ｯｵ＠ｲ･ｰｲ￩ｳ･ｮｴ｡ｴｩｯｮ＠､･＠｣･ｴ＠｡ｲｴｩ｣ｬ･Ｌ＠ｮｯｴ｡ｭｭ･ｮｴ＠ｰ｡ｲ＠ｰｨｯｴｯ｣ｯｰｩ･Ｌ＠ｮＧ･ｳｴ＠｡ｵｴｯｲｩｳ￩･＠ｱｵ･＠､｡ｮｳ＠ｬ･ｳ ｬｩｭｩｴ･ｳ＠､･ｳ＠｣ｯｮ､ｩｴｩｯｮｳ＠ｧ￩ｮ￩ｲ｡ｬ･ｳ＠､Ｇｵｴｩｬｩｳ｡ｴｩｯｮ＠､ｵ＠ｳｩｴ･＠ｯｵＬ＠ｬ･＠｣｡ｳ＠￩｣ｨ￩｡ｮｴＬ＠､･ｳ＠｣ｯｮ､ｩｴｩｯｮｳ＠ｧ￩ｮ￩ｲ｡ｬ･ｳ＠､･＠ｬ｡ ｬｩ｣･ｮ｣･＠ｳｯｵｳ｣ｲｩｴ･＠ｰ｡ｲ＠ｶｯｴｲ･＠￩ｴ｡｢ｬｩｳｳ･ｭ･ｮｴＮ＠ｔｯｵｴ･＠｡ｵｴｲ･＠ｲ･ｰｲｯ､ｵ｣ｴｩｯｮ＠ｯｵ＠ｲ･ｰｲ￩ｳ･ｮｴ｡ｴｩｯｮＬ＠･ｮ＠ｴｯｵｴ＠ｯｵ＠ｰ｡ｲｴｩ･Ｌ ｳｯｵｳ＠ｱｵ･ｬｱｵ･＠ｦｯｲｭ･＠･ｴ＠､･＠ｱｵ･ｬｱｵ･＠ｭ｡ｮｩ￨ｲ･＠ｱｵ･＠｣･＠ｳｯｩｴＬ＠･ｳｴ＠ｩｮｴ･ｲ､ｩｴ･＠ｳ｡ｵｦ＠｡｣｣ｯｲ､＠ｰｲ￩｡ｬ｡｢ｬ･＠･ｴ＠￩｣ｲｩｴ＠､･ ｬＧ￩､ｩｴ･ｵｲＬ＠･ｮ＠､･ｨｯｲｳ＠､･ｳ＠｣｡ｳ＠ｰｲ￩ｶｵｳ＠ｰ｡ｲ＠ｬ｡＠ｬ￩ｧｩｳｬ｡ｴｩｯｮ＠･ｮ＠ｶｩｧｵ･ｵｲ＠･ｮ＠ｆｲ｡ｮ｣･Ｎ＠ｉｬ＠･ｳｴ＠ｰｲ￩｣ｩｳ￩＠ｱｵ･＠ｳｯｮ＠ｳｴｯ｣ｫ｡ｧ･ ､｡ｮｳ＠ｵｮ･＠｢｡ｳ･＠､･＠､ｯｮｮ￩･ｳ＠･ｳｴ＠￩ｧ｡ｬ･ｭ･ｮｴ＠ｩｮｴ･ｲ､ｩｴＮ Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) ＠ Alasdair MacIntyre is mostly known to a broader audience for his landmark study in moral theory After Virtue. It founded his reputation as one of the foremost contemporary theorists of virtue ethics and communitarianism. Though the book has certainly influenced both fields, MacIntyre has rejected either label and his thought has taken a few turns since its publication in 1981, most notably towards a new appreciation of Thomas Aquinas. In Ethics and the Conflicts of Modernity (2016), he offers us what seems to be the definite statement of the central theses of his mature thought. The book critically engages not only analytic moral philosophers (e.g. Simon Blackburn, Allan Gibbard, Harry Frankfurt, and Bernard Williams) but also artists such as D. H. Lawrence and Oscar Wilde, and economists like Gary Becker and Eugene Fama. Indeed, a central thesis of MacIntyre is that in one way or another they all stand witness to some crucial failures of modernity and that Aristotle, Aquinas, and Marx help us do better. Whether lives go well depends on whether we reflect well on our desires when confronted with important choices. Part of what that means is to ask: do we have good reason to desire as we do? On this question, there will often be disagreement. MacIntyre contends that philosophers have offered two profoundly opposed accounts of such disagreement. In the one camp, we find expressivists, who hold that to say of something that it is good is to say that one approves of it. Goodness is about the attitude one takes towards an object, not about any objective quality of the object. Disagreements about the goodness of something (and the reasonableness of some desire) are clashes of attitudes not to be resolved by reference to any objective standards. To this attitude, MacIntyre opposes his own Aristotelian view. There is an objective standard of what it is for humans to flourish, just as there is for wolves or dolphins or plants, he contends. To fail to flourish by this standard would be to fail as a human being. Such strong claims must immediately arouse suspicion of being narrowly and parochially prescriptive, but MacIntyre insists that the basic Aristotelian precepts that describe what it is to flourish as a human being can be, must be, and have been translated into the particular idioms of all human cultures. Of course, the expressivists will allege that all the supposedly trans-cultural facts about human nature that the Aristotelian cites, in her own cultural vocabulary, will express nothing but the Aristotelian’s own cultural prejudices and attitudes. reviews Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) Review of Alasdair MacIntyre’s, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity – An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 332 p. MacIntyre thus sees a standoff between expressivists and Aristotelians in which neither side seems able to convince the other. Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) The second chapter sets out to bypass this standoff by bringing the social context and the historical genesis of the two theories into view. “In philosophy it is never enough to identify... a mistake. It is also necessary to explain how highly intelligent and perceptive thinkers could have come to make such a mistake” (p. 114). Here MacIntyre learns from Marx, arguing that some theories serve to hide exploitative economic realities, while others challenge such arrangements. David Hume is identified as the father of expressivism and his moral and political theorizing as, unintentionally but primarily, disguising the socio-economical inequalities of his time. For Hume we call good what we self-interestedly desire. Crucially, together with his friend Adam Smith, he was among the first to turn boundless acquisitiveness from the vice that it had been to ancient and medieval thinkers (like Aristotle and Aquinas) into the virtue that it became under nascent capitalism. The defense of bourgeois capitalist morality as both natural and universal made him blind to the vocal resistance to that order even in his own society. Similarly, the economists of our days, the greatest of which are also the authors of the most influential textbooks, impart conceptions of rationality and a faith in markets on generations of students. These go on to become key players in the global capitalist economy, where they implement and create what they have been taught is natural and universal. One could remark that Hume, Smith, and their contemporary heirs, in the end, appear as naive rather than malicious. Given that they are also smart people, the inverse reading might perhaps have been more charitable. At the same time (as MacIntyre admits), his reading of Marx is selective when he remains silent on some of Marx’ harsher condemnations of the exploitative nature of feudal and ancient economics. Yet MacIntyre also endorses two (Catholic) critiques of Marx : that the dominance of the state ought to be viewed with suspicion and that the proletariat alone cannot be the agent of anti-capitalist emancipation. Positive contributions can come from all social classes, and he extends this insight to an unequivocal and internal critique of Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ inacceptable statements on the status of women and “natural slaves”, for example. The third chapter continues the work of contextualization, looking closer at contemporary capitalist modernity, the morality that it produces (known as capital-m Morality to its defenders), and how expressivism is both a product and a limited critique of this order. Modernity, MacIntyre argues, has produced three mutually supporting pseudo-ethics: the ethics-of-the-state, the ethics-ofthe-market, and Morality. While the first two speak to agents only insofar as they are agents of the state or participants in the market, the third presents itself as universally binding on all humans. They all present themselves as secular, as improvements over allegedly irrational, pre-modern ethics, and they all produce irresolvable dilemmas between injunctions to maximize (the national interest, personal profit, or the greatest good of the greatest number, Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) 130 - Reviews - 131 Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) respectively) and demands to uphold some principles regardless of their consequences (e.g. laws, human rights, the categorical imperative). Not only are those three ridden by contradictions but they are also insufficient to guide our ethical life. As more and more choice seems available in all aspects of our lives, desires proliferate. Yet the normative categories of modernity do nothing to tell us how to rank order these goods and how to distinguish true from apparent goods. They merely impose some loose negative constraints on means and ends. Consequently, each formulation of modernity’s normative principles is “as highly contested as the theologies that they have displaced” (p. 138) and a skeptical, expressivist challenge becomes possible : the defenders of Morality are not offering objective accounts of what is good and permissible but merely express their contradictory feelings in the disguise of an abstract vocabulary. Yet the expressivist critique remains merely negative. It tells us that all our normative judgments express subjective attitudes, that might or might not overlap with some social majority, but cannot tell us how to distinguish superficial from authentic attitudes. The sharpest critics of Morality, from D. H. Lawrence to Bernard Williams, have objected to its abstract and impersonal vocabulary, and insisted that only deep, authentic subjective attitudes provide us with first-person answers to the old Socratic first-person question, How should I live? Here, MacIntyre, suggests we can only answer the firstperson question of how I or we should live, by taking a third-person perspective (such as novelists, for example, provide them of their characters). Only in this way will we be able to distinguish the superficial from the deep, the apparently good from the genuinely good. From this derives also the ethical necessity of political communities where shared deliberation on common goods is possible: the family, schools, workplaces, polities, communities to which the modern state and market, MacIntyre argues, are essentially hostile. The fourth chapter spells out in detail how such communities enable practical rationality and how, in theory and practice, they contrast with modernity. On the Aristotelian view, a happy, flourishing life is one in which we engage in worthwhile activities that allow us to develop all our virtues and faculties and achieve important common and individual goods. Achieving important goods is the end of practical reasoning, and the happy life will be that of an excellent practical reasoner. Such a practical reasoner is able to tell true goods from apparent goods, to cultivate desires for true goods and not apparent ones, and the virtues to achieve those true goods. We cannot do these three things alone but with the help of others, partly because we rely on others to initiate us into the practices that let us cultivate the necessary desires and virtues. But also because of the nature of goods. MacIntyre highlights the importance of common goods achieved by individuals who cooperate not qua individuals but qua family member, qua worker, qua citizen, etc. Discussing Danish and Brazilian examples, he argues that if communities are to enable the realization of such goods they will need to allow for fair, shared deliberation about these goods in which all relevant voices are heard. Liberal critics of MacIntyre will find a substantive normative overlap here. Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) Reviews Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) This account of practical rationality is contrasted with the dominant, modern conception, which finds expression in neoclassical economics and game theory. There to be rational is to be an efficient preference-satisficer. With this comes a peculiarly modern conception of happiness as subjective well-being or satisfied preferences. On an Aristotelian conception, however, such happiness is only a good if one has good reason to be happy. Consequently if we are happy only because we have unnecessarily low expectations (e.g. because capitalism impoverished our sense of possibility) it would be better not to be happy but to find in our unhappiness the motivation to improve our conditions. “The unhappiness of grief, (...) of regret, (...) of fear are ineliminable elements of lives informed by friendship, by courageous risk-taking, and by a realistic view of how things are” (p. 202). Moreover, as we progress through life, on the Aristotelian picture, we will come to see directedness in our life : some goods will come to be more important than others and one good will come out on top. How we can find such an ordering is closely related to the question of how we can justify it to those who disagree with us. MacIntyre argues that such a justification will have to take the form of a narrative. On a theoretical level, it will be the narrative of how the traditions that inform our rank ordering have developed over time in response to the objections advanced by rival traditions. On the practical level, it will be the personal narrative of how the practical reasoner came to be the person they are today through the life-choices they made so far with the help of qualified others†teachers, parents, mentors, who know us well. With their help, if we deliberate carefully and cultivate the virtues, we will realize that some goods are not merely goods for us qua family members or qua workers but qua human beings and thus not merely goods for us and our lives but human lives in general. The final goods that give unity and direction to the narrative of our lives, will be discovered in the realization that our lives themselves serve goods and causes that are larger than those lives, pointing beyond them. The failure to discover such final, overriding goods will mean that we lead compartmentalized or haphazard lives. There is a theistic element, of course, to such an account as MacIntyre himself points out. Yet he emphasizes that even just the openness to such a final good might be enough for a happy life in the Aristotelian sense. The recognition that no finite good is the "beall-and-end-all of life - the readiness to inscribe our lives in projects and struggles that are larger than those lives" are what matters. MacIntyre realizes that life-narratives with unity and direction have been out of fashion, to put it mildly, in the literature and art of Western (post)modernity for a while. He wants us to “live against the cultural grain”(p. 238) and, in the fifth chapter, gives us four narratives as test cases for his theories (which arguably also, although up to what point is never made clear, illustrate the narrative of his own life). In this, MacIntyre shows his willingness to follow the methodological implications of his theories to the end. Although the history of philosophy is replete with thinkers who have written in a more literary vein, too, and it is still quite common in France, it Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) 132 - Reviews - 133 has become very unusual among Anglophone philosophers, which makes this part of the book most remarkable. Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) The first narrative deals with Vasily Grossman, a Soviet writer whose early identification with communism, like MacIntyre’s, was irrevocably shaken by Stalin’s crimes. The second looks at Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. MacIntyre commends her practical reasoning, which strikes one as Aristotelian, while observing that as a Supreme Court justice she was, of course, never open to any Marxist criticism of the liberal American order. The third and longest narrative is dedicated to the Marxist historian, novelist, cricket aficionado C. L. R. James from Trinidad. He broke with Trotsky over the question of the need for a separate black liberation movement and, like MacIntyre, argued that the exploited had to speak in the voices of many cultures and traditions and that political activity had to be grass-roots activity. Like MacIntyre, he also thought that once morality is discredited as a bourgeois institution, Marxism has no resources to propose a different morality. When arguing with those who stood to profit from capitalism, “appeals to benevolence or generosity were ruled out by Marx’s condemnation of abstract moralism. Appeals to the self-interest of the questioner were clearly not to the point. So Marxism often seemed to presuppose some crude variant of Benthamite utilitarianism. But Marx had rejected Bentham’s philosophy” (p. 282). Aristotelianism, as we have seen, has a story to tell here. The last narrative tells of the Irish Father Denis Faul, who first made a name for himself as an outspoken and relentless critic of Protestant English suppression of Catholics in Northern Ireland, yet who also drew the enmity of the IRA when he denounced their violence with equal fervor. MacIntyre argues that the Thomist notion of a just society became the overarching goal of his life, which allowed him to steer his course in a conflictridden society. Alasdair MacIntyre has given us an insightful treatise on the nature of practical reasoning, the narrative form of justification in ethical life, and the structure of political communities that enable such life and reasoning, which we will have to reckon with as both theoreticians and practical reasoners. David Kretz École normale supérieure, Département de philosophie Gregory Lenne Université Paris-Sorbonne, Département de philosophie Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info - Ecole Normale Supérieure - Paris - - 129.199.163.14 - 13/04/2018 18h30. © Presses de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.) Reviews