Perspectives on Political Science
ISSN: 1045-7097 (Print) 1930-5478 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vpps20
Manent and Perreau-Saussine on MacIntyre’s
Aristotelianism
Nathan J. Pinkoski
To cite this article: Nathan J. Pinkoski (2019) Manent and Perreau-Saussine on
MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism, Perspectives on Political Science, 48:2, 125-135, DOI:
10.1080/10457097.2018.1563402
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2018.1563402
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PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
2019, VOL. 48, NO. 2, 125–135
https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2018.1563402
REGULAR ARTICLE
Manent and Perreau-Saussine on MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism
Nathan J. Pinkoski
Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
ABSTRACT
This essay examines Pierre Manent’s and Emile Perreau-Saussine’s critique of Alasdair
MacIntyre. Both criticize MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelianism as an apolitical Aristotelianism, arguing that it is a deficient because it neglects Aristotle’s question of the best regime. In examining MacIntyre’s narrative biography of Justice O’Connor in Ethics in the Conflicts of
Modernity, I show the merit of this critique, in that it obscures what the applications of
MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism are in the modern polity. While MacIntyre is not without a strong
reply to their objections, I conclude that the deeper, unresolved disagreement MacIntyre
has with Manent and Perreau-Saussine is over how to characterize modernity.
The purpose of this essay is to develop a little-known
critique of Alasdair MacIntyre’s thought, made by
Emile
Perreau-Saussine in his 2005 book Alasdair
MacIntyre: une biographie intellectuelle, and by Pierre
Manent in the preface he wrote to that book.1 For
Perreau-Saussine and Manent, MacIntyre develops an
‘apolitical’ Aristotelianism, which does not actually
provide guidance for political action.2 This is because
he lacks an engagement with the Aristotelian question
of the best regime.
My aim in this essay is primarily to outline and
elevate this critique, arguing that it locates a central
vulnerability in MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelianism. To
demonstrate its validity, I apply this critique to
MacIntyre’s narrative biography of Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor in Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity. As
Perreau-Saussine and Manent argue, MacIntyre’s neoAristotelianism has scant resources for guiding action
within the modern polity. By elevating this critique,
however, I do not pretend that MacIntyre is without a
strong reply. Rather, I conclude that the character of
his reply discloses the deep—and yet unresolved—disagreement, between MacIntyre on the one hand and
Manent and Perreau-Saussine on the other, over the
character of modernity.
Revolutionary Aristotelianism or Apolitical
Aristotelianism?
In Alasdair MacIntyre: une biographie intellectuelle,
Perreau-Saussine and Pierre Manent charge MacIntyre
CONTACT Nathan J. Pinkoski
ß 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
pinkoski@princeton.edu
with an apolitical Aristotelianism, a charge originating
from three conclusions they make about MacIntyre’s
interpretation of Aristotle. First, they conclude that
MacIntyre’s Aristotle examines human beings as more
of a social animal than a political animal. MacIntyre
focuses on the moral practices disclosed in sub-political communities—fishing villages, guilds, and monasteries—and contrasts them to the deficient form
found in the modern political order, the liberal
nation-state.3 Second, MacIntyre makes the core of
practical life the virtues and practices of the artisan or
professional, not the virtues of the man engaged in
civic life.4 Third, MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism is an
Aristotelianism of the official opposition; he is silent
on why liberalism is so strong politically, does not
offer an alternative to liberal governance, and so practically concedes governance to liberalism.5
MacIntyre’s only published discussion of these
charges primarily addresses the first two of these conclusions. For MacIntyre, what makes human beings
more than animals restricted to a ‘social’ sphere of
family and household relationships is that they have a
conception of the achievement of goods, as well as of
the final or ultimate good. ‘The political dimension of
human life,’ MacIntyre writes, ‘receives its expression
in those institutionalized forms of deliberation
through which human agents are able to direct themselves, and to educate others as to how to direct
themselves towards the achievement of those goods
and that [final] good.’6 Fishing villages, guilds, and
monasteries are engaged in institutionalized forms of
Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
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N. J. PINKOSKI
deliberation directed toward the achievement of
goods. These communities are therefore not social
and sub-political, but social and political. For
MacIntyre, rational political agents and rational social
agents are engaged in the same kind of practice, oriented toward the good. Although MacIntyre departs
from Aristotle in favorably treating the practices of
artisans and craftsmen, he holds that Aristotle unjustifiably denigrated the practices of artisans and craftsmen.7 By orienting his enquiry around what it means
to be a rational social agent, MacIntyre dissolves
demarcations between artisans and craftsmen on the
one hand, and citizens on the other. He argues for a
continuous link between individual, social, and political reasoning. MacIntyre makes the basis of political
life the practices of rational agents, including artists or
craftsmen, because he holds ‘that the right place to
begin political enquiry … is by asking what it is for
human beings to act as reflective, practically rational
agents and what kind of social order is necessary if
they are to engage in shared deliberation about their
common goods.’8
In this, the modern liberal state does not provide.
It is a political form that cannot give a complete
expression to the political dimension of human lives.
It restricts effective citizenship to its elites. It does not
foster the institutions which would allow ordinary citizens to identify their shared needs and deliberate
together about how to achieve the common good.9
For these reasons, MacIntyre opposes the politics of
the modern liberal state with his ‘revolutionary’
Aristotelian understanding of political life. Claiming
to be radically political and politically radical,
MacIntyre’s reconstruction of the politics of the
Aristotelian tradition focuses on the basic level of
practice.10 Rather than discussing institutions,
MacIntyre sees the more important issue in specifying
what kinds of political practices need to be encouraged; institutions come after practices. His goal is to
subvert liberalism through strategies of Benedictinelike withdrawal and resistance, by fostering the kinds
of practices that enable the right kind of character formation, habituation in the virtues, which would permit human agents to work together to achieve
the good.11
There is no doubt that MacIntyre offers a powerful
and unrelenting philosophical and political critique of
liberalism. But one aspect his critique of liberalism
does not address is whether he offers a political alternative to liberalism. For Perreau-Saussine and
Manent, this is the nature of their third conclusion:
MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism is of the official
opposition, conceding government to liberalism. They
observe that while MacIntyre’s project is to resist and
subvert the liberal political regime, he offers no alternative to the liberal political regime. Perreau-Saussine
and Manent claim that in spite of MacIntyre’s philosophical and political critique of liberalism and his
avowed ‘revolutionary Aristotelianism,’ MacIntyre has
acquiesced to the liberal political regime. Why?
In his account of MacIntyre’s thought, PerreauSaussine broaches this issue by deploying the unique
genre of a philosophical biography that MacIntyre
develops. In MacIntyre’s genre of a philosophical
biography, it is an error to separate the philosophical
arguments from a philosopher’s biography. Instead,
the details of biographical life play a role in understanding the narrative of the philosopher’s life, and
therefore play a role in understanding why a particular philosopher develops the philosophical arguments
they do. To write about a philosopher in MacIntyre’s
genre is to explore the relationship between the philosopher’s life and the arguments the philosopher
expresses in writing.12
Perreau-Saussine is audacious enough to apply
MacIntyre’s genre to an intellectual biography of
MacIntyre himself.13 As a part of that intellectual
biography, he poses the question: why would
MacIntyre, the unrelenting critic of liberalism, voluntarily choose to emigrate from Europe to that commercial republic most faithful to the idea of liberal
Enlightenment, the United States of America?14
In Perreau-Saussine’s biography of MacIntyre, May
1968 exposed the internal contradictions of
MacIntyre’s thinking, during his teaching at the
University of Manchester. When met with students
urging political revolution, MacIntyre criticized their
political revolutionary actions and advised them to
exercise moral moderation in favor of the mission of
the university. These students then ridiculed
MacIntyre by observing how his own writings, even
from several days before, urged political revolution.15
MacIntyre had to choose between morality and political revolution. He chose morality. So he decided to
retire from political involvement. A year later, in
1969, he moved to America. MacIntyre’s critique of
liberalism, and of America, shifted in emphasis from a
primarily political critique to a primarily philosophical
critique.16 Once in America, he attacks liberalism for
the kinds of philosophical attitudes it promulgates.
But tellingly, MacIntyre does not present a political
alternative to America. By migrating to the United
States in 1969, MacIntyre acquiesces to the rule of liberalism exemplified by the United States. As
PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
MacIntyre explicitly states, attempts to overthrow liberalism end in ‘terrorism or quasi terrorism.’17
Stalinism and other extremist ideologies are ruled out.
MacIntyre is even willing to tolerate alliances with liberal states to defeat these ideologies.18 So with this
move to America, Perreau-Saussine believes
MacIntyre to henceforth consider liberal politics—
exemplified by America—as the default ‘political solution’ for the present.19 MacIntyre’s critique of liberalism shifts from a political proposal for overthrowing
liberalism to a critique of liberalism’s ‘generalization,’
the theoretical understanding of freedom informing
liberalism.20
It is possible that Perreau-Saussine goes too far in
giving a philosophical interpretation of MacIntyre’s
biography (even if this is on MacIntyre’s own terms).
Nevertheless, MacIntyre clearly argues in writing that
all political traditions have failed in the present.
Critically, both Marxism and Aristotelianism have
failed as political traditions, providing no practical
alternative to the political order of liberalism.21
MacIntyre takes care to note—a care that his critics
who accuse him of longing for a nostalgic past fail to
address—that the Aristotelian polis as a political form
based on the exclusion of slaves, women, artisans, and
non-Greeks from citizenship. While some neoAristotelian projects attempt to restructure the polis to
remedy these exclusions, admitting slaves, women,
artisans, and non-Greeks to participate fully in the life
of the polis, this would be inconceivable to Aristotle.22
Moreover, attempted reconstructions of Aristotle’s
polis fail to attend sufficiently to Aristotle’s own incoherence, since he simultaneously describes a human
ergon, while excluding the vast majority of humans
from realizing it.23 This exhaustion leaves no practical
political alternative to the liberal regime at present. It
is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and some
of its features, particularly some distinct features of
American liberalism, should be defended as part of
the present’s default political solution. MacIntyre contends that the American model of free-speech jurisprudence is better than more restrictive Continental
models. He defends the utility of state neutrality (the
separation of the states from churches and other comprehensive visions of the good), and maintains that
the liberal emphasis on toleration is an important value.24
For Perreau-Saussine, this is both a strength and
weakness. As a strength, MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism
leaves no place for flirtations with radical non-liberal
alternatives: Stalinism and fascism must be rejected, as
well as dreams for a restoration of an ancien regime,
127
Greek or otherwise.25 The weakness is that MacIntyre
does not consider Aristotle’s Politics. By neglecting the
analysis of the city, MacIntyre does not take up the
theme central to Aristotle’s Politics: the question of
the best regime.26
This weakness exposes the limits of MacIntyre’s
examination of the moral perfection of practical life
extant in social practices. The charge is not that
MacIntyre errs in examining these aspects, but that he
misses connecting it to a particular political form. As
Manent and Perreau-Saussine read Aristotle, the analysis of man and the requirements of moral life points
to the particular community he needs in order to realize his perfection. This is the city, the political community par excellence. Hence, to obtain a complete
account of human perfection, it is necessary to transition from the Nicomachean Ethics to the Politics.27
The analysis of the city that takes place in the Politics
points to different political forms, or regimes, into
which the city can be arranged. This in turn poses the
question of which regime is best for realizing human
perfection. Perreau-Saussine’s charge that MacIntyre
‘radically depoliticizes’ Aristotle is a charge that while
MacIntyre analyses man and the requirements of
moral life (as they are realized in social practices), he
stops short and does not relate it to a political form.28
MacIntyre’s concession that liberalism is the best political regime by default means he does not explicitly
justify why it is the best regime. So in emphasizing
how MacIntyre reluctantly acquiesces to the liberal
political regime, Perreau-Saussine shows that
MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism bypasses the question of
the best regime, and thereby the work of the Politics.
From Aristotle’s point of view, MacIntyre has no political science. For that reason, Perreau-Saussine writes:
‘with MacIntyre, one finds a ‘politics’ and a
‘philosophy;’ I am not certain that one finds a
‘political philosophy.’29
Practical Reasoning, The Problem of Guidance,
and the Role of Narratives
In brief, the accusation that MacIntyre has no political
science or political philosophy is that MacIntyre is not
providing practical advice on how to order the political regime or act within the modern polity. While
other versions of this accusation have been made,
Manent’s and Perreau-Saussine’s version bears directly
on the Aristotelian understanding of phronesis or
practical reasoning.30 If it is correct, it shows the limits of how MacIntyre’s research program claims to be
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N. J. PINKOSKI
an Aristotelian research program of practical
reasoning.31
For Manent and Perreau-Saussine, and the
Straussian understanding of Aristotelianism from
which they draw, phronesis addresses the critical question of what action itself means, so that we can act
well.32 This ‘problem of guidance’ is familiar to
Aristotelian scholarship. The point of the
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says, is not knowledge
but action.33 Readers of the Nicomachean Ethics desire
concrete advice about how to act.34 The point,
Aristotle writes, is to teach us ‘to become good, since
otherwise there would be no benefit from it. It is
necessary to examine matters pertaining to actions,
that is, how one ought to perform them.’35 To become
good requires above all else the virtue of phronesis.
Yet Aristotle importantly distinguishes two kinds of
phronesis. On the one hand, there is ‘knowing what
concerns oneself,’ and on the other, there is phronesis
concerned with the city: the political science or political art. While these two kinds of phronesis have the
same characteristic, their being is not the same.36
Political science, the kind to examine here, concerns
itself with the legislative art on the one hand, and the
narrow sense of ‘the political art’ on the other.37
If the task of those who practice the legislative art
is to realize the human good, then it is necessary to
know how to correct the laws and the rules that currently exist. The ultimate good depends on both kinds
of phronesis, including political science, for its realization. It depends therefore on legal reasoning. Those
who practice the legislative art, citizens, legislators and
judges, shape the laws, and have an important role to
play in helping others realize the ultimate good.38
Legislators and judges are seeking concrete advice on
how to act. To provide that concrete advice, Aristotle
in the Politics connects the legislative art to the political regime. He evaluates the laws by how successfully
they conform to the orientation of the regime.39 The
laws are designed to serve the regime.
For example, consider how Aristotle evaluates the
Spartan regime. Sparta has, in Aristotle’s analysis,
deviated from the republican principles of the regime
by passing bad laws over private property allowing for
wealth to be concentrated in the hands of the few.40
The laws produce results that are the opposite of what
the goals of the regime are supposed to be. This
contradiction make it harder for its citizens to identify
the principles governing the regime, so that conflicting principles have no resolution by reference to the
regime’s principles. This prepares the way for arbitrary rule of one governing principle against
another.41 Thankfully, students of the legislative art,
including citizens, have Aristotle’s classical political
science to help form the legislative aspect of their
phronesis, and help them and their political community avoid arbitrary rule and become good. In this formation, the regime plays a central role. Those who
practice the legislative art become good by gaining an
awareness of the principles of the regime and directing their actions toward preserving it.42
This addresses Aristotle’s guidance for phronesis,
but it only touches upon the problem of guidance.
What advice is specific enough to actually be able to
guide action? Aristotle uses particular examples to
teach us what successful instances of the application
of phronesis look like. But his examples are rare, no
more than an outline sketch.
In Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, MacIntyre
fills in this gap in the Aristotelian research program
by arguing that we need to acquire instruction in
phronesis through learning the narratives of other
rational agents. Narratives are important for
four reasons.
First is that for MacIntyre, our theoretical reasoning is not fully developed. The theoretical generalizations about practical reasoning are only understood
adequately through attention to particular cases of
practical reasoners. As After Virtue argues, understanding practical reasoning and the agents who
engage in practical reasoning is to give due attention
to their character as ‘story telling animals.’ The
actions of practical reasoners are made intelligible
through narratives.43 Once we understand the particular cases, we can apply the theoretical generalizations,
but not before. Narratives teach us how to apply the
theoretical generalizations to particular cases.44
The second reason is that just as our theoretical
reasoning is not yet fully developed, so our practical
reasoning is not yet fully developed. The study of particular agents exhibits the relevance of theoretical generalizations to agents engaged in practical reasoning.
Narratives are only understood if we have the right
theoretical generalizations.45 The third reason is that
to learn theoretical and practical reasoning, we require
narrative biographies of rational agents and political
communities. MacIntyre’s biographies are intended to
teach us the importance that the narratives of other
rational agents have for understanding practical reasoning.46 Moreover, practical reasoning is not compartmentalized; it includes politics. We need ‘to
examine instructive examples of the politics of local
community … so as to learn what makes such politics
effective and ineffective.’47 MacIntyre’s examples
PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
attempt to show why effective politics require the virtues, and therefore the conception of practical reasoning offered by the Aristotelian tradition.48
The fourth reason bears upon the lessons of narratives. Some of MacIntyre’s examples, particularly
where the politics of local communities are concerned,
seem to be examples to emulate and imitate. Yet
MacIntyre’s narrative biographies do not serve as
hagiography. The study of his narratives indicates
imperfections and ways his rational agents failed to
realize the good in particular instances.49 A common
lesson, MacIntyre suggests in his conclusion, is that
all four lives he narrates were incomplete: they failed
to achieve perfection.50
To summarize, then, MacIntyre provides narratives to assist in guiding us to the good, by providing
particular instances to help us learn phronesis. In
doing so, he develops Aristotle’s outline sketch, but
in a different way from Perreau-Saussine and
Manent. While both interpretations stress the
importance of providing ethical guidance for action,
the kind of interpretation to which Perreau-Saussine
and Manent are closer emphasizes the role the theoretical principles informing the regime must play in
guiding action, discerned in the reflections of the
regime’s ordinary citizens. For them, MacIntyre
omits providing this kind of reflection. While their
Aristotelianism can provide guidance on how to act
in the polity, MacIntyre’s narratives cannot. Is their
assessment of MacIntyre correct?
MacIntyre’s Biography of Justice O’Connor
One narrative MacIntyre provides is that of Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor. In his short biography of
Justice O’Connor, MacIntyre considers her as a
rational agent engaged in the ranking and ordering of
goods. His biography is a brief account of how she
ranked and ordered goods throughout her youth, her
decision to pursue a legal career, in her decisions as a
Supreme Court Justice, and finally in her decision to
retire. Although MacIntyre does not explicitly divide
his account along the lines Aristotle divides his
account of phronesis, MacIntyre’s account does cover
the same themes. The issue to bear in mind is
whether MacIntyre’s account effectively addresses the
problem of guidance.
In one respect, MacIntyre’s biography of Justice
O’Connor seems a decisive reproach to this claim that
MacIntyre does not provide instruction in political
science. Here is a biography of someone immersed in
the legislative art, as MacIntyre is well aware.
129
Disclosing his intention in providing this biography,
he writes: ‘I am concerned to ask what patterns of
practical reasoning were exemplified in her choices to
think and act as she did in arriving at her decisions
on the United States Supreme Court, what it was
about her as a rational agent that made her the judge
that she was.’51 While a legal theorist might be concerned with how she reasoned with respect to particular legal precedents, MacIntyre hopes to connect her
legal reasoning to the broader issue of phronesis and
the human good. This hope aligns with the
Aristotelian account of phronesis outlined above. The
ultimate good depends on politics for its realization. It
depends therefore on laws. Judges, as practitioners of
legal reasoning, have an important role to play in
helping others realize the ultimate good.
By paying attention to details outside her legal
judgements, MacIntyre describes the phronesis of
Justice O’Connor as instances of the other kind of
phronesis, distinct from political science: she knows
what concerns herself. MacIntyre observes how she
ranked the goods of her legal judgements beneath
other goods. This is clear from her decision to retire
from the Supreme Court at the age of seventy-five for
the goods of family and married life.52 Moreover, she
had cultivated a series of virtues since an early age: a
‘combination of patience, intelligence, a respect for
others, and a certain quiet, but sometimes abrasive
relentlessness in the advancement of her legal career
and in her life in general is notable.’53 This relentlessness allowed her to gain what she wanted and overcome prejudice against women at various stages
throughout her career.54
Although these aspects are favorable evaluations of
Justice O’Connor, when MacIntyre turns to the other
kind of phronesis, political science, his narrative
becomes critical. MacIntyre’s criticisms address Justice
O’Connor’s legal reasoning. MacIntyre’s charge is that
in her legal reasoning, Justice O’Connor is helped, but
ultimately limited, by the background narrative that
informs her practical reasoning. The background narrative operating in the life of Justice O’Connor is one
where the social order of the United States is engaged
on a continuing, though uneven, progress toward
democracy, liberty, and equality. That background
narrative has beneficial, helpful aspects. It provides
some of the resources for opposing discrimination
against women, as well as racial discrimination. Yet
MacIntyre criticizes this background narrative because
it does not address the problems of the United States,
stemming from its status as a modern liberal state: it
is governed by a plutocracy that prevents effective
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N. J. PINKOSKI
participation in government and restricts the series of
choices in elections to a select few.55 Implicit in
MacIntyre’s charge is that Justice O’Connor failed to
shape the laws in a manner that helped others realize
the ultimate good.
The critical problem with the way Justice
O’Connor reasons is that she sets up a false opposition between theoretical, abstract reasoning on the
one hand, and the particularities of social life on the
other. In her decisions, Justice O’Connor fled from a
‘Grand Unified Theory,’ rejecting bedrock principles
that could conflict with one another.56 Justice
O’Connor criticized excessive theoretical abstraction
in practical reasoning. For this reason, one sympathetic to an Aristotelian account of practical reasoning
might be inclined to praise Justice O’Connor. Yet by
criticizing theory, O’Connor breaks from Aristotelian
practical reasoning.57 O’Connor’s problem is that she
is ‘Burkean.’58 MacIntyre has no fondness for Burke;
whenever he charges someone with Burkeanism, it is
a sign something has gone wrong. For MacIntyre,
Burkeans acknowledge the importance of tradition.
Yet denying that theoretical reasoning helps constitute
tradition, they elevate tradition while denigrating theoretical reasoning.59
MacIntyre’s criticism of Justice O’Connor relates to
his
criticism
of
contemporary
Aristotelians.
Contemporary
Aristotelians, including Martha
Nussbaum and Sarah Broadie, reject a ‘Grand End’
view of practical reasoning, where one first needs theoretical knowledge of the ultimate good to act correctly. They are correct in that it is mistaken to think
that an agent’s choice shows the virtue of prudence
only if it realizes the agent’s grand picture, ‘a true and
acceptable account of the good.’60 Yet the camp of
contemporary Aristotelians mistakenly argue that a
genuine Aristotelian position takes the theoretical conception of the ultimate good as irrelevant to an agent’s
practical reasoning. By contrast, MacIntyre argues that
turning to a theoretical conception of the ultimate
good helps justify the choices human agents make.61
He stresses the practical relevance to the agent of a
theoretically grounded conception of the ultimate
good.62 This conception of what is ultimately good
and best for human beings is required to provide the
adequate premises for sound practical reasoning. In
the absence of these theoretical principles an agent
cannot reason well. Moreover, these theoretical principles serve to supply stability of meaning and thereby
objectivity, warding off various forms of ethical relativism.63 For MacIntyre, O’Connor’s legal reasoning is
deficient because she does not refer to theoretical
principles upon which her legal reasoning must be
based. By rejecting theoretical principles, she is guilty
of the same mistake as contemporary Aristotelians.
But which specific theoretical principles should
serve for legal reasoning? By what theoretical principles should O’Connor have made her legal judgements? MacIntyre does not address this. He is more
interested in pointing out that she is limited by her
political culture, a tradition that failed to understand
adequately the role of theory in practical reasoning,
than in answering these questions. He does not analyse a particular case and argue that she should have
reasoned to a different conclusion than that which she
did reach. Instead, MacIntyre observes a general deficiency. He has his eye on a certain good in legal reasoning that Justice O’Connor lacked: attention to the
facts of financial, educational, political, and legal
inequalities.64
This omission makes MacIntyre’s account paradoxical. He selects for a narrative biography, intended to
guide us in phronesis, a life that is immersed in the
modern liberal state. Justice O’Connor participates in
the modern liberal state. Therefore, she is not someone who practices the forms of resistance that
MacIntyre’s revolutionary Aristotelianism advocates.
Yet MacIntyre criticizes her for failing to act in her
legal judgements within the institutions of the modern
liberal state in a way that was conducive to realizing
equality. MacIntyre holds that Justice O’Connor
should have acted differently (sometimes but not
always). But he does not tell us how she should have
done so and how she could have reached outcomes
that attended to financial, educational, political, and
legal inequalities.
This is exactly what Perreau-Saussine and Manent
identify as MacIntyre’s weakness. He can criticize
from the opposing benches, but when it comes to the
hard task of government, of identifying what equality
is in a particular instance and how it can be pursued
in a particular instance, he is silent. Justice O’Connor,
on account of her inadequate legal reasoning, is a
prisoner of her own political culture. There is no consideration of how she might have reasoned differently.
In the absence of this account, MacIntyre effectively
consigns those like Justice O’Connor to their prison.
He tells them they are in prison, but provides no plan
for their escape. He thus concedes governance of the
liberal regime to Burkeans.65
MacIntyre does not provide us with the resources
to be educated in the legislative aspect of phronesis.
How would an account of the regime help? It is the
account of the regime that provides an account of the
PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
ends or purpose of the laws. It connects legislative
reasoning to a set of theoretical principles that can
then guide phronesis, so that one can act to realize the
human good, whether individual or held together in
common. In that way, awareness of what the regime
is addresses the problem of guidance described above.
With that in mind, we can consider the one case
for which MacIntyre refers to O’Connor’s specific
legal criticisms: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court
decision that found first-trimester abortion to be an
unqualified constitutional right. MacIntyre’s example
is telling, as he selects the one judgement which,
when opportunity presented O’Connor with a chance
to revise or strike it down she–in spite of her disagreements with the substance of the judgement
itself—decided to uphold it in Planned Parenthood v.
Casey. As a judge on record against Roe v. Wade, yet
upholding it as law, O’Connor dodged the issue of
whether the principle behind it was right or wrong. A
prisoner of her own culture, she clung unreflectively
to tradition, just as one might expect of a Burkean.
Yet if we apply Manent’s and Perreau-Saussine’s
understanding of political science and prioritize the
perspective of the citizen, this example shows that liberal and conservative citizens within that culture
thought she had clear alternatives over how to act.66
Liberals and conservatives have a number of theoretical failings, but they do make a claim to the veracity
of certain theoretical principles, as MacIntyre notes;
moreover, it is their insistence on these principles that
leads them to criticize Justice O’Connor.67 Presented
in a manner familiar to a ‘naïve’ American citizen, the
claim of each faction implicates the principle of equality to which MacIntyre refers. A ‘liberal’ critique of
Roe v. Wade argues that the decision sets aside a
woman’s capacity to make choices for the sake of
technical limitations on privacy rights. Equality features here in women having access to choices that are
also available to men. A ‘conservative’ critique of Roe
v. Wade argues that by failing to protect the lives of
the unborn, the decision asserts that some human
lives are worth more than others, and denies legal
protection to certain human lives, thereby cementing
inequality. 68
The salient point here is that the labeling offered
by the ‘naïve’ American citizen discloses an important
similarity between the two factions. Both the conservative and the liberal criticisms argue that legal reasoning should take place from established theoretical
principles. While both factions dispute which theoretical first principles hold true and how the law should
enact these principles, they agree that there are
131
theoretical principles. They hold that those engaged in
legal reasoning should recognize these theoretical
principles, and those engaged in legal reasoning
should act from these theoretical principles. For that
reason, the liberal and conservative are closer to representing a genuine Aristotelian research program
than either Justice O’Connor or the contemporary
Aristotelians.
However, both liberal and conservatives do not
access these principles directly, leading to another
Aristotelian feature of their reasoning. Both claim
authority for their actions by referring to legal theoretical principles. In Aristotelian terms, they refuse to
discount one kind of phronesis and set legal reasoning
aside. From their reference to legal principles, they
take an additional step. They evaluate the law—in this
case, Roe v. Wade—by how successfully it conforms to
the orientation of the regime. For both liberals and
conservatives, the issue is resolvable by reference to
what kind of theoretically permanent principles are
supposed to govern the political regime of the United
States. Like Aristotle’s judgement of the Spartan
regime, it is by this standard that they judge the
American regime. Now, the claim is not that liberals
and conservatives are perfect Aristotelians. They reason as partisans, and as partisans, their reasoning is
surely incomplete. Yet as partisans, they have a partial
sense of what justice in the American regime should
be, and argue for it. In that sense, their reasoning
with respect to the American regime parallels the kind
of judgement to which Aristotle reasons with respect
to the Spartan regime.
Yet unlike Aristotle, and unlike liberals and conservatives, MacIntyre does not provide an example as to
how one should reason with respect to the American
regime. MacIntyre’s silence on the specifics of how or
where to identify the principles of the regime leaves
one with no instruction in how to address this problem, and identify which decisions of O’Connor and
other judges were to be welcomed and which were
not to be welcomed. In practice, it is an embrace of
the status quo. It leaves the legislative art affirming
decisions that those with differing theoretical principles find disquieting. Exacerbating the problem of the
Spartan regime, it heightens the sense that the governing principles are arbitrary. Moreover, it does not
actually advance the human good for those living
within the regime.
What the liberals and conservatives grasp in these
instances is that the question of what the law should
be refers to the human good, held together in common. The law forms and shapes human action to
132
N. J. PINKOSKI
better achieve the common good. The laws receive
their meaning and direction from the theoretical principles provided by the kind of regime in which they
operate. The legislative art successfully addresses the
human good by how well its judgements correspond
to the best regime for realizing the human good.
Liberals and conservatives counter contemporary
Aristotelianism and guide action, fulfilling an important aspiration of the Aristotelian research program.
MacIntyre’s reticence over guiding one to act within
the framework of the liberal regime prevents him
from providing similar guidance. It is the ordinary liberal and conservative citizen who has intuited
Aristotelianism in a way that is more helpful for guiding phronesis than MacIntyre explicitly provides. This
is because they connect legal reasoning to the theoretical principles of the regime in which legal reasoning
takes place.
Liberals and conservatives might have deeper theoretical flaws, but the narrative of Justice O’Connor suggests that it is they, not MacIntyre, who are closer to
overcoming Burkeanism in practical reasoning. It is
they, not MacIntyre, who have a political science. A
reluctance to discuss how to form and shape institutions, notably through reasoning about the laws, hinders the capacity of MacIntyre’s Aristotelian research
program to guide action in the modern polity, leading
to a perpetuation of the status quo. MacIntyre’s critical narrative of Justice O’Connor, then, vindicates an
important aspect of the ‘apolitical’ Aristotelianism
charge presented against MacIntyre by PerreauSaussine and Manent.
Conclusion: Aristotelianism in the Conflicts
of Modernity
Although Manent’s and Perreau-Saussine’s critique of
MacIntyre deserves wider consideration, my purpose
in elevating it is not to conclude with another audacious refutation of MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism. First,
MacIntyre himself acknowledges this limitation. His
Aristotelianism emphasizes ‘the kind of reflective
practice’ that is needed in the modern polity, rather
than the actions required within the particular institutions of the modern polity, or which political institutions might better realize the human good.69 Like
Marx, MacIntyre offers no ‘blueprint’ for the best
regime.70 Providing a blueprint for the best regime
beyond references to particular instances of excellent
political practices could constrain practices to particular institutions. To provide a blueprint of political
institutions in advance threatens to substitute the
internal good of the practice for the external good of
the institutions. Ultimately, if one acts for the sake of
preserving the institution and not for the sake of pursuing the good internal to the practice, it implies a
version of conservatism that MacIntyre is loath to
adopt.71 Instead, to bring about a political order that
realizes the common good, MacIntyre places the
emphasis on nascent practices or even practices not
yet born. This is how ‘hope’ directs us beyond what
empirical facts seem to show.72
Second, it is more fruitful to consider how this dispute over the inapplicability of MacIntyre’s project to
the modern polity discloses deeper disagreements over
the nature of modernity and liberalism. For
MacIntyre, any enquiry that starts from the opinions
of ordinary citizens of the dominant cultural and
social order, political partisans within the United
States, is ‘taking for granted the categories’ (we can
also say the institutions) ‘of the present day dominant
cultural and social order.’73 It is therefore a misstep to
start from the opinion of ordinary citizens. While
MacIntyre’s frequent invocations of ‘plain persons’ as
an exemplar of reflective practice sound like they
might refer to the ordinary citizen, in actual fact they
do not. MacIntyre’s considered position must be that
the “average denizen of liberal-bourgeois societies is
not a plain person,” making the plain person far rarer
than a first reading of his work might indicate.74 The
social culture of modernity, emotivism, has advanced
too far. While many of MacIntyre’s critics think he
aims to repeat or restore lost theories and practices of
pre-modernity, MacIntyre actually seems to place us
in a dramatically more difficult situation, where premodernity does not provide either the practical and
theoretical resources necessary to overcome modernity. Therein lies the need for hope. For now, with
Aristotelianism exhausted as a political tradition and
trusting neither the dominant political institutions nor
its inhabitants, the situation is genuinely aporetic. The
Aristotelian political science, which would have to
start from the opinions of the average denizens, is not
possible in modernity.
By contrast, Manent and Perreau-Saussine are
much more sympathetic to the categorisations of
modernity, and indeed defend them explicitly against
erosions, which they think are intensified in late modernity.75 This leads to their second deep disagreement
with MacIntyre: a “disagreement about the modern state.”76
Manent and Perreau-Saussine are sympathetic to
the modern liberal state because they sympathize with
its Enlightenment origins. For them, the origins of
PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
modernity are an attempt to remedy the theologicopolitical problem. Manent defines the theologico-political problem in terms of the political effect of
Christian revelation. Modern political development is
only comprehensible as a history of the responses to
the problems posed by the Church, which claimed to
form the perfect political community; in this vision,
God determines the best regime.77 Modernity is antitheological or anti-clerical in that it aims to curtail the
power of the church over the temporal realm, taking
the question of the best regime out of the hands of
revelation.78 Defending liberalism as the settlement of
this theologico-political problem, Manent and
Perreau-Saussine argue for a regime that grants a certain autonomy to the temporal realm and primacy to
the political, corresponding to the modern, liberal
nation state. They trust the average denizen of the
modern liberal state to provide some of the ‘common
sense understanding of political things’ for navigating
modernity and responding to challenges to the liberal
regime. In modernity, therefore, an Aristotelian political science is possible.79
MacIntyre does not address the theologico-political
problem.80 His account of the origins of modernity
and the Enlightenment is an account of a philosophical project to reject Aristotelian reflective reasoning
by rejecting teleology. The ambiguous theoretical basis
of this project, individualism or voluntarism, culminates in the social culture of emotivism. Liberalism is
complicit in that project, so it cannot be condoned.
The choice we face in modernity is a choice for or
against voluntarism.81 MacIntyre associates modernity
with a philosophical error, and sees that error embodied in liberal social culture. Because MacIntyre is
focused exclusively on justifiable practices of reflective
reasoning, not sustained in modernity, the impulse of
his thought is toward the rejection of the liberalism
and suspicion of its denizens.
What moderates Manent’s stance toward liberalism
and elevates his view of its denizens is his account of
modernity. But if Manent states the best case for
understanding modernity in terms of the theologicopolitical problem and MacIntyre states the best case
for understanding modernity in terms of the development of liberal individualism or voluntarism, it is not
yet clear how each can learn from each other: how
both the theologico-political problem and the critique
of liberal individualism should feature and relate to
each other in our understanding of modernity. At
stake in this discussion would be the questions of our
times: the due given to the perspective of the ordinary
133
citizen, our stance toward liberalism, and what kind
of Aristotelianism is now possible.
Notes
1. Emile
Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair MacIntyre: une
biographie intellectuelle (hereafter MBI) (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 2005). I thank Roberta L.
Bayer, Dominic Burbidge, Alexander Duff, Kelvin
Knight, and Geoffrey T. Sigalet for their helpful
comments on earlier versions of this essay.
2. Pierre Manent, ‘Preface,’ in MBI, 2.
3. Manent, ‘Preface,’ 2–3; c.f. MBI, 54, 123, 126, 128.
4. Manent, ‘Preface,’ 3; c.f. MBI, 43, 94–95, 126, 128.
5. Manent, ‘Preface,’ 5–6; c.f. MBI, 53, 59, 93, 164.
6. Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘Replies,’ Revue internationale de
philosophie 204 (2013), 206.
7. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (hereafter AV), 3rd
Ed (South Bend: University of Notre Dame, 2007),
159; Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London:
Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 1988), 104.
8. MacIntyre, ‘Replies,’ 206–207.
9. MacIntyre, ‘Replies,’ 204.
10. Kelvin Knight, ‘Revolutionary Aristotelianism,’ in
Virtue and Politics:
Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism,
edited by Paul Blackledge and Kelvin Knight (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), 34.
11. AV, xvi, 263. Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘An Interview with
Giovanna Borrado,’ in The MacIntyre Reader, Edited
by Kelvin Knight (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 265;
‘How Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary:
Ethics, Resistance, and Utopia,’ in Virtue and Politics:
Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism,
edited by Paul Blackledge and Kelvin Knight (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), 12–13;
Knight, ‘Revolutionary Aristotelianism,’ 30, 32-34;
Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from
Aristotle to MacIntyre. Cambridge: Polity Press,
2007), 179–89.
12. See Alasdair MacIntyre, The Tasks of Philosophy.
Selected Essays, Vol. I. Cambridge: (Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 132. For MacIntyre’s own selfunderstanding of what he had learned from living in
the United States, see MacIntyre, ‘An Interview with
Giovanna Borrado,’ 266.
13. C.f. Thomas D’Andrea, Tradition, Rationality, and
Virtue. The Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre (Aldershot:
Ashgate Press, 2006). He confines MacIntyre’s
biography to an opening chapter.
14. MBI, 40, 124.
15. MBI, 30.
16. MBI, 91–92.
17. MacIntyre,
‘An
Interview
with
Giovanna
Borrado,’ 265.
18. MacIntyre, ‘Politics, Philosophy, and the Common
Good,’ in The
MacIntyre Reader, edited by Kelvin Knight
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 252.
19. MBI, 53.
134
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
N. J. PINKOSKI
MBI, 53.
MBI, 47; See also AV, 255.
MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 105.
Alasdair MacIntyre, Ethics in the Conflicts of
Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning,
and Narrative (hereafter ECM) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2016), 86; see also
MacIntyre, ‘Replies,’ 204.
Alasdair MacIntyre, “Toleration and the Goods of
Conflict,” Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Vol. II
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 205,
207, 214, 220.
This is also a weakness of Heideggerian appropriations
of Aristotle. See Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy, 88101, 223.
MBI, 54, 128. Perreau-Saussine draws from Leo
Strauss, The City and Man ((Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1964), 48-49.
Perreau-Saussine contrasts MacIntyre to Hannah
Arendt: Arendt drops the Nicomachean Ethics,
whereas MacIntyre drops the Politics. MBI, 54.
MBI, 54.
MBI, 128.
Keith Breen, “The State, Compartmentalization and
the Turn to Local Community: A Critique of the
Political Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre,” The
European Legacy 10:5 (2005), 485–501.
AV, 146–47.
Manent, Preface, 2; Leo Strauss, “An Epilogue,” in
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1989), 205–206.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter EN), trans. by
Robert Bartlett and Susan Collins (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2011), 1095a5-6.
Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An
Introduction (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2005), 15, 210.
EN 1103b26-30.
EN 1142b24-25.
See Leo Strauss, The City and Man, 23–24.
€s, Le philosophe et la cite (Paris,
See Bodeu
1982), 118–25.
€s, ‘Law and
Politics 1289a13-15. See also Richard Bodeu
the Regime in Aristotle,’ in Essays on the Foundation
of Aristotelian Political Science, Ed. by Carnes Lord
and David O’Connor (Oxford: University of California
Press, 1991), 239.
€s, ‘Law and the Regime
Politics 1270a18-19. See also Bodeu
in Aristotle,’ 240. See also 1324b5-7, where the jumble of
laws means their proponents aim at domination.
€s, ‘Law and the Regime in Aristotle,’ 241–42.
Bodeu
Mary Nichols, Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of
Aristotle’s Politics (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 1992), 123.
AV, 216; ECM, 236–37.
ECM, 311.
ECM, 311.
ECM, 244.
MacIntyre, ‘Politics, Philosophy, and the Common
Good,’ 252.
ECM, 176-83, esp. 180, 181. See also MacIntyre, ‘How
Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary, 17–19.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
C.f. Vasily Grossman’s double-life in the USSR, one
common for every inhabitant of modern society. ECM,
248–49, 264.
ECM, 314.
ECM, 264.
ECM, 264-65.
ECM, 265.
ECM, 266.
ECM, 266.
ECM, 268.
ECM, 271–72.
ECM, 271.
See AV, 221-22; D’Andrea, ‘Tradition, Rationality, and
Virtue,’ 65-66; Knight, ‘Aristotelian Philosophy,’
132-33.
Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 198. Cited in Alasdair
MacIntyre, Ethics and Politics. Selected Essays, Vol. II
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 22.
MacIntyre characterizes Sarah Broadie as a
‘contemporary Aristotelian.’ She argues that MacIntyre
subscribes to the ‘Grand End’ view.
MacIntyre, Ethics and Politics, 36.
MacIntyre, Ethics and Politics, 26.
MacIntyre, The Tasks of Philosophy, 150, 52.
ECM, 273.
The critique of Justice O’Connor reveals her
Burkeanism as a rupture with the practical reasoning of
Aristotle. Her Burkean practical reasoning takes its
standard of justification by rejecting theory in the name
of social, or one might say historical, practice. It thereby
disregards theoretical permanencies. In this respect,
there is an aspect of MacIntyre’s critique of Burkeanism
that aligns with a different critique of Burkeanism,
where Burke’s apparent recovery of phronesis by
emphasizing practice against theory is in fact a break
from Aristotle and the classics. Burke thereby intensifies
the crisis of historicism. See Leo Strauss, Natural Right
and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1953), 311. Yet if MacIntyre concedes governance to
Burkeans, he cannot overcome historicism.
Strauss, “An Epilogue,” 206–207.
ECM, 271–72.
Michael Stokes Paulsen and Luke Paulsen, The
Constitution: An Introduction (New York: Basic Books
2015), 270-76. C.f. Michael Stokes Paulsen, ‘The Worst
Constitutional Decision of All Time,’ Notre Dame Law
Review 78:4 (May 2003), 998–99.
MacIntyre, “Replies”, 204.
Knight, ‘Revolutionary Aristotelianism,’ 34. C.f.
David Leopold, The Young Karl Marx: German
Philosophy, Modern Politics, and Human Flourishing
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 27879; 288-93.
Knight, ‘Revolutionary Aristotelianism,’ 25–27.
MacIntyre, ‘How Aristotelianism Can Become
Revolutionary,’ 19.
MacIntyre, “Replies”, 206.
Ronald Beiner, Political Philosophy: What it is and
Why It Matters (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 188.
PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
See Manent, Cours familier de philosophie politique
(Paris: Gallimard, 2001), 23–37; Situation de la France
(Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 2015), 10-11, 84, 96;
Perreau-Saussine, Catholicisme et democratie: une
histoire de la pensee politique (Paris: Les Editions
du
Cerf, 2011), 248–56.
MacIntyre, “Replies,” 205.
MBI, 115; Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du liberalisme
(Paris: Pluriel 2011), 20–21, 34–35.
MBI, 116.
C.f. Leo Strauss, The City and Man, 11–12, 25; “An
Epilogue,” 208-10.
80.
81.
135
MBI, 116-117, 126; see also Aristide Tessitore,
“MacIntyre and Aristotle on the Foundation of Virtue,”
in Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of
Political Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 2002), 153.
AV, 109–120; Christopher Lutz, Reading Alasdair
MacIntyre’s After Virtue (London: Continuum Press,
2012), 44–46.
ORCID
Nathan J. Pinkoski
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-5922