CY197-FM CY197/Murphy 0521790425 April17,2003 12:40 Alasdair MacIntyre Edited by MARK C. MURPHY GeorgetownUniversity v CY197-FM CY197/Murphy 0521790425 April17,2003 12:40 PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE ThePittBuilding,TrumpingtonStreet,Cambridge,UnitedKingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS TheEdinburghBuilding,CambridgeCB22RU,UK 40West20thStreet,NewYork,NY10011-4211,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia RuizdeAlarco´n13,28014Madrid,Spain DockHouse,TheWaterfront,CapeTown8001,SouthAfrica http://www.cambridge.org (cid:1)C CambridgeUniversityPress2003 Thisbookisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithout thewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2003 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica TypefacesJansonTextRoman10/13pt.and ITCOfficinaSans SystemLATEX2ε [TB] AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationdata AlasdairMacIntyre/editedbyMarkC.Murphy. p. cm.–(Contemporaryphilosophyinfocus) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-521-79042-5–ISBN0-521-79381-5(pbk.) 1.MacIntyre,AlasdairC. I.Murphy,MarkC. II.Series. B1647.M124A43 2003 192–dc21 2002035081 ISBN0521790425hardback ISBN0521793815paperback vi CY197-FM CY197/Murphy 0521790425 April17,2003 12:40 Contents List of Contributors page xi Introduction 1 markc.murphy 1 MacIntyre on History and Philosophy 10 gordongraham 2 Tradition in the Recent Work of Alasdair MacIntyre 38 jeanporter 3 MacIntyre in the Province of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences 70 stephenp.turner 4 Modern(ist) Moral Philosophy and MacIntyrean Critique 94 j.l.a.garcia 5 MacIntyre and Contemporary Moral Philosophy 114 davidsolomon 6 MacIntyre’s Political Philosophy 152 markc.murphy 7 MacIntyre’s Critique of Modernity 176 terrypinkard Bibliography 201 Index 221 ix CY197-FM CY197/Murphy 0521790425 April17,2003 12:40 Contributors J. L. A. GARCIA is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. His work spansmetaethics,normativeethics,andappliedethics,andhealsowriteson philosophicalsociology.Amonghispapersare“DoubleEffect,”Encyclopedia ofBioethics,ed.WarrenReich,secondedition(1995);“TheNewCritique of Anti-Consequentialist Moral Theory,” Philosophical Studies 71 (1993); “The Tunsollen, the Seinsollen, and the Soseinsollen,” American Philosophical Quarterly23(1986);and“GoodsandEvils,”PhilosophyandPhenomenological Research47(1987).HeiscurrentlyatworkonTheHeartofRacism,abook ofessays. GORDON GRAHAM is Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the UniversityofAberdeen,aFellowoftheRoyalSocietyofEdinburgh,and editor of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy. He has published extensively inaesthetics,ethics,appliedphilosophy,andthephilosophyofhistory.His mostrecentbooksareTheShapeofthePast:APhilosophicalApproachtoHistory (1997), PhilosophyoftheArts,secondedition(2000),EvilandChristianEthics (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry (2002). MARK C. MURPHY is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He writes on ethics, political philosophy, the philosophy of law, the philosophy of religion, and the moral and political theory of ThomasHobbes.HeistheauthorofNaturalLawandPracticalRationality (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and An Essay on Divine Authority (2002). TERRY PINKARD isProfessorofPhilosophyatNorthwesternUniversity. HisresearchinterestscoverGermanphilosophyaswellaspoliticalphiloso- phyandthephilosophyoflaw.HeistheauthorofHegel’sPhenomenology:The Sociality of Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Hegel: A Biography (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and German Philosophy 1760–1860: TheLegacyofIdealism(CambridgeUniversityPress,2002). xi CY197-FM CY197/Murphy 0521790425 April17,2003 12:40 xii Contributors JEAN PORTER is JohnA.O’BrienProfessorofTheologyattheUniversity of Notre Dame. Working primarily in moral theology, she is the author of numerous articles as well as of Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (1999), Moral Action and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1995), and The Recovery of Virtue: The RelevanceofAquinasforChristianEthics(1990). DAVID SOLOMON is Associate Professor and H. P. and W. B. White DirectoroftheCenterforEthicsandCultureattheUniversityofNotre Dame.Hisworkfocusesonnormativeandappliedethics.Amonghispapers are“InternalObjectionstoVirtueEthics,”MidwestStudiesinPhilosophy13 (1988),and“MoralRealismandtheAmoralist,”MidwestStudiesinPhilosophy 12(1987).Heiscurrentlyworkingonabookontherevivalofvirtueethics incontemporarymoralphilosophy. STEPHEN P. TURNER is Graduate Research Professor and Chair of PhilosophyattheUniversityofSouthFlorida.Hehaswrittenextensivelyon thephilosophyofsocialscienceandthehistoryofsocialscience,including severalbooksonMaxWeber.HeeditedTheCambridgeCompaniontoWeber andrecentlycoedited,withPaulRoth,theBlackwellGuidetothePhilosophy ofSocialScience.HismostrecentbooksareBrains/Practices/Relativism:Social TheoryafterCognitiveScience(2002)andLiberalDemocracy3.0:CivilSociety inanAgeofExpertise(2002). CY197-01 CY197/Murphy 0521790425 March31,2003 7:48 Introduction MARK C. MURPHY Ina1991interview,AlasdairMacIntyresummarizedthehistoryofhisown philosophicalworkasfollows: My life as an academic philosopher falls into three parts. The twenty- two years from 1949, when I became a graduate student of philosophy at Manchester University, until 1971 were a period, as it now appears retrospectively,ofheterogeneous,badlyorganized,sometimesfragmented andoftenfrustratingandmessyenquiries,fromwhichnonethelessinthe end I learned a lot. From 1971, shortly after I emigrated to the United States,until1977wasaninterimperiodofsometimespainfullyself-critical reflection....From1977onwardsIhavebeenengagedinasingleproject towhichAfterVirtue[1981],WhoseJustice?WhichRationality?[1988],and ThreeRivalVersionsofMoralEnquiry[1990]arecentral.(MacIntyre1991a, pp.268–269) The seven chapters that follow deal, for the most part,1 with aspects of MacIntyre’smatureposition,thethesesthathaveemergedfromthe“single project” – I will call this, for shorthand, the “After Virtue project” – to which After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, and (since that interview) Dependent Rational Animals (1999)havecontributed.MyaiminthisIntroductionistoprovide,albeit sketchily, some context for the emergence of MacIntyre’s mature view. I wanttosaysomething,thatis,aboutthepre-1971inquiriesthathelabels “fragmented.” It is true that MacIntyre’s writings during this period are remarkablydiverseinthetopicstreated,inthestylesemployed,andinthe forainwhichtheyappeared.Onedoesnotfindthesinglenessofpurpose andthecoherenceofthoughtthatmarkhislaterwork.Butthereisnonethe- less a set of concerns and commitments exhibited in these writings that makes intelligible the trajectory of MacIntyre’s work to and beyond After Virtue. 1 CY197-01 CY197/Murphy 0521790425 March31,2003 7:48 2 MARKC.MURPHY 1. SOCIALCRITICISM,IDEOLOGY,ANDPHILOSOPHY ThedirectionofMacIntyre’searlyworkismadeintelligiblebyhissearch foranadequatestandpointfromwhichtoengageinlarge-scalesocialcrit- icism,hisconvictionthatMarxismwasthemostpromisingstandpointon offer, and his view that available formulations of Marxist doctrine were nonethelessultimatelyinadequatetothistask. MacIntyre’s intellectual work has always been at the service of social criticism.(Thisistruenotonlyofhisearlywritings,butalsoofthework belonging to the After Virtue project. The notion that the MacIntyre of the After Virtue project is some sort of social and political conservative is giventheliebytheextenttowhichhislaterworkemphasizesthewaysin whichvirtuetheoryandnaturallawethicsarecounterculturalandindeed revolutionary: see, e.g., “Sophrosune: How a Virtue Can Become Socially Disruptive”[MacIntyre1988c]and“NaturalLawasSubversive:TheCase ofAquinas”[1996a].SeealsoKnight1996.)Thesocialcriticismtowhich MacIntyreaspired,though,wasnotapiecemealaffairbutratherasystem- atic inquiry into the defectiveness of modern social, cultural, economic, andpoliticalinstitutions.Toengageinsuchsystematiccritiquerequiresa standpointfromwhichtocarryoutsuchcriticism.MacIntyreshowshim- selfinhisearlyworktobepreoccupiedwithmajorideologies–Marxism, psychoanalysis,andChristianityareatthecenterofhisfocus–thatclaim tobeabletodiagnosetheillsofmodernityandtopointthewaytoacure. “Ideology” is employed by many writers in a merely pejorative fash- ion. (This is no doubt in part a manifestation of the conviction that we have moved beyond the need for ideology – a conviction which, as MacIntyre has argued, seems all too clearly to be itself an ideology; see MacIntyre1971b,p.5.)ButideologiesasMacIntyreunderstoodthemof- fer the promise of affording a standpoint for large-scale social criticism. Ideologies,MacIntyrewrote,havethreecentralfeatures.First,theyascribe properties to the world beyond simply those knowable by empirical in- vestigation.Second,theyconcernbothfactandvalue,offeringanaccount bothofthewaytheworldisandhowitoughttobe;theyofferaparticular picture of the relationship between these factual and evaluative domains. And third, ideologies make themselves manifest in such a way that they definethesociallivesoftheiradherents(MacIntyre1971a,pp.5–7).2 Itis true that ideologies can isolate themselves from philosophical and socio- logical challenge so that they become barren, contentless. But in offering a systematic picture of the world, one that can unite the factual and eval- uativerealmsandcanbeentrenchedinthesociallivesofitsadherents,an CY197-01 CY197/Murphy 0521790425 March31,2003 7:48 Introduction 3 adequate ideology is in the vicinity of what one who seeks to engage in wholesalesocialcriticismshouldbelookingfor. ThestandpointintermsofwhichMacIntyre’searlyworkisarticulated is a Marxist one. He was at one time a member of the Communist Party (thoughheleftthePartypriortoKhruschev’srevelationsaboutthemoral horrorsoftheStalinistregime)andcontinuedtobeactiveinsocialistcauses (Knight 1998, p. 2). But MacIntyre’s commitment to Marxism coexisted with deep uneasiness about its ultimate adequacy. Marxism, MacIntyre wrote,hasbeenrefutedanumberoftimes;itsstayingpowercanbedueonly toitscapacitytoarticulatetruthsthatarenotarticulableinotherideological frameworks(MarxismandChristianity,pp.117–118).WhatMacIntyrehad in mind, I take it, was Marxism’s account of the distorting effects on hu- manlifeandhumanrelationshipsproducedbytheeconomicandpolitical institutionsofmoderncapitalism: Whenmanasaworkerbecomeshimselfacommodity,heisfundamentally alienated,estrangedfromhimself.Undertheformoflabour,manseeshim- selfasacommodity,asanobject.Henceaslabourheobjectifies,externalises hisownexistence.Aconsequenceofthisisthatlifebecomesnotsomething whichheenjoysaspartofhisessentialhumanity.... [T]o be human is to be estranged. But when man is a being divided against himself, able to envision himself as a commodity, he breaks the communityofmanwithman.(Marxism:AnInterpretation,p.50) ItisbecauseMacIntyretookMarxismtobefundamentallyrightonthese points that he had an allegiance to that viewpoint. In fact, MacIntyre’s allegiance to this view of the destructive character of the institutions of capitalism,includingthemodernbureaucraticstate,hasremainedentirely unaltered to the present day; it is, MacIntyre has acknowledged, one of thefewpointsonwhichhehasnothelddifferentviewsatdifferentpoints inhisacademiccareer(seeMacIntyre1994b,pp.35,44).Still,MacIntyre wasunabletoallyhimselfwithanyoftheformulationsofMarxistthought availabletohim:neitherStalinist“scientificsocialism”northehumanistal- ternativestoStalinismpopularwithintheBritishNewLeftwereultimately sustainable.3 The facing of a choice between these understandings of Marxism was not,byanymeans,anunfamiliarexperienceforMarxists.Marxistshadfaced suchastarkchoiceatleastsincetheformulationsofscientificMarxismby KarlKautskyandofrevisionist,humanisticMarxismbyEduardBernstein (see Kautsky 1906 [1914] and Bernstein 1899 [1993]; for a helpful dis- cussion of these views, see Hudelson 1990, pp. 3–28). Scientific Marxism CY197-01 CY197/Murphy 0521790425 March31,2003 7:48 4 MARKC.MURPHY emphasizes the notion of Marxism as social science, as articulating laws ofsocial,political,andeconomicdevelopmentandtransformationthatin- dicate the inevitable path through capitalism and eventually to socialism. Humanistic Marxism, on the other hand, emphasizes the moral element of Marxism, offering a critical account of the moral failures of capitalist society,ofthemorallyimperativecharacterofsocialism,andofthemorally appropriatemeanstotransformcapitalistmodesoflifeintosocialistmodes oflife.ScientificMarxism,onemightsay,istheMarxismof‘is’;humanistic MarxismistheMarxismof‘ought’. MacIntyre’searlywritingstakebothofthesemodesofMarxisttheoriz- ing as targets. Understood as an inevitabilist account of the development of social forms, scientific Marxism faces, on MacIntyre’s view, two insu- perable difficulties. First, to take the content of Marxism to be simply a set of social scientific laws is to make Marxism into no more than a tool forthoseinpowertomanipulatesocialchange,aninstructionmanualfor how the masses can be manipulated by those in power. It is precisely this understanding of Marxism that is central to Stalinist socialism, in which thestate’srolewasoneofadjustingtheleversandpushingthebuttonsthat couldultimatelybringaboutuniversalsocialism.Becausethatperspective wasentirelyvalue-free,therewerenowaysofadjustingtheleversandpush- ingthebuttonsthatcouldbemorallycalledintoquestion.Iftherewereno moretoMarxismthananaccountofcorrelationsbetweenhistorical,social, economic,andpoliticalstatesofaffairs,thenpurges,masskillings,andshow trials–ifemployedasapartofthoseconditionsthatultimatelybringabout universal socialism – could not be criticized from a Marxist standpoint. ThusonefundamentalcriticismleveledbyMacIntyreagainstthescientific Marxist standpoint was that it was morally empty (MacIntyre 1958, p. 32). TheothercriticismleveledbyMacIntyreagainstthisstandpointwasthat itwas,toputitbluntly,false:therearenosocialscientificlawsavailableto bediscoveredthatwouldenablethewould-becentralplannertoadjustthe levers to bring about the downfall of capitalism and the rise of socialism. Featuresofhumanagencyprecludethepossibilityofadequatelyformulat- ing any such laws (see Marxism and Christianity, pp. 82–86; After Virtue, pp.88–102).ScientificMarxismisnotonlymorallyempty,itisscientifically empty. Itisnotsurprising,then,thatMacIntyrewouldexpressadmirationfor those Marxists who rejected Stalinist socialism on moral grounds. One mightalsoexpectMacIntyretosidewiththehumanisticMarxists;indeed, onerecentchroniclerofthedevelopmentofMacIntyre’sviewshasasserted thatMacIntyreisclearlyinthiscamp(McMylor1994,p.12).Butwhileit CY197-01 CY197/Murphy 0521790425 March31,2003 7:48 Introduction 5 is true that MacIntyre’s commitment to Marxism came on account of its capacitytobringintotheopenthedeformitiesinsocialrelationsprevalent in capitalist societies, even early on MacIntyre expressed little confidence that a standpoint could be found from which Stalinist horrors could be criticizedandthemoralcontentofMarxismvindicated.Bernstein,writing attheendofthenineteenthcentury,showsnosignsofworryconcerning the vindication of the moral content of Marxism; perhaps this is because of his confidence in a generally Kantian philosophical view that persons are never to be treated as mere means but always as ends-in-themselves. MacIntyre,writinginthemid-twentiethcentury,hasnosuchconfidence. It is not at all surprising that MacIntyre would lack confidence on this score. In the 1950’s, the dominant theoretical viewpoints in Anglo- Americanmoralphilosophywereversionsofemotivismandprescriptivism, according to which moral judgment consists simply in (respectively) ex- pressionofemotion(e.g.,“riggedtrialsarewrong”meanssomethinglike “riggedtrials–boo!”)orarticulationofpreference(e.g.,“riggedtrialsare wrong” means something like “let rigged trials not take place”). What MacIntyre cannot see is how, given these understandings of moral judg- ment,wearetoaccountfortheauthoritypurportedinmoralapprovaland condemnation. When the humanist Marxist condemns the techniques of Stalinistsocialism,whatistheauthoritywieldedinthatcondemnation?If all that is going on in such criticism is the critic’s reaffirmation of his or her disapproval of the Stalinist’s techniques, why on earth should anyone listentohimorher?(MarxismandChristianity,pp.124–127;seealsoAfter Virtue, p. 68.) The moral critic of Stalinism, wrote MacIntyre, is “often a figureofgenuinepathos”(MacIntyre1958,p.31).MacIntyreinhisearly workisjustsuchafigure. 2. ISTHEREAPATHOUTOFTHE“MORALWILDERNESS”? MacIntyre confronted the Stalinist and the Stalinist’s moral critic, the humanist,inatwo-partessaywrittenfortheNewReasoner4in1958entitled “NotesfromtheMoralWilderness.”Inithediagnosesthedifficultiesinthe humanist’spositionasrootedinthehumanist’sacceptanceoftheautonomy ofmoralprinciple,thatis,thattheprovinceofthemoralstandsindepen- dently of and in contrast to the province of natural, social, and historical facts.Bycuttingthedomainofmoraljudgmentofffromthedomainsofhis- tory,sociology,economics,andanthropology,themoralcriticofStalinism cutshim-orherselfofffromanyargumentativeroutetohisorhermoral