MACINTYRE ON TRADITION, RATIONALITY, AND ... - Springer Link

Ó Springer 2005

Res Publica (2005) 11: 251–273 DOI 10.1007/s11158-005-0558-8

M. KUNA

MACINTYRE ON TRADITION, RATIONALITY, AND RELATIVISM

ABSTRACT. MacIntyre’s critique of liberalism relies crucially on a distinctive moral particularism, for which morality and rationality are fundamentally traditionconstituted. In light of this, some have detected in his work a moral relativism, radically in tension with his endorsement of a Thomist universalism. I dispute this reading, arguing instead that MacIntyre is a consistent universalist who pays due attention to the moral-epistemic importance of traditions. Analysing his teleological understanding of rational enquiry, I argue that this approach shows how it is possible, dialectically, to reconcile the particularity of our starting-points with the assertion of universal truths. What MacIntyre offers, I contend, is a moral universalism that avoids the pitfalls of its liberal counterpart, and invites an important meta-theoretical shift with respect to the scope for toleration and social critique and toleration in contemporary pluralist society.

INTRODUCTION

An imposing presence in contemporary moral philosophy, Alasdair MacIntyre is perhaps best known for his radical hostility towards modernity and the liberalism he regards as its specific intellectual and political embodiment.1 As Alan Thomas has put it, MacIntyre ‘criticizes contemporary liberalism for vainly aspiring to [the] role of adjudicating disputes within moral and political culture from a privileged standpoint . . . [holding that it] has no such intellectual authority over other traditions’.2 ‘Liberalism’ here refers, more

1

For an excellent contextualisation of MacIntyre’s general position within contemporary debates in political theory, see S. Mulhall and A. Swift, Liberals and Communitarians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 70–102. 2 A. Thomas, ‘MacIntyre, Alasdair (1929-)’, In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1998) [Electronic Version 1.0].

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precisely, to what we might call ‘neutralist’ or ‘impartialist’ liberalism. This variant of liberalism requires of political authority that it remain strictly neutral with respect to citizens’ conceptions of the good life. This is seen as the appropriate way to do justice to the irreducible plurality of values within modern political arrangements. While different representatives of this version of liberalism offer different models of neutrality/impartiality, they all share some basic commitment to individual freedom and to the ideal of neutrality/impartiality. The political authority is to remain neutral between citizens’ competing views of the good. This is seen an adequate means of preserving political and individual freedom, along with social stability in a community with an increasingly diverse array of basic values.3 A familiar controversy surrounding this approach concerns the status of neutrality itself. A key problem in the neutralist response to the plurality of conceptions of the good is, as MacIntyre puts it, that liberalism’s ‘principles . . . are not neutral with respect to rival and conflicting theories of the good . . . they are always liberal starting points.’4 To be sure, highly sophisticated responses have put forward in response to this line of critique.5 Yet it seems to me that the ultimately devastating attack on this form of liberalism will stem from the claim that it fails to provide due recognition of the plurality of traditions, and their moral epistemic indispensability to the formation of citizens’ views of the good life. Part of my aim in this article is to develop, extend and flesh out this challenge through a reading of some of MacIntyre’s central claims. Those claims are radical and contentious – and have themselves been duly subject to philosophical challenge.6 The most fruitful engagement has taken place, I believe, through the scrutiny of such core ideas as tradition and tradition-constituted enquiry, in the context of MacIntyre’s commitment to Thomism. It is the formulation

3

I take Brian Barry to be one of the most important defenders of ‘impartialist’ liberalism. See B. Barry, Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 4 A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), p. 345. 5 For an energetic rebuttal of MacIntyre’s allegations against ‘neutralist’ liberalism, see Barry, op. cit., pp. 119–138. 6 For a range of critical perspectives on the issues raised by MacIntyre’s work, see J. Horton, S. Mendus, After MacIntyre. Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).

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of Thomism as an essentially tradition-constituted enquiry that – notwithstanding the ostensible anti-relativism of Aquinas’s thought – has raised the question of the relativist implications of MacIntyre’s own work. Relativism itself is open to various definitions, arising in various contexts: moral, cultural, epistemic. Relevantly for our purposes, Robert Arrington characterises moral relativism negatively, as the denial of the claim that ‘there are universal standards of moral value true for all human beings or universal principles of moral duty and obligation binding on all’.7 Moral particularism, meanwhile, is a distinct notion which requires its own introduction. MacIntyre’s emphasis on tradition, and his interpretation of its significance, clearly marks his approach out as a version of moral particularism. This in turn embodies, in my interpretation, the claim that each particular moral theory principally and ultimately originates out of a particular community’s moral imagination, beliefs, practices, and institutions. This combination will always be historically contingent and culturally context-bound, regardless of the universal scope the claims arising from any given tradition may hold. Thus particularism might be summarised as the view that ‘there is no morality except as rooted in particular communities with their own particular traditions concerning the nature of virtues and their role in promoting human well-being’.8 Whether explicitly or implicitly, particularism is often assumed to be closely conjoined with relativism, be this in a relation of entailment or of association. As will become clear, I dispute this assumption, and find it necessary to maintain a clear distinction between moral particularism and moral relativism.9 This distinction, I believe, is itself a crucial contribution to the rebuttal of moral relativism. The main motivating idea behind this article is that MacIntyre is indeed able to successfully avoid moral relativism and to formulate a viable form of moral universalism. To defend this claim I will

7 R.L. Arrington, Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism (London: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 193. 8 M. J. Quirk ‘Moral epistemology’, in (ed.) W.T. Reich, Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Revised edition, Vol. 2 (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1995), p. 734. 9 This is not to say, of course, that no moral particularist is a moral relativist. My point is merely to deny the inseparability of the moral particularism from moral relativism.

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proceed through the following steps. First, I outline and analyse the notion of tradition to which MacIntyre subscribes, along with the basic aspects of the model of rationality as tradition-constituted via which he commits himself to a version of moral particularism. Second, MacIntyre’s description of basic aspects of the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition as an exemplification of tradition-constituted enquiry is sketched, to illustrate both MacIntyre’s reading of Aquinas, and the way he arrived at a version of Thomism as a tradition-constituted enquiry. Third, I consider the relativist charge levelled against MacIntyre’s Thomism, along with the nature of its purported incompatibility with a commitment to moral universalism. Finally, I indicate a possible way in which MacIntyre might successfully answer this charge – and claim that his version of moral particularism is reconcilable with Thomist universalism. If the overall argument of this essay is correct, then two important conclusions seem to follow. First, a negative point: MacIntyre’s position does not, as has sometimes been alleged, suffer from internal self-contradictions stemming from relativist underpinnings; it is not, then, philosophically implausible on this ground. Second, given the first, a positive point: that MacIntyre’s tradition-constituted moral theory represents an attractive, arguably superior alternative to dominant liberal modes of thought and argument in moral and political theory. It may seriously challenge the dominant aspirations of liberal theory to deal successfully with problems arising from the increasing plurality of contemporary Western societies. Once the neutralist idea of the possibility of an impartial, ahistorical, tradition-independent conception of justice is discredited, and the assumption that moral particularism leads inevitably to moral relativism is proven false, there is a need for fundamental reconsideration of the preconditions for adequate social critique. There is also a need to move beyond prevailing, impartialist liberal, versions of toleration.10 An opportunity for this form of metatheoretical shift, I would argue, is furnished by MacIntyre’s model of Thomism itself. 10

This is not to say, however, that every particular liberal theory suffers from these flaws. For more ‘historicist’ defences of liberalism which emphasise the contingency of its underpinning claims and principles, see e.g. R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989); G. Gutting, Pragmatic Liberalism and the Critique of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Such historicist approaches would, of course, require a separate critical response to that levelled at ‘impartialist’ liberalism here.


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We have noted the allegation that MacIntyre’s particularist Thomism may have relativist implications. To explore this in greater detail, it is important to define two crucial notions of his philosophical endeavour, namely tradition and tradition-constituted rationality. Before doing so, it may be instructive to sketch briefly the distinctive view of modern culture that informs MacIntyre’s project. This culture is, for him, one in which the basis for any sound (and traditional) comprehension of morality is almost completely lost. He argues that modern morality starts with the rejection of the conceptual frameworks behind Aristotelian physics and metaphysics. For a period, the apparently anachronistic coexistence of the new, non-teleological physics alongside a persistently teleological ethics posed serious intellectual problems. In response, modern thinkers formulated attempts to secure the content and form of traditional morality. MacIntyre calls their attempts ‘the Enlightenment project of justifying morality’.11 He claims not only that this project failed, but also that it had to fail. With the demise of traditional justification of virtues and of ethical rules, modern philosophers needed to fill the void with a fresh form of justification of moral rules. MacIntyre mentions two, both equally unsuccessful, attempts to provide such a justification: utilitarianism and Kantianism. Whereas the former tried to devise a new teleology, identifying the natural telos of human beings with the prospect of maximum pleasure and the absence of pain, the latter tried to demonstrate that moral rules have a categorical character and authority grounded in the very nature of practical reason.12 Both attempts failed, according to MacIntyre, because they started from an inconsistent mixture of inherited fragments of pre-modern views.13 These views form a background against which MacIntyre has developed his distinctive brand of virtue ethics, imbued with the particular conception of tradition and rationality to which we will now turn. Unpacking what MacIntyre means by tradition, and the role it plays in his theory, is a delicate operation. As already mentioned, 11 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), chapters 4 and 5. 12 Ibid., 62. 13 Ibid., chapter 5, 257.

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he maintains that moral theory is always justified as a part of some tradition of moral enquiry. Now, every moral tradition is in turn embedded in some tradition of rationality that is both wider than the former, and also provides its members with its distinctive standards of rationality. That is to say, rationality itself is ‘tradition-constituted’. Yet explaining the precise place of ‘tradition’ in MacIntyre’s work is not easy because of the absence there, rightly identified by Julia Annas, of a unitary conception of what, in the first place, constitutes a tradition. For some, this means that ‘it is not entirely clear what he even means by this crucial concept’.14 In any case, the notion of tradition needs to be pieced together from various places in MacIntyre’s work, and gleaned from different modes of expression.15 It has an initial contrastive function. MacIntyre’s own proposed alternative to the Enlightenment project (labelled also as the tradition of ‘traditionless reason’16) is the Aristotelian/Thomist model of virtue ethics where the notion of a tradition plays a fundamental role. This is because, he argues, the context of a tradition provides everyone with his or her ‘moral starting point’. Thus our starting points are always given in advance: everyone is a bearer of a particular social identity furnished by the tradition into which she is born. As MacIntyre puts it, ‘I am born with a past; and to try to cut myself off from that past, in the individualistic mode, is to deform my present relationships’.17 However, it is important to move from this broadly sociological observation to a more normative level, where the notion of a tradition seems to be the equivalent for MacIntyre of Aristotle’s 14

A. Allen, ‘MacIntyre’s traditionalism’, The Journal of Value Enquiry, No. 31 (1997), 511–525, p. 511. 15 See J. Annas, ‘MacIntyre on Traditions’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1989), 388–404, p. 389. 16 N. Murphy, ‘Postmodern Non-Relativism: Imre Lakatos, Theo Meyering, and Alasdair MacIntyre’, The Philosophical Forum, Vol. 27 No. 4 (1995), 37–53, p. 48. 17 A. MacIntyre, op. cit., 221. These points draws on the general observations of sociology, social and developmental psychology and show MacIntyre’s positive attitude to transcending the disciplinary boundaries in between the various fields of enquiry. To comment on them, however, requires also stressing the fact that the importance of a moral/social/cultural tradition in one’s life does not imply, in MacIntyre’s account, that one is obliged to accept all the moral/social/cultural limitations of one’s community. Contrary, everyone is involved in process of transforming these limitations. Ibid.


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polis – a socio-political context both necessary for an ethic of virtue and irreversibly inaccessible to us who live in the modern world.18 Traditions are for MacIntyre intellectually indispensable in a very specific sense, as ‘all reasoning takes place within the context of some traditional mode of thought, transcending through criticism and invention the limitations of what had hitherto been reasoned in that tradition’.19 Moreover, MacIntyre stresses the internal dynamic that is at the very heart of any (sound) tradition since ‘[t]raditions, when vital, embody continuities of conflict [and] a living tradition . . . is a historically extended, socially embodied argument, and an argument precisely in part about the goods which constitute that tradition’.20 More specifically, he says that [a] tradition is an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined in terms of two kinds of conflict: those with critics and enemies external to the tradition who reject all or at least key parts of those fundamental agreements, and those internal, interpretative debates through which the meaning and rationale of the fundamental agreements come to be expressed and whose progress a tradition is constituted.21

I quote these passages at length partly because they show, I believe, that for MacIntyre the notion of a tradition has an important intellectual dimension, and that it is characterised by conflict. If so, then those who see in MacIntyre’s appeal to tradition signs of an inherent conservativism do him a disservice. For on these terms, they will need either to recognise that he is not a conservative at all or to revise their very understanding of what conservativism and/or fidelity to a tradition may amount to. Which brings us to a more specific issue: the relationship between tradition/rationality and morality. MacIntyre believes that the issue of morality is inseparably tied to the issue of rationality in every exemplification of a tradition. His account of the nature of rationality is offered at length in Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and further elaborated

18

MacIntyre, After Virtue, op. cit., p. 163. Ibid., p. 222. 20 Ibid. MacIntyre explicitly rejects Burkean conservative view of a traditon identifying it rather with the stage when a tradition is either ‘dying or dead’. Ibid. 21 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 12. 19

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in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.22 To understand the true nature of rationality is fundamental on this account, since every moral theory has, or at least presupposes, some particular understanding of rationality and (again) every theoretical enquiry is tradition-constituted.23 This brings us to the specific sense MacIntyre gives to the notion of ‘tradition-constituted enquiry’. In a rather extravagant-seeming vein, he claims that there is no other way to engage in the formulation, elaboration, rational justification, and criticism of accounts of practical rationality and justice except from within some one particular tradition in conversation, cooperation, and conflict with those who inhabit the same tradition. There is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which is provided by some particular tradition or other.24

How might this radical claim be sustained?25 Recall MacIntyre’s statement that the ‘resources of an adequate rationality are made available to us only in and through traditions’.26 Significantly, MacIntyre claims that ‘it is crucial that the concept of traditionconstituted and tradition-constitutive rational enquiry cannot be elucidated apart from its exemplifications’.27 Consistently with this thesis, he discusses Aristotelian, Thomist, Scottish and liberal traditions and it is important not to overlook his emphasis on the fact that they are and were more than, and could not but be more than, traditions of intellectual enquiry. In each of them intellectual enquiry was or is part of the elaboration of a mode of social and moral life of which intellectual enquiry was an integral part, and in each of them the forms of that life were embodied with greater of lesser

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MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit. A. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). 23 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., 1. chapter, 116, 354, 369. 24 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p.350, emphasis added. 25 Arguably, as R. Scott Smith points out, MacIntyre’s claim of the impossibility of rationality outside of a tradition chimes with Wittgenstein’s refutation of the possibility of a private language user. See R. Scott Smith, Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge. Philosophy of Language after MacIntyre and Hauerwas (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 60. 26 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 369. 27 Ibid., p. 10, emphasis added.


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degrees of imperfection in social institutions which also draw their life from other sources.28

Thus, traditions are to be distinguished not only by the differences in their core intellectual beliefs, but also by their larger social and moral beliefs, practices and institutions. These three aspects are closely related to each other. However, the unique character of each particular, historically contingent tradition seems to suggest that the relation of these three aspects within a single tradition will vary from case to case. We may disagree on whether this makes MacIntyre’s case stronger or weaker, but certainly it gives us a clearer idea of what tradition is not. In this sense, it is not to be interpreted in purely subjectivist or decisionist terms. Largely for this reason, any reference to the ‘‘tradition’’ of a single and independent individual will appear as rather a contradiction in terms.29 It follows, I would argue, that in order to understand MacIntyre’s claims, one must undertake a kind of hermeneutic enterprise into the nature and specificities of a particular tradition in question. Given the nature of any such enterprise, this in turn may issue in a host of (sometimes irreconcilably) different interpretations of the key features of that particular tradition.30 And the complexities run deeper still. Julia Annas makes several important observations in identifying an internal tension within MacIntyre’s position, originating from his characterisation of the social embodiment of traditions.31 In her view MacIntyre’s stances 28

Ibid., p. 349. As Terence Irwin puts it: ‘if I put forward my own strange theory with strange presuppositions, that is not enough to create a tradition . . . [because for MacIntyre] . . . a tradition seems to involve more than one person; to this extent it is like an institution [and also] seems to involve more than one person for more than one generation [along with the fact] that a tradition normally involves some degree of antiquity and stability’. T. Irwin, ‘Tradition and Reason in the History of Ethics’, Social Philosophy and Policy Vol. 7, No. 1 (1989), 45–68, p. 49. 30 Julia Annas, for instance, provides a reading of the Scottish tradition that is in important respects very different from MacIntyre’s - Annas, op. cit., 395–402. In the next section I analyse MacIntyre’s picture of his favoured tradition - that of Aristotelian Thomism. It is worth noting that his view of this tradition has been criticized from within the Thomist camp (see R.P. George, ‘Moral Particularism, Thomism, and Traditions’, Review of Metaphysics 42 (1989), 593–605, J. Haldane, ‘MacIntyre’s Thomist Revival: What Next?’ in eds. J. Horton & S. Mendus, After MacIntyre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 91–107) as well as from outside it (Irwin, op. cit., 55–58). 31 Annas, op. cit., 394. 29

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here can be labelled in terms of two theses: the thesis of ‘historical understanding’, and the thesis of the ‘essential location’. The former means that reasons are understood as good reasons always in light of the contingently conditioned context, structure, and historical setting within which they are presented as reasons. The latter thesis reflects the rather stronger claim that ‘a tradition of reasoning is essentially located in a particular historical setting, and depends on that setting for its defining features [and] the coherence of the intellectual tradition’s social embodiment stands or falls with the coherence of the reasoning the tradition produces.32 In any particular example, this opens up a space for critical scrutiny – and indeed disconfirmation of MacIntyre’s own positions. Annas herself notes that in the case of the Scottish tradition, MacIntyre identifies ‘the embodiment of an intellectual tradition with something as specific as a national tradition’ – and she questions the historical plausibility of his claims concerning this intellectual tradition’s relation to its respective social institutional structures.33 Yet elsewhere, argues Annas, rather than defending this strong claim about traditions, MacIntyre works with the thesis of historical understanding (required to bolster his claim that the individual may recognise the existence of various traditions as reasonable options, even while possessing allegiance to one of them in particular).34 This leads Annas to conclude that there is a tension between the implications of these two theses. As a result, she admits that though MacIntyre offers valuable insights about intellectual traditions and their social embodiments, ‘this is not disentangled from a stronger and much less defensible thesis tying the development of an intellectual tradition to particular social facts’.35 I think Annas is right in criticising MacIntyre for his tendency to slide between these two claims; the stronger claim would certainly need more arguments in its support. However, for the sake of my argument, and to explore the specific question of moral relativism, it seems sufficient to work with the weaker thesis of historical understanding. Pragmatically, then, I will take this as his sole thesis with respect to his notion of tradition-constituted rationality. This way

32 33 34 35

Ibid. Ibid., p. 395. Ibid., p. 401. Ibid., p. 404.


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the more problematic claim is put aside – without, I think, any significant harm for the argument as a whole. Meanwhile it is also worth addressing a serious objection raised by Amy Allen – one which reflects concerns addressed throughout this section. Allen rejects MacIntyre’s notion of tradition altogether, as radically incoherent. She locates the source of the incoherence in MacIntyre’s view allegedly inconsistent view of how rationality and tradition are related. For Allen, MacIntyre faces a choice between three options in order to render his concept of a tradition coherent. He must either embrace perspectivism (and relativism), become a universalist, or else abandon his particularist conception of separate traditions in favour of a grand metatradition – the tradition of the West.36 The first two options are, according to Allen, unacceptable for MacIntyre, and the last one, if adopted, would cause problems for his project. This is because every tradition must have a corresponding set of social practices and institutions – and this condition does not seem to be met in the case of the ‘grand’ tradition of the West.37 Allen also focuses on MacIntyre’s account of the rationality (the procedural rationality) of traditions, arguing that it amounts to ‘an abstract explanation of the concept of rationality’, accompanied by something strongly similar to the Enlightenment conception of rationality.38 Allen’s fundamental objection, then, is that MacIntyre must and does ultimately appeal to precisely that form of tradition-independent standards of rationality (resembling the Enlightenment project) that he himself repudiates. Yet while Allen rightly points to MacIntyre’s distinction between substantive accounts of rationality and that made from the perspective of his meta-theory of traditions, I would argue that she is mistaken in concluding that MacIntyre is unable to maintain this very distinction.39 On the contrary, it is precisely this distinction that enables MacIntyre to avoid both the Scylla of perspectivism and the Charybdis of Enlightenment-style tradition-independent universalism. Pace Allen, I would deny that MacIntyre’s meta-theory is (as it were) too ‘thick’ to be applicable to all traditions of enquiry. If this is so, then as I argue below, MacIntyre is able to endorse and defend 36 37 38 39

Allen, op. cit., p. 511. Ibid., pp. 523–524. Ibid., p. 519. Ibid., p. 521.

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moral universalism, but of a form that could be described as ‘tradition-dependent’. MacIntyre, then, locates morality and rationality within some particular, historical, and contingent tradition of theoretical enquiry that is socially embodied. This view is at odds with the ‘Enlightenment project’ of justifying morality, for which tradition is an obstacle to being fully rational, and ‘reason’, properly understood, is essentially traditionless. Tradition is a precondition for any sound intellectual and moral enquiry. Such enquiry is, however, characterised by conflict. I have interpreted MacIntyre’s position as amounting to the claim that there is no rationality outside some tradition of rationality, and so the former is fundamentally dependent on the latter, i.e., every theoretical enquiry is traditionconstituted. It may be useful to stress that MacIntyre considers traditions of rationality incommensurable,40 yet at the same time allows for conversation and rational dialogue between them.41 He thus maintains that incommensurability does not entail any relativist implications. Though this itself does not suffice to prove that the conception of tradition-constituted rationality need not imply the relativist thesis, it helps to set the stage for a defence of MacIntyre against the relativism charge. On the way, it will be instructive to explore the particular intellectual tradition – that of Aristotelian Thomism – that MacIntyre himself favours.

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However, some may take this sort of incommensurability as a proof of the relativist nature of MacIntyre’s meta-theoretical claims. MacIntyre’s discussion of this issue along with the question of relativism and question of rational superiority amongst traditions show this kind of assumption as misdirected. See MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 349–388. 41 This is because what MacIntyre means by the ‘incommensurability’ of traditions of enquiry seems to be what Michael Fuller calls a partial incommensurability as opposed to a total incommensurability. See M. Fuller, Making Sense of MacIntyre (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1998), p. 76. Whereas the latter means that there is no way to understand a rival, the former allows that even though there are no external criteria for deciding between rival claims of two incommensurable traditions, there can still be some rational conversation between them, originating from within those traditions. This requires of the adherent of some particular tradition to learn the language of some alien tradition as his or her second first language and so to reach the stage where he or she can criticize that alien tradition from the perspective that is internal to it. So, incommensurability does not have to imply impossibility of understanding of, and translation from, the rival tradition. See MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 370–372.


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ARISTOTELIAN/THOMIST TRADITION

Thanks partly to MacIntyre’s more recent work, Thomism remains surprisingly vibrant as a tradition. Yet there are controversies as to what true Thomism is. Consequently, the question ‘What was Aquinas really up to?’ seems crucial. That answers to this question vary, even within the ‘Thomist camp’, is unsurprising.42 MacIntyre’s own forms part of what is as persuasive a case as any as any for the persistent relevance of Aquinas’ work for contemporary philosophy. As one would expect, it is a case that foregrounds the particularity of the historical and intellectual situation in which Aquinas operated. A brief account of MacIntyre’s depiction of what was at stake at the university in 13th century Paris will help highlight both the problem Aquinas was concerned to solve, and the grounds of his proposed solution. The university in Paris was, in those days, a distinctively Augustinian institution, faced with the intellectual challenges set up by the contemporary rediscovery of Aristotle.43 Wherein, exactly, lay the challenge? We can see retrospectively that the problem was posed not so much by Aristotle’s philosophy as such, as by the Islamic mediation through which Aristotle ‘entered the academic stage’ in Paris. Aristotle, on this account, not only challenged some basic Christian doctrines, but radically challenged the overall Augustinian conception of scientific enquiry, thus putting into question the chief role of theology.44 The Augustinian faced the following dilemma: either to allow space for Aristotelianism, and thus accept the coexistence of the two rival versions of enquiry within a single educational institution, or, by excluding it, to abandon the integrative claims and ambitions of the Augustinian establishment.45 The situation in Paris, according to MacIntyre, was one of the meeting of two traditions, 42

For alternative ‘takes’ on the question, see MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., pp. 58–81; J. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) and Fundamentals of Ethics (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1983); R. McInerny, Aquinas on Human Action (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1992); P. Volek, Filozofia cˇloveka podl’a sv. Toma´sˇa Akvinske´ho, vo svetle sućˇasnyćh komenta´rov [St. Thomas Aquinas’ Philosophy of Man, in the Light of Contemporary Commentaries] (Ruzomberok: Katolı´ cka Univerzita v Ruzomberku, 2003). 43 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., pp. 97–106. 44 Ibid., pp. 107–109; 102. 45 Ibid., p. 103.

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each having its own distinctive standards of truth and rationality.46 Since each of them appealed to different and incompatible standards of evaluation, the discrepancy could not be resolved by those inhabiting only one of them. For the substance of the problem, the incommensurability of the two rival standpoints, would be invisible to such a person.47 What Aquinas did, in MacIntyre’s picture, was to perform the kind of genuine synthesis only practicable on the basis of a true sense of their incommensurability.48 It may be important to recall here MacIntyre’s claim that genuine incommensurability can only be recognized and characterized by someone who inhabits both alternative conceptual schemes, who knows and is able to utter the idiom of each from within, who has become . . . a native speaker of two first languages, each with its own distinctive conceptual idiom. Such a person does not need to perform the tasks of translation in order to understand.49

Aquinas was, for MacIntyre, precisely this kind of person. This was due to the training he received as a pupil of Albertus Magnus. This training enabled him to understand both the Aristotelian and the Augustinian standpoints from within.50 In doing so Aquinas rescued both traditions from their epistemological crises.51 The success of Aquinas’ reconciliation of the two traditions lay in his capacity to invite both Augustinians and Averroists to understand the point of view which he had constructed, one into which both the achievements of Augustinianism and Aristotelianism had been integrated in such a way that what were, or should have been, recognized as the defects and limitations of Augustinianism as judged from an Augustinian standpoint and the defects and limitations of Aristotelianism as judged from an Aristotelian standpoint had both been first more adequately characterized and then corrected or transcended.52

The reason why Aquinas was, in MacIntyre’s view, able to achieve this synthesis was because of his distinctive understanding of truth.53 This provided the framework through which the two rival

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

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Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., pp. 114–115. Ibid., p. 115. Ibid., p. 114, emphasis added. Ibid., p. 115; MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 168. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., p. 123. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 121–122; MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 168–


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schemes of belief were reformulated and corrected, and this by their own standards.54 To get to grips with this claim, it may be useful to ask the question, ‘What was the nature of Aquinas’ work?’ MacIntyre suggests that it can be seen in the content and structure of his Summa Theologiae. He lists its features as follows: first, the work is essentially ‘in construction’, and is open to be developed further; second, the high level of its systematicity requires that it be read as a whole; third, it is written to integrate two traditions into one systematic tradition; and finally, it expresses its author’s singleness of purpose.55 The originality of Aquinas’ work consisted in the fact that while it supported specific Christian dogmas, it is constructed as an essentially incomplete enterprise where every conclusion is ‘no more than, the best answer reached so far’.56 It is a work of dialectical construction; of the testing (dialectically or demonstratively) of every point of view.57 However, this characterisation of the fundamental openness of Aquinas’ theory to any new argument, should not mislead us. For equally, this openness was constrained by Aquinas’ allegiance to ‘the finality of Scripture and dogmatic tradition’.58 He exemplified, in his work, the possibility for the Aristotelian to integrate the basic views of Augustinian psychology.59 Moreover, MacIntyre claims that Aquinas conceived of philosophy both as tradition-constituted enquiry, and as a craft. Philosophy was not only a craft, but the chief craft among crafts.60 The rationality of a craft ‘is inseparable from the tradition through which it was achieved . . . [and] . . . at any particular moment the rationality of a craft is justified by its history so far, which has made it what it is in that specific 54

MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. p. cit., 123; MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 170–171. 55 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 164–165. MacIntyre argues for a holistic reading of the Summa, for ‘to read it in its own terms from within the tradition Aquinas reconstituted in the course of writing it is the only way to reckon with it in other than mock and distorting encounter’, MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., p. 135, emphasis added. 56 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., p. 124, emphasis added. 57 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 207. 58 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., p. 125. 59 MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., p. 181. 60 MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, op. cit., pp. 61–66, 127.

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time, place, and set of historical circumstances’.61 The centrality of Aquinas emerges from the fact that his enterprise was ‘a dialectically open-ended continuation of that craft- tradition stemming from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as well as from the church fathers,’ but also from the fact that in him this tradition has culminated.62 Clearly, whether MacIntyre’s presentation of Aquinas offers a true picture of the latter’s work is crucial. I believe that it does. This is to argue not only that MacIntyre is entitled to claim that Aquinas’ understanding of philosophy was that of tradition-constituted enquiry, but also that though this suggestion may appear controversial at first sight, it is fully justifiable. To defend this view I will consider one of the most fundamental accusations levelled against MacIntyre’s Thomism: that tradition-constituted conception of rationality has relativist implications. I will then present some counter-arguments in order to defend my thesis that MacIntyre’s particularist Thomism is a version of moral universalism.

MACINTYRE’S THOMISM

AND THE

CHARGE

OF

RELATIVISM

I have already expressed my worry that moral particularism may be mistakenly regarded as interchangeable with, or as inevitably implying, moral relativism. A crucial question is whether MacIntyre’s strong moral particularism (also called ‘immanentism’63), coupled with his historicism, is indeed compatible with Aquinas’ or any moral universalism. In other words, it is the question of whether MacIntyre can be a particularist and at the same time a consistent universalist – and whether relativism can indeed be avoided by particularism of the MacIntyrean kind. One might boil the issue down as follows: first, MacIntyre is a moral particularist; secondly, he claims to be a Thomist; and finally, he appears to be a moral relativist.64 Since it seems beyond doubt that being a Thomist and being a moral relativist are two mutually exclusive positions, two other questions might follow. First, can one consistently be both a moral particularist and a Thomist? Second, can one be both a moral 61

Ibid., p. 65, emphasis added. Ibid., pp. 75, 77. 63 Haldane, op. cit., p. 98. 64 And this is so in spite of the fact that MacIntyre makes a case against relativism- see MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 352–362. 62


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particularist and a moral universalist? If it is possible to demonstrate a positive answer to the latter question, then the same conclusion seems to follow for the former as well. The basic question, then, seems to be that of whether MacIntyre presents a morally universalistic version of moral particularism. In the reception history of MacIntyre’s work, there are ready answers in the negative. It has been argued that MacIntyre’s strong particularism is incompatible with Thomism.65 For ‘Thomists maintain that certain fundamental practical truths are available to anyone, regardless of his cultural or intellectual heritage, allegiances or commitments. . . . They are . . . per se nota (self-evident)’.66 The point is also made that MacIntyre, in overemphasising the role of tradition, omits the important role of universally available practical principles. So when he claims that there are ‘no resources of practical rationality apart from those supplied by traditions’ he tethers his position to relativism.67 Moreover, there is said to be a contradiction in MacIntyre’s conception of the first principles of reason. This contradiction seems to follow from MacIntyre’s insistence that those principles are open to revision through the dialectical advancement of the Thomist tradition.68 Now, Robert George, who is otherwise critical of MacIntyre’s theses as having relativist implications in one way or another, acknowledges that he makes a strong case against relativism.69 Nevertheless he also suggests that MacIntyre’s argument against relativism makes a powerful case only against a strong form of relativism, and not against a weaker form which thus attaches itself to his position.70 For some, MacIntyre’s account of the rationality of traditions means that he ‘is committed . . . (against his expressed

65

George, op. cit., p. 594. Ibid., pp. 599–600. 67 Ibid., pp. 603. 68 M.P. Maxwell Jr., ‘A Dialectical Encounter between MacIntyre and Lonergan on the Thomistic Understanding of Rationality’, International Philosophical Quarterly 33, No. 4 (1993), 385–399, p. 386. 69 George holds that MacIntyre, in pointing to the possibility of a fatal inability of a tradition to resolve successfully epistemological crises developed within itself, ‘demonstrates the falsity of the proposition that each tradition, inasmuch as it sets its own standards of justification, will necessary be vindicated on its own terms’ George, op. cit., p. 602. 70 Ibid. 66

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intention) to acceptance of some form of relativism’.71 Others have argued that in rejecting the relativist denial of the possibility of crational conversation and choice between traditions, MacIntyre assumes a universal human faculty to learn a second first language that is in contradiction to his claim that rationality is traditionconstituted.72 Finally, and probably most radically, it is argued that ‘not only are [his] views inescapably relativistic, but . . . this also lands [him] in a problematic situation that should be taken seriously, even to the point that [his] views should be rejected’.73 In general, what these critics tend to object to is MacIntyre’s apparent negligence vis-a`-vis the universal epistemic accessibility of the first principles of rationality, in conjunction with his insistence on the essential particularity of every tradition of rationality along with its respective moral theory. Do the charges stick? In the next section, I argue that they do not.

CAN MACINTYRE’S PARTICULARIST THOMISM DEFENDED?

BE

SUCCESSFULLY

The main two questions emerging from the previous section are these: first, whether there might be a universalistic version of moral particularism, and second, if so, whether it is to be identified with MacIntyre’s theory. My aim is to show that the possibility of the former is confirmed in MacIntyre’s work. The argument is based on due consideration of MacIntyre’s view of the relationship between particularity (following from his conception of tradition-constituted rationality) and universality, tied with the strong conception of truth of the Thomist tradition. My claim is that MacIntyre’s moral particularism is consistent with Thomism’s universalistic claims to truth. Presenting this argument will require reference to MacIntyre’s argument against anti-metaphysical claims in general, and for the

71

Irwin, op. cit., p. 57. A. J. Roque, ‘Language Competence and Tradition-constituted Rationality’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 51, No. 3 (1991), 611–617, p. 617. Scott Smith shows that MacIntyre assumes no such universal human faculty and he also suggest that MacIntyre is able to rebut this kind of challenge pointing to the fact that ‘the very possibility of making the relativist challenge presupposes that the one making it stands within a tradition’. Scott Smith, op. cit., p. 197. 73 Scott Smith, op. cit., p. 195. 72


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possibility of Thomist metaphysics in particular. This argument is presented in his 1990 Aquinas lecture ‘First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, which offers an formidable exposition of how, from within the Thomist tradition, a major stream of contemporary philosophy may be strongly challenged.74 So how does MacIntyre develop a particularist route to universality? He starts with an explication of the role of first principles in the Aristotelian/Thomist tradition of enquiry. He stresses that neither Aristotle nor Aquinas ever put these (self-evident) principles into question.75 These principles were formulated and adequately understood within a universe characterised by certain fixed, unchosen ends.76 MacIntyre believes in the possibility of restoring the intelligibility of Thomist metaphysics, for he claims that, to an important element of this metaphysics – its first principles – the critique of epistemological first principles does not apply.77 Further, we should acknowledge that there are two types of ‘evidentness’ for Aquinas, and so also two types of first principles. On the one hand there are first principles which are accessible to everyone. On the other, there are those accessible only to those who intellectually engage in enquiry within a theoretical framework78. 74 MacIntyre, ‘First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, op. cit. 75 They are taken to be self-evident because knowledge of their truth is not dependent on knowledge of truth of something else. As Aquinas put it, within the scope of theoretical reason ‘the first indemonstrable principle is the principle of contradiction: ‘To affirm and simultaneously deny is excluded.’ This first principle is founded upon the intelligibility of being and non-being . . . [and] . . . [t]he first principle of practical reason . . . [is that] . . . ‘Good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided’ (STh IaIIae.94.2.c) Translated by Lisska, op. cit, pp. 273–274. 76 MacIntyre, ‘First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, op. cit., p. 173. 77 Ibid., pp. 174–175. 78 There are various self-evident propositions like, as Aquinas lists them ‘‘Every whole is greater than its parts’ and ‘Two things equal to a third are equal to one another.’ However, [he also emphasizes that] there are some propositions which are self-evident only to those who are educated and who thus understand the meaning of the terms of such propositions’. (STh IaIIae.94.2.c) Translated by Lisska, op. cit., p. 273. The latter propositions may be, for instance, practical precepts in the field of professional ethics whose meaning is easily apprehended only by the instructed. Whereas for most of us they would not be self-evident at all, for the person deeply engaged in the respective field it would be totally nonsensical to deny them. This distinction between two kinds of first principles may answer George’s objections presented in the previous section of this paper.

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The principles of the former type can be apprehended immediately, but – unlike those of the latter type – they are not substantive in content.79 Since this Thomist distinction is alien to those analytic and deconstructionist philosophers who have criticized the epistemological first principles,80 their antifoundationalist critique of Thomism is viewed as mistaken.81 After that, MacIntyre proceeds to the explanation of the Thomist conception of enquiry as teleological.82 An integral part of this kind of enquiry is the notion of perfected science and perfected understanding. Any theoretical enquiry is moving towards the state of perfected knowledge which constitutes its telos.83 This telos, internal to that form of activity, is already presupposed in a partial understanding of science not yet perfected.84 Whereas perfected science is a deductive scheme where its explanatory method is demonstrative argument via deduction, science which is not yet perfected needs to use dialectic as its means.85 It seems obvious that we cannot start from those substantive first principles of perfected science which as such make possible a statement of necessary truths – the first premises of demonstrative arguments.86 Therefore, we start from first principles ‘already relying upon what we are not as yet fully justified in asserting, in order to reach the point at which we are fully justified in asserting it’.87 We use dialectic to argue to 79 MacIntyre, ‘First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, op. cit., p. 175. 80 MacIntyre also claims that Thomists can make true claims without engaging in the epistemological enterprise of modern philosophy and demonstrates, in this lecture in particular, that in his approach there is no need for such a move. Ibid. 81 MacIntyre, ‘First Principles, Final Ends and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, op. cit., pp. 176–180. MacIntyre also shows that their critique is internally inconsistent. For in their rejection of first principles they make an appeal to the kind of reasoning which they reject. Their arguments can succeed only as long as they are derived from premises which are in some sense undeniable. However, the rejection of first principles implies that there are no such undeniable premises; ibid., 175. 82 An anti-relativistic argument that uses the meta-theory of traditions of enquiry, here explicitly in Thomist terms, may appear too contentious given the antiteleological fashion of contemporary philosophy. However, I believe that once it is properly presented its allegedly controversial character disappears. 83 Ibid., pp. 181–182. 84 Ibid., p. 182. 85 Ibid., p. 183. 86 Ibid., p. 184. 87 Ibid., p. 186.


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first principles. In spite of the fact that we have no direct access to the first principles of perfected science, nevertheless we may achieve the point where we proceed from dialectical to apodictic and necessary truths.88 Rational justification within this imperfect form of inquiry, attempting to construct dialectically what is to be the deductive structure of perfected science, has truth as its telos.89 Taking this interpretation on board, it is much easier to see that MacIntyre’s particularism does not necessarily contradict Thomist universalism. First, he shows that in order to arrive at some substantive first principles we have to start from the particular, not yet fully justified premises of some or other theoretical framework. However, the particularity of our standpoint does not imply that we cannot arrive, via dialectical argument, at conclusions which are necessarily and universally true. These claims bring us to MacIntyre’s conclusion that any rational enquiry is intelligible only in terms of truth as its telos. This is obviously a very strong and contentious claim, particularly given the anti-metaphysical fashion of dominant streams of contemporary philosophy. Aware of the contentiousness of this claim, MacIntyre poses a direct challenge to self-styled anti-teleological philosophers, arguing that they cannot conduct their own enquiries without producing some narrative of progress. MacIntyre’s point is that just to make their work intelligible to others, philosophers are committed to tell, at certain points, a narrative of the progress they have achieved, and to explain why this offers a better state of knowledge than its predecessors.90 In pushing his argument further, MacIntyre suggests that would-be anti-metaphysical philosophers answer the question ‘progress toward what?’91 Their inability to answer this question, and the ability of Thomists to explain why they cannot answer it, points both to the internal inconsistency of their positions and to the capacity of Thomism to make sense of their predicament. MacIntyre thus presents the contemporary philosopher with the following dilemma: either to answer this question and so to provide some narrative of progress of his or her enquiry, or to display his or her inability to do so which may result in the conclusion that there is no intelligible account of achievement through enquiry. 88 89 90 91

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 187. p. 190. pp. 193, 195. p. 200.

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Choosing the former means presupposing something like a teleological vision of enquiry. And if the latter transpires, this philosopher will need to account for how this particular conclusion represents an achievement – which, of course, reproduces the original question on a different level.92 This, then, is one way in which MacIntyre can defend a Thomist, teleological understanding of rationality. In so doing, it seems to me that he makes a powerful case against those who reject the teleological nature of rational enquiry, and so also strengthens the intellectual attractiveness of his particularist interpretation of Thomism. As Kent Reames stresses, in developing the conception of tradition-constituted rationality MacIntyre has not rejected universality per se, but rather registered opposition to a kind of universality which disregards the particularity of the standpoint from which universal moral claims are made.93 MacIntyre’s ability to develop this (intellectually highly appealing) theory from within the Thomist tradition lends additional credibility to his claim that the Thomist tradition has survived its various epistemological crises, in all its particularity and historicity, far more successfully than is commonly perceived. Therefore, from within the particularity of MacIntyre’s tradition it may be possible to assert an important meta-theoretical claim that there is some metaphysical good which is normative for all traditions – the good that renders their enquiries intelligible. However, even though this claim is formulated as universally applicable it can be, and is, made known only in and through some particular tradition – here, the tradition of Aristotelian Thomism.94 If there is justification for the claim that MacIntyre has argumentative resources to show how it is possible legitimately to make universal (moral) claims from the particularity of some (moral as well as intellectual) tradition, then so, I would argue, there is justification for the claim that MacIntyre’s version of Thomism is not inescapably relativistic, but constitutes a plausible version of moral universalism.

92

Ibid., pp. 200–201. See K. Reames, ‘Metaphysics, History, and Moral Philosophy: The Centrality of the 1990 Aquinas Lecture to MacIntyre’s argument for Thomism’, The Thomist 62 (1998), 419–443, p. 430. 94 Ibid., 433; MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, op. cit., pp. 359–360. 93


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CONCLUSION

My main concern here has been the matter of whether MacIntyre’s particularist Thomism might respond successfully to the charge of moral relativism. In defending my claim that it does, I have proceeded through various stages, both in explicating MacIntyre’s work and in emphasising distinctions – for example, between moral relativism and moral particularism – which I see as crucial to an adequate understanding of those ideas. Taken together, I would argue that the main points of this article suggest the following implications. MacIntyre’s position is a philosophically innovative approach which provides for adequate attention to the particularity of moral and intellectual contexts while avoiding the pitfalls of moral relativism. It is a solid intellectual rival to the dominant modes of thought of contemporary philosophy, and to neutralist liberalism in particular. MacIntyre’s contribution in this respect does not consist in formulating a totally new definition of toleration and social critique. It is rather to be seen in his challenging and modifying the liberal assumptions that led to a distinctively liberal understanding of toleration and social critique. His particularist Thomism takes this fact of plurality as seriously as possible and at the same time it does not give up its own universalistic moral aspirations that it can consistently defend. To test out these claims will require further work, and further comparison with the resources provided by the liberal model. For now, I hope to have shown that MacIntyre’s distinctive ‘take’ on the significance of one philosophical tradition offers a consistent and appealing alternative framework from which to address the plurality of social values which exercises the liberal tradition itself.95 Department of Philosophy Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Ruzomberok, 03401, Slovakia E-mail: [email protected] 95 I presented an earlier version of this paper at the conference Meanings of Community, organized by the Society for Applied European Thought and held in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in July 2003. I would like to thank to Bob Brecher, Gideon Calder, and Lubica Ucˇnik for their comments.