ORIGEN HISTÓRICO

MacIntyre’s notion of social practices is set within his larger task of identifying and explaining the current chaos in moral theory. In After Virtue, MacIntyre historically traces the downfall of traditional morality as a result of emotivism and the Enlightenment project. As a result of these destructive ideologies MacIntyre concludes that we have but two options.

In arguing for a theory of moral virtue MacIntyre stresses the importance of returning to an Aristotelian framework that takes into account the telos of humanity. For MacIntyre, ethics presupposes a telos in that ‘the whole point of ethics – both as a theoretical and a practical discipline – is to enable man to pass from his present state to his true end.’⁸³

Belief in a human telos eroded as the Enlightenment period gained prominence.

Both Aristotelian and theological moral philosophy was replaced by forms of subjectivism, most notably, emotivism. The dominant moral framework of the Middle Ages now lacked credibility in the minds of moral philosophers. In an attempt to discover a system of moral rules that applied equally to all rational persons, tradition and community gave way to individualism and emphasis was placed on personal values and claims of feelings.⁸⁴ This project ultimately failed and caused the crisis MacIntyre claims exists in contemporary moral philosophy.

John Gibson concurs with MacIntyre in his historical sketching of moral thought from the ancient Greeks through the Enlightenment. ‘The moral vacuum left by the failure of the Enlightenment to produce a rational basis for values led to the application of scientific method to human relationships…In the absence of a substantiated moral

83 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 54.

84 G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971) and C.L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960) were two major works in this movement. Moore was foundational to the emotivist position while Stevenson articulated it better than any other, summarizing emotivism by saying the statement ‘This is good’ essentially means ‘Hurrah for this.’

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framework, trying to be good for its own sake has given way to trying to look good for one’s own sake.’⁸⁵

Several moral theories arose out of the Enlightenment. Two of the dominant theories in contemporary Western morality, Kantian and utilitarian ethics, arose during this period. But one stands out to MacIntyre above the rest. If we will not return to Aristotle we are left with only one alternative. MacIntyre chooses Nietzsche not only because he was one of the Enlightenment’s most unsympathetic critics but because he most accurately represents contemporary philosophy’s answer to post-Enlightenment morality. ‘In five swift, witty and cogent paragraphs he disposes of both what I have called the Enlightenment project to discover rational foundations for an objective morality and of the confidence of the everyday moral agent in post-Enlightenment culture that his moral practice and utterance are in good order.’⁸⁶

The importance of Nietzsche is clear. Since rational justifications of objective morality fail it must be that ‘belief in the tenets of morality needs to be explained in terms of a set of rationalizations which conceal the fundamentally non-rational phenomena of the will.’⁸⁷

This is the contrast MacIntyre points out. Either Nietzsche is right and morality is ultimately based on the non-rational will or something like Aristotelianism is right and we were wrong to ever go against it in the first place.⁸⁸ Gibson seems to have no quarrel with the moral contrast MacIntyre articulates. In fact, Gibson also accepts the notion of practices and believes they give a well suited description of sport as a human activity.

Where he dissents from MacIntyre is on which path to follow. For MacIntyre, it is clear that Aristotelianism, or something like it, must be recovered. Gibson believes Nietzsche is often misunderstood by philosophers like MacIntyre and a Nietzschean world is not as dreadful as initially suggested. Gibson argues in favour of keeping MacIntyre’s concept of social practices because they provide an excellent framework for tackling many of the moral problems in modern sports.

85 John Gibson, Performance Versus Results: A Critique of Values in Contemporary Sport (New York:

State University of New York Press, 2001), 24.

86 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 113.

87 Ibid., 117.

88 There are those who suggest that Aristotle and Nietzsche are not as opposite as MacIntyre believes them to be. Christine Swanton points to several similarities and gives a virtue theorist interpretation of Nietzsche. See ‘Can Nietzsche Be Both an Existentialist and a Virtue Ethicist?’, in Timothy Chappell (ed.), Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 171-188.

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However, he finds MacIntyre’s reliance upon Aristotle problematic and proposes to replace Aristotelianism with a Nietzschean form of moral value. In his rejection of MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism Gibson offers little more than a few paragraphs. His relatively brief critique of MacIntyre’s reliance on the virtues is far from sufficient. He simply highlights the three major problems MacIntyre himself identifies with the Aristotelian view and claims MacIntyre is unable to distance himself from the problems inherent in Aristotle, namely, the denial of the tragic, the ahistorical essence of the virtues and the metaphysical biology of humanity. Beyond pointing out the challenges MacIntyre himself addresses there is little substantive criticism in Gibson’s work.

Perhaps the most astute judgment is that of MacIntyre’s ambiguous description of telos.

‘It is not clear that in his desire to be open ended, MacIntyre has sufficiently delineated what does and does not count as a possible telos of human life.’⁸⁹

Gibson argues that Aristotle’s ahistorical orientation, a major challenge MacIntyre seeks to overcome, is required of Aristotle’s theory. Gibson clearly states that without this ahistorical dimension the theory makes no sense. As an example he cites justice as the central virtue for Aristotle with justice being what each member of that society getting what he deserves. He says the ‘internalization of the framework of society made the imposition of an outside order redundant to the ancients.’⁹⁰ Aristotelian virtues are based upon the class and role of a citizen within society.

Removing the structure of the polis is to make the virtues unintelligible since they are the traits required to achieve one’s purpose within that society.

Laying aside the fact that this crude analysis is a gross oversimplification of Aristotle it also neglects the significance of MacIntyre’s claim to restore Aristotelian virtue or something like it. Replicating Aristotle’s own ideas is not what MacIntyre is trying to do. That is precisely why he addresses these problems in Aristotle. He rightly wants to keep Aristotle’s moral framework while rejecting certain aspects of his theory.

In itself this is not a solution to the problem. It begs the question of whether or not he succeeds in sufficiently distancing himself from Aristotle’s problems. To answer that question we now turn to the most crucial of the three challenges.

Gibson argues that, ‘without offering a rational vindication of Aristotle’s cosmic order and claims about the truth of human nature, MacIntyre cannot make a rational

89 Gibson, Performance Versus Results, 81.

90 Ibid., 81.

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case for the Aristotelian tradition.’⁹¹ Two of the three difficulties in Aristotle’s theory of virtue come to the foreground here with one finding its source in the other. Aristotle’s view of the polis is presupposed by his metaphysical biology. Without his biological view it is impossible for Aristotle’s theory to know the telos of human beings (i.e.

citizens of the polis). The cosmic order is determined by the truth about human nature.

Gibson and MacIntyre are correct to question Aristotle’s metaphysical biology on issues such as slavery. Both, most notably MacIntyre, are quick to dismiss Aristotle on this point.

We need not draw the conclusion, however, that this entails a complete dismissal of something like an Aristotelian account of human nature. Virtue theory requires a human essence, something by which we can say that this is good or bad behaviour, that this is ideal or not ideal for what a human being ought to be. Herein lays the importance of the telos. This is what MacIntyre is referring to when he identifies the categories of

‘human-nature-as-it-happens-to-be’ and ‘human-nature-as-it-could-be-if-it-realized-its-telos’ with the virtues being what enables us to move from the former to the later.⁹² To disallow human biology is inconsistent with the teleological ethical theory MacIntyre is defending.

These metaphysical insights are necessary to give an account of morality from the virtues. But metaphysics is not enough. It is undeniable that biology plays a significant role in human nature. We are comprised of biological material. How is it possible, then, to give an ethical account of the good human life that does not factor in our biological nature? The answer must surely be that such an account is not possible. In a later work MacIntyre acknowledges this error and concludes,

No account of the goods, rules and virtues that are definitive of our moral life can be adequate that does not explain – or at least point us towards an explanation – how that form of life is possible for beings who are biologically constituted as we are, by providing us with an account of our development towards and into that form of life.⁹³

This does not mean MacIntyre now accepts Aristotle’s view whole heartedly.

There are aspects he rightly still rejects but his rational account of morality must include our biological nature since it is here that we realize our vulnerability as dependent, rational animals.

91 Ibid., 80.

92 MacIntyre, After Virtue, 53.

93Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago:

Open Court Press, 1999), x.

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Gibson relies upon Nietzsche to dispel the need for virtue, and thus a human nature, in any neo-Aristotelian sense. So how is he able to retain the framework of practices without the support of Aristotelian virtues? Nietzsche rejected science as the method for human expression. For him, art was the true form of knowledge. Gibson suggests that ‘the Nietzschean view of art as the true medium for understanding human existence calls for the athlete to be viewed as a performing artist, and, as such, can link a Nietzschean individual into MacIntyre’s framework of practice…without recourse to Aristotle.’⁹⁴

To do this he outlines two competing interpretations of Nietzsche as they apply to sport. He argues that there is a vulgar and tender reading of Nietzsche in relation to his concept of the Übermensch. Gibson believes MacIntyre only explores the vulgar Nietzscheanism. This interpretation sees the Nietzschean world as one in which extreme individualism and selfishness reign and where morality is nothing more than violent acts of strength by the powerful against the weak. In this case the mentality of athletes will be one where ‘victory in the contest is excellence, and excellence through the exercise of animal power can open many doors to power in society as a whole.’⁹⁵

This vulgar interpretation of Nietzsche attributed to MacIntyre is a brutal sporting world with no sense of moral value. There is no sportsmanship, no loyalty, no respect. It is only about individual athletes gaining an advantage over the competition to advance their own self-interests. Contrast the vulgar Nietzscheanism with what Gibson calls the tender interpretation. According to him, this view represents more accurately what Nietzsche envisioned the Übermensch being. Gibson points out that a proper understanding of the ‘will-to-power’ and subsequent Übermensch is power over self, not others. The result is an individual who is a ‘creative athlete, making his own values and transcending the arbitrary limitations of society.’⁹⁶

What Gibson describes is a Nietzschean who is able to overcome himself, to define himself in spite of the corruptive powers of institutions. Where MacIntyre sought external help in the virtues to resist corruption Gibson argues that the athlete must look inside his or her own being. With nothing upon which to base moral decisions, save

94 Gibson, Performance Versus Results, 93.

95 Ibid., 94.

96 Ibid., 93.

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oneself, the athlete must choose to overcome ‘arbitrary values imposed from without to create and define himself in his own terms.’⁹⁷

Three points need to be made in response to Gibson’s support of the Nietzschean athlete. First, the vulgar and tender distinction does not work, particularly in attributing MacIntyre’s interpretation to the vulgar side. A vulgar Nietzscheanism is something of a straw man setting up a worst-case scenario which is easily defeated by Gibson’s preferred view of the tender Nietzscheanism. Gibson makes such a distinction to save elements in Nietzsche he finds favourable.

However, the result of tender Nietzscheanism may be equally as horrifying as the vulgar reading. The second point to make here is that Gibson’s view does not alleviate the problems he sees as most pressing in contemporary sports. Working within the MacIntyrean practice scheme Gibson identifies the biggest problems in sport as the all-consuming desire to win and the overbearing emphasis on external goods such as money.

It is a bit naive to expect these problems to be conquered by encouraging Nietzschean athletes to overcome the ‘arbitrary values’ of sporting institutions. How they are to overcome these values Gibson does not say. Presumably they would do so by rejecting the temptation to focus solely on winning and external goods. Relying on the self to withstand the magnitude of corruption Gibson describes is indeed a task for someone more than human. This might even be labelled the telos of humanity for Nietzsche since ‘man is something that must be overcome.’⁹⁸ The revaluation of values is the goal of the Übermensch in order to create a new code of morality that is based upon the rudimentary principle of human action, the will to power. Even more basic than life itself, the will to power is the motivation in human behaviour. ‘Every living thing does everything it can not to preserve itself but to become more (italics in original).’⁹⁹

Gibson does not explain how this self-realized morality will protect the practices he seeks to apply it to from the institutions he fears. Nor is there a clear understanding of why these arbitrary values present a problem for Gibson’s virtue-less theory of social practices. What remains to be seen here is a justification for the claim that the problems

97 Ibid., 96.

98 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book For Everyone and No One, trans. R.J.

Hollingdale (New York: Penguin, 1969), 23.

99 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), aphorism 688.

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in sport are the result of arbitrary values and how Nietzscheanism, even a tender interpretation, is able to ward off the corruption rather than fall deeper into it.

The third response to Gibson’s application of Nietzsche to practices is similar to the first in that he inaccurately ascribes the vulgar interpretation to MacIntyre’s reading of Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s ideas as portrayed by MacIntyre have neither a vulgar nor tender reading since such a distinction is unfounded. What MacIntyre describes is the logical outcome of the Nietzschean views Gibson himself endorses as a tender interpretation. If a rational account of morality can be justified then Nietzsche’s entire project is pointless. Yet Gibson insists such an account cannot be given, at least not by MacIntyre so long as he relies on Aristotelian virtue.

Gibson builds his case for invoking Nietzsche around the notion that he is able to separate MacIntyrean practices from Aristotelian virtues. To do this he attempts to show how postmodern thinkers like Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty are not only addressing the same issue as MacIntyre but from within the same post-Enlightenment tradition and do so successfully without the virtues.

For the reasons listed above Gibson’s approach to social practices as a separation of ‘good MacIntyre’ from ‘bad MacIntyre’ (i.e. practices from virtues) is wholly insufficient. If his attempt to discard the ‘bad MacIntyre’ and fill in the pieces with Nietzsche’s self-creating athlete fails, can Gibson fall back on his prior claim that Rorty (and to some extent Habermas) is ringing the same philosophical bell as MacIntyre? ‘The key point of agreement between the three contemporary philosophers,’

says Gibson, ‘is that we must acknowledge the contingency of our starting points, or traditions, of our temporal nature. MacIntyre agrees with Habermas that we cannot judge an act without knowing the agent’s intentions and values, which are themselves contingent on traditions.’¹⁰⁰

Gibson points to a couple of significant common views in an effort to show how MacIntyre’s framework can be kept while rejecting his dependence on Aristotle. ‘All three contemporary philosophers support the democratization of life and as such are all part of the Enlightenment tradition.’¹⁰¹ It seems curious to try and identify MacIntyre as part of a tradition he wholeheartedly rejects and with someone, namely Rorty, who holds to such a contrary philosophical outlook. Nevertheless, Gibson sees similarities between them.

100 Gibson, Performance Versus Results, 89.

101 Ibid., 89.

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MacIntyre’s concept of the narrative unity of a single life is mirrored in Rorty’s work by his belief that all of our achievements are part of the unfolding of our lives, and purely temporal. To Rorty the purpose of our conversation is to keep the conversation going. It is something worthwhile in itself, a practice through which we can gain internal goods.

To Habermas the goal of rational thought is to expand its realm through communicative action. For Habermas and Rorty this is a kind of telos, but for MacIntyre this is not enough. MacIntyre wants an underwriter: Aristotle.¹⁰²

In response I will propose that Gibson’s attempt to coalesce the philosophical framework’s of Rorty and MacIntyre inaccurately represents certain fundamental components of their respective views. In the first instance, the two thinkers offer incommensurate epistemological accounts of truth. Secondly, as a result of this the two are embarking on entirely different projects. MacIntyre’s, as we have seen, is to point out the failure of the Enlightenment project and call for the return of teleology to our morality as in the traditions of Aristotle and Aquinas. Rorty on the other hand believes, as we will see, that there is no telos.

Gibson’s effort to integrate Rorty’s and MacIntyre’s methodologies is unfounded. MacIntyre’s framework of practices carries with it latent assumptions about human nature that are inextricably connected to conceptions of virtue and telos. Rorty and MacIntyre certainly share a number of ideas as Gibson has demonstrated above.

However, he has failed to appreciate the fundamental discord between them. Paul Roth after seeking some synthesis between Rorty and MacIntyre has concluded that their disagreements are ‘not rationally decidable. Each side rests on a particular understanding of human history, and yet neither side is in a position either to establish its own case or definitively to refute its opposition.’¹⁰³ Roth further summarizes that theirs is a ‘debate which centres on opposed conceptions of human nature, of human development, and of the good for human beings.’¹⁰⁴

However, he has failed to appreciate the fundamental discord between them. Paul Roth after seeking some synthesis between Rorty and MacIntyre has concluded that their disagreements are ‘not rationally decidable. Each side rests on a particular understanding of human history, and yet neither side is in a position either to establish its own case or definitively to refute its opposition.’¹⁰³ Roth further summarizes that theirs is a ‘debate which centres on opposed conceptions of human nature, of human development, and of the good for human beings.’¹⁰⁴