Personal

The influence of MacIntyre’s core insight on Taylor’s thought is apparent and readily acknowledge. What began for MacIntyre as an inquiry into the status of contemporary moral philosophy, Taylor developed into a theory of modern identity and secularization. Both authors share a common appreciation for the central role that our vision of the good plays in shaping the moral horizon of the individual and the community. Moreover, they are both keenly aware that

164 _{Charles Taylor, “Irreducibly Social Goods,” in Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge:}

Harvard University Press, 1995), 136.

this vision of the good and the narrative we construct concerning our quest to achieve it are never entirely of our own making. We participate in the language and practices of a community that shapes our vision of the good life.

Similarly, both authors raise concerns about the moral vision of a liberal democracy. For MacIntyre, the question is the very possibility of sustaining a moral community with no

acknowledged vision of the common good. With no shared vision of the appropriate ends of civic life, politics becomes the realm of special interests and private goods competing for limited power and resources. Lost is any vision of our common social project, let alone an appreciation for public participation and dialogue as goods in themselves. Taylor again extends MacIntyre’s insight and analysis of the social practices and imaginaries that shape our moral outlook. Both recognize the contemporary decline in social capital and rise of individualism as expressive of a far deeper and more foundational element the United States’ national character.

These similarities in themes and perspectives do not signify that MacIntyre and Taylor are in complete agreement on our contemporary situation, nor its remedies. Indeed, the fact that they are so often grouped together only seems to cause them to sharpen their (respectful) critiques of each other’s work. This chapter concludes with a brief examination of the most sustained comments each author has offered for the other’s work, particularly those dimensions from each that I have highlighted here. I first look at Taylor’s evaluation of After Virtue and its contentions regarding the possibility of pursuing justice in a modern liberal democracy. Next, I consider MacIntyre’s appraisal of the moral framework articulated in Sources of the Self. I identify both the most salient areas of disagreement and their implications for moral education. It is undoubtedly tempting to simply put forward that theirs is a difference of hope: MacIntyre believes that the modern era is well along the path to decline (“The barbarians are not waiting

beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.”),166 _{while Taylor}

affirms that it was in many ways a success and in others can still be redeemed (“For all the imperfections of our society, it does bind us together in pursuit of some common goods”).167

Such an interpretation, however, does a disservice to the nuance and ambivalence in each author’s thought.

Taylor suggests that the key difference between he and MacIntyre is not so much whether the modern view of the individual in society fails, but how it fail. MacIntyre, he suggests, “tends to take modern society at the face value of its own dominant theories, as heading for runaway atomism and break-up.”168 _{For MacIntyre, the Enlightenment Project may have failed to produce}

a universally accessible justification for morality, modern liberalism has been successful in producing a society and populace formed by emotivist principles. It is so dangerous precisely because it has accomplished its goals. Taylor, conversely, finds reason to hope in our

contemporary context because what appear to be the accomplishments of liberal individualism are largely illusory. The Aristotelian framework is not as easy to discard as we might hope, and our society continues to form its citizens through a shared set of moral ideals and practices. The emotivist mindset has undoubtedly weakened our social bonds (thus his call for reform), but it could never fully obliterate our common projects and aspirations: “Our way of life never sinks to the full horror that would attend it (I believe) if we could be truly consistent Benthamites, for instance.”169 _{MacIntyre, however, is not convinced that the two in fact disagree on this point.}

Believing that a telos-oriented moral imagination is a universal dimension of the human

166 _{MacIntyre, After Virtue, 263.}

167 _{Charles Taylor, “Justice After MacIntyre,” in After MacIntyre: Critical Perspectives on the}

Work of Alasdair MacIntyre, ed. John Horton and Susan Mendus (Notre Dame: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1994), 41.

168 _{Ibid., 22.} 169 _{Ibid., 23.}

experience, MacIntyre views the problem in terms of a society and culture structured in such a way that we are unable to recognize these dimensions and give them their proper place: “They are therefore cultures inhabited by many more or less frustrated and usually unrecognized Aristotelians.”170 _{The problem, from MacIntyre’s perspective, is that it is only in local}

communities that these practices and particular visions of the good are able to be fully acknowledged and engaged. Where Taylor believes that Western societies have reached meaningful consensus on the aspirations of modern moral life (particularly surrounding human dignity) and the mechanisms for securing these goals, MacIntyre sees only the tattered remains of coherent theories. This refusal to acknowledge the possibility and limited success of shared social projects remains one of the greatest weaknesses in MacIntyre’s arguments.

A more pernicious problem, the two authors agree, is the question of whether goods or virtues can entirely transcend a particular practice. In seeking to reformulate the core thrust of

After Virtue in his own terms, Taylor develops a distinction between prudence and procedure.171

Prudence or phronesis deliberates within a specific context or practice, seeking to discern the good and determine how to realize it. Procedure, conversely, seeks to construct an ethic free of context and universally true. Taylor argues for both the possibility and benefit of procedural reasoning about goods rooted in but also transcendent of a given practice. Goods such as autonomy and disengaged reason transcend a given practice and, with their close ties to human dignity, are essential to preserve.

MacIntyre acknowledges the critical need for disengaged reasoning, but insists that it can never be fully extrapolated from all practices. While such critical reflection is undoubtedly a

170 _{Alasdair MacIntyre, “A Partial Response to My Critics,” in After MacIntyre: Critical}

Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre, ed. John Horton and Susan Mendus (Notre

Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 287.

necessary skill in any practice (and in this way transcendent), it can only occur with those who share our commitment to the good and in relation to those practices though which we strive to realize it. Without this situatedness, we have no measure of whether our reasoning is successful. Here MacIntyre’s argument is the more persuasive, and in fact buttresses Taylor’s contention that our civic society continues to function in at least meager ways similar to the poleis of old. Debates about realizing justice in a liberal democracy (even those that seem only concerned with procedure) remain embedded in practices striving for the good. In this way, they only seem fully transcendent and independent.

A third challenge, concerning the plurality of goods we are capable of pursuing, is identified in each author’s critique of the other. MacIntyre raises the issue in the clearest way. Any Aristotelian conception of the moral agent must address the challenge of negotiating multiple visions of the good, and offer criteria for their discernment. MacIntyre states plainly, however, “Taylor’s theorizing not only fails to provide such criteria, is seems peculiarly ill- equipped to do so.”172 _{Taylor, in turn, finds these critiques of MacIntyre’s baffling, noting that:}

“the contemporary philosopher from whom I have learned most in this account is none other than Alasdair MacIntyre.”173 _{Indeed, as we have seen, Taylor does account for our ability to negotiate}

competing strong evaluations and even hypergoods. While he maintains the necessary possibility of holding competing visions of the good, his work in Sources of the Self is in part to

demonstrate how traditions are negotiated and adapted. The question, however, is to what extent we can entertain and pursue differing visions of the good without losing an integrated sense of self. At some point the range of goods through which we define lives overwhelm us; we can no

172 _{Alasdair MacIntyre, “Critical Remarks on the Sources of the Self by Charles Taylor,”}

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994): 188.

173 _{Charles Taylor, “Reply to Commentators,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54}

longer articulate our lives as cohesive whole.

The great luxury of MacIntyre’s constructive proposal (developed in Chapter Five) is that through affiliation with particular communities we draw boundaries around the set of goods to which we are committed. We affirm a specific moral tradition and our debates concerning the good function within a core community and against a background of mutually acknowledged consensus. Lacking such a community, there are few resources from which to draw when

negotiating the seemingly infinite spectrum of commitments available to us in our contemporary context. Yet though distressing, this is likely more descriptive of our present, postmodern context. We find ourselves compelled by innumerable life goods and hypergoods with little understanding of how to evaluate and weight their claims (itself an act of practical reasoning). Thus, while Taylor is perhaps more optimistic about our democratic project, his portrait of the self in our modern context is far from reassuring.

I have argued that Taylor’s cautioned optimism about modern liberalism and nuanced account of the human person are more convincing than MacIntyre’s. Yet if Taylor indeed has the more insightful portrait of our social and existential condition, why the emphasis on MacIntyre in this dissertation? The reasoning is threefold. First, MacIntyre demonstrates in the strongest terms just what is at stake in our contemporary context. While he at times overestimates both the degree to which we have truly abandoned an Aristotelian framework and the impossibility of negotiating rival moral commitments, his narrative points to many of the critical challenges we nevertheless face in no uncertain terms. Second, the direction of influence most often runs from MacIntyre to Taylor, and seldom the reverse. While there are hints at Taylor’s influence in some of MacIntyre’s later writings, it is most often Taylor that is acknowledging a debt. Indeed,

MacIntyre can be rightly credited with profoundly shifting the conversation in moral and political philosophy, and his argument, though limited, deserves recognition.

Third and most importantly, MacIntyre in fact offers the more hopeful avenue of response from the perspective of Catholic higher education. Were this a dissertation concerned only with political philosophy, the thought of Taylor might suffice. What his writings lack, however, is a clear sense of how we can respond to the context he identifies. Most frequently, he sketches how one might structure a counter argument to modernist claims, but leaves it to others to determine appropriate practical or pastoral responses. While our society might indeed have retained enough vestiges of the Aristotelian framework and the common good to make social cooperation possible, the resources that remain universally available are minimal. The vision of human flourishing is far too thin to inspire the moral commitments of a generation. While we might affirm the democratic practices of voting and civic engagement as substantive goods, a genuine commitment to the common good requires much deeper formation. MacIntyre, with his emphasis on moral traditions embodied in social practices, provides a clearer vision of how faith communities and post-secondary institutions might form engaged citizens in our contemporary context (even as he seems to deny this possibility). Chapter Five examines this aspect of his work, as well as its adaptation by practical theologians and religious educators.

First though, we must examine how our contemporary situation is interpreted

theologically, and what responses are called for from a community of faith. The central role that the vision of the good plays in our moral lives and identities points us in the direction of virtue ethics. Animated by a vision of the good life, virtue ethics examines the ends that we seek and the ‘habits of the heart’ that we need to consistently act toward these ends. If the trends that Putnam identifies are correct, and the insights of MacIntyre and Taylor are accurate, our times

require a particular virtue that is able to recognize our interdependence and commit ourselves to the common good. It must be rooted not only in the hearts of individuals, but the narratives, practices, and structures of the community. The next chapter proposes solidarity as an essential virtue of our time.