Why MacIntyre?, Jeff Pocock

Do you believe in doing and in things being done as well as possible? Are you among other things dissatisfied with modernity, in modern living and working conditions and practices, because this stops or at best narrowly circumscribes this pursuit of excellence? Do current explanations of and rationales for why modernity is like this and how we might respond leave you similarly dissatisfied? If so, the writings and philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre might well be for you.

Alasdair MacIntyre, London, 24th March 1992. (Photo by Steve Pyke/Getty Images)

MacIntyre believes in the pursuit of excellence, things being done well if they are to be done at all. He believes modernity is holding us back, individually, at a community level, as a species, and as part of the natural world. He is dissatisfied with common responses to our modern predicament, the kind of responses we find in the causal social sciences, and offers convincing and thought-provoking explanations and alternatives in response.

Central to his response to modernity is the concept of practices. These are shared, purposeful activities that among other things enable the realisation of internal, common goods, goods that are possible only with the cooperation of others in shared pursuit of common ends, and goods the realisation of which facilitate our flourishing as human beings. Central to MacIntyre’s response to modernity is therefore the fundamental and inescapable importance of other people in our development and well-being.

Under modernity, however, practices are marginalised and with typical interaction with them merely vicarious, as spectators and consumers. Without the mediation of practices, most of us are therefore denied the opportunity to realise internal goods, to learn from the honest advice and guidance of others, and left exposed to the two overriding ethics of modernity, of the market and of the state. If we do indeed acknowledge the importance of anything like internal, common goods, we commonly see and value individual ones, or at best recognise and seek public goods that benefit us all but that we derive benefit from individually only.

To participate in practices we among other things need money and other resources, so-called external goods, but more crucially we need to be disposed to virtue. In fact, practices both require and sustain the virtues, they are ‘schools of virtues’ (Knight).

Under modernity, however, we have lost sight of what the virtues mean, why they are so important, and what they demand. Without a virtuous disposition, without personal character, we lack the qualities, especially honesty, courage, and justice, necessary for long-term collaboration and collective pursuits. Also crucial as virtues that practices help to foster are integrity and constancy, which fragmentation and compartmentalisation characteristic of modernity undermine.

Also crucial to his response to the modern condition is tradition. All practices embody traditions, conventional and historically evolving ways of doing and behaving that new practitioners are initiated into and pass on. Tradition also for MacIntyre refers to the socio-moral worldviews of a particular time and place, such as the ‘bureaucratic-individualism’ of modernity.

The traditions we are born into comprise our narrative identity. We are ‘story-telling animals’, and the traditions that we embody must be uncovered and critiqued if we are to live fully and well.

Both of his senses of tradition have within them the possibility of reform and improvement. His is not a ‘Burkean’ understanding of tradition, where established ways of thinking and doing are sacrosanct and above reproach because they are already established. He also does not subscribe to either naïve relativism or perspectivism, whereby no criticism can be levelled at a tradition because of the sacredness of context or privilege of point of view.

When traditions collide, the response should be openness and learning from the rival, putting ourselves in the shoes of the other, ‘going native’. By doing so, we may come to realise that neither side is better, or that our own tradition is superior, that questions and issues raised by the rival side can be accommodated, or, alternatively, it may be admitted that the rival side poses fatal questions and issues for our own tradition, and so rationally our own tradition ought and must be relinquished.

MacIntyre’s response to the failings of modernity is then one of despair but also of hope. While the market, state, and individual, are currently dominant, and the kind of shared and collective human activities he regards as paramount to a life lived well existing only in the margins of modernity, this situation is not insurmountable, and human progress and flourishing are still yet possible.

Furthermore, his is a philosophy of community and collaboration with others in pursuit of human excellence. We are not and should not struggle alone. If we are to progress, as well as learn from others, we must be virtuous, be humble and open, and we must recognise and embrace our finitude and fallibility.