From Voluntarist Nominalism to Rationalism to Chaos: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Critique of Modern Ethics

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Stephen Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to connect the ‘Disquieting Suggestion’ at the beginning of After Virtue to a broader picture of Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of modern moral philosophy. The essay begins with MacIntyre’s fictional scientific catastrophe, and uses four passages from the text of After Virtue to identify the analogous real philosophical catastrophe. The essay relates the resulting critique of modern moral philosophy to MacIntyre’s concern for recognizing the social practices of morality as human actions in “Notes from the Moral Wilderness”. The essay concludes by considering the implications of MacIntyre’s philosophy for the study of history, realism, and tradition.

Reciprocity in Morality and Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit Donyets Kedar
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Cooperative Scheme ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mutual Advantage ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy ◽  
Liberal Thought

Abstract Western liberal thought, which is rooted in the social contract tradition, views the relationship between rational contractors as fundamental to the authority of law, politics, and morality. Within this liberal discourse, dominant strands of modern moral philosophy claim that morality too is best understood in contractual terms. Accordingly, others are perceived first and foremost as autonomous, free, and equal parties to a reciprocal cooperative scheme, designed for mutual advantage. This Article aims to challenge the contractual model as an appropriate framework for morality. My claim is that the constituting concepts of contractualist thought, especially the idea of reciprocity, while perhaps fitting to law, are misplaced in morality. I argue that importing the concept of reciprocity and its conceptual habitat from law to morality yields ethical contractualism an unconvincing moral theory.

Barth and Modern Moral Philosophy

2019 ◽  
pp. 516-531
Author(s):  
Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Rational Form ◽  
Social Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Ethics ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy

This chapter argues against the familiar consensus that Barth’s relationship to modern moral philosophy is oppositional. It demonstrates that Barth appropriates the central insights of his philosophical predecessors and incorporates them into his ethics, even as he anticipates one of the most fruitful developments in contemporary moral philosophy: Stephen Darwall’s ‘second-personal ethics’. Rather than casting autonomy as sin, he recasts obedience to the Word of God as a form of autonomy. Barth incorporates the rational form of Kantian self-legislation and the social form of Hegelian mutual recognition into his account of subjective reception of revelation. Because Barth does not separate the sovereignty of revelation from the sociality of the church’s interpretation of Scripture and confession of faith, we—Barth’s readers—must not separate his account of hearing the Word of God from his account of hearing the divine command. In fact, we should take his account of the subjective reception of revelation as his most fulsome and winsome account of practical reason.

Revisiting Modern Moral Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Frey
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy

AbstractThis essay revisits Elizabeth Anscombe's ‘Modern Moral Philosophy' with two goals in mind. The first is to recover and reclaim its radical vision, by setting forth a unified account of its three guiding theses. On the interpretation advanced here, Anscombe's three theses are not independently intelligible; their underlying unity is the perceived necessity of absolute prohibitions for any sound account of practical reason. The second goal is to show that Anscombe allows for a thoroughly unmodern sense of ‘moral' that applies to human actions; the paper concludes with some reasons to think that this unmodern sense of ‘moral' is worthy of further philosophical attention and defense.

scholarly journals Pleasure and Variety in Thomas More’s Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (Number 203- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 147-170
Author(s):  
Mariano A. Vilar
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individual Nature ◽  
The Individual

The goal of this article is to provide a better understanding of the organization of pleasure (voluptas) in the moral philosophy and in the social practices of the inhabitants of Utopia, the fictional island created by Thomas More. For this purpose, we will focus on the classifications of pleasure into a series of species which tend to suppress the individual nature of pleasure and its connection to subjectivity in order to establish the traits of “natural pleasures,” which fit perfectly the social organization of the island. Our main hypothesis is that this is accomplished by breaking the connection of pleasure and “variety” (varietas), which was firmly established by many of the authors (ancient or modern) that discussed this topic. In this article, we argue that the use of the Epicurean texts circulating at the beginning of the 16th century were instrumental in the elaboration of a theory of “negative pleasures” which are used to keep the homeostasis of the society in Utopia.

scholarly journals Alasdair MacIntyre as an Aristotelian Economic Sociologist: Reading After Virtue with Dependent Rational Animals

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Caleb Bernacchio
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Analyses ◽  
Modern Moral Philosophy

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory presents a complex argument that spans numerous academic disciplines and combines empirical and theoretical analyses. Its radical conclusion has inspired activists and social critics from all sides of the ideological spectrum. Critics and commentators have questioned MacIntyre’s critique of modern moral philosophy and the plausibility of the concluding prescription, concerning the need to create new forms of community. But it has less often been asked in what sense the book presents a unified perspective. In other words, how do the premises of MacIntyre’s argument, presented and defended throughout the text, warrant the conclusion? In this article, I partially formalize the main argument of After Virtue, discussing the grounds for each premise, and explaining how they ground the book’s radical conclusion. In doing this, I argue that economic sociology, specifically Karl Polanyi’s theory of the modern market economy, plays a large role in supporting MacIntyre’s claims. After presenting the main argument of the text, I draw upon the social theory elaborated in Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, specifically its theory of the relationship between vulnerability, dependence, and virtuous networks of giving and receiving, while briefly noting recent sociological criticisms of Polanyi, to argue that we have reason to be skeptical of MacIntyre’s empirical claims concerning the vicious character of modern social structures in After Virtue.

Narrative as active inference

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabil Bouizegarene ◽  
maxwell ramstead ◽  
Axel Constant ◽  
Karl Friston ◽  
Laurence Kirmayer
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Human Adaptation ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Future Projection ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parsimonious Model ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Theory Research

The ubiquity and importance of narratives in human adaptation has been recognized by many scholars. Research has identified several functions of narratives that are conducive to individuals’ well-being and adaptation as well as to coordinated social practices and enculturation. In this paper, we characterize the social and cognitive functions of narratives in terms of the framework of active inference. Active inference depicts the fundamental tendency of living organisms to adapt by creating, updating, and maintaining inferences about their environment. We review the literature on the functions of narratives in identity, event segmentation, episodic memory, future projection, storytelling practices, and enculturation. We then re-cast these functions of narratives in terms of active inference, outlining a parsimonious model that can guide future developments in narrative theory, research, and clinical applications.

Ideological Inversion and the (De)legitimation of Neoliberalism in Chile

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismael Puga
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
Panel Surveys ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Strategic Adaptation ◽  
The Social

Using a mixed-methods approach based on discussion focus groups and panel surveys of the Longitudinal Social Study of Chile, this chapter demonstrates that Chilean’s neoliberal economic order is not legitimized by the vast majority of the population. Instead, the author argues that social norms are in serious conflict with the prevailing socioeconomic order. Within Chilean society, both citizens and social analysts are prone to agree with the existence of a “neoliberal consensus” due to the strategic adaptation of social practices that take place within a socioeconomic order that most individuals accept as a given. As a consequence, a “fantasy consensus” emerges in Chilean society in order to stabilize the social economic order, thus avoiding collective mobilization and social change. In this scenario, the protest waves that Chilean society has faced since 2011 offer additional proof that the “fantasy consensus” has experienced serious fissures, thus opening a window of opportunity to delegitimize Chile’s neoliberal order in the country.

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