Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
JASON BLAKELY
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre

Is Purely Practical Agreement Possible? Maritain’s Mexico City Thesis Answers Some MacIntyrian Challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
J. W. Schulz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
The State ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Jacques Maritain

In 1947, Jacques Maritain argued before the UN that “men mutually opposed in their theoretical conceptions can come to a merely practical agreement regarding a list of human rights.” Maritain justified this thesis using a progressive theory of the natural law which rests on a distinction between the natural law as operative in human nature and the natural law as known and articulated. Drawing on Maritain’s 1951 Man and the State, this essay defends a MacIntyrian reading of Maritain’s thesis and its plausibility against four objections from Ralph McInerny, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre himself.

scholarly journals THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION OF THE BRITISH NEW LEFT: “CULTURE” AND THE “MANAGERIAL SOCIETY,”C.1956–1962

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 801-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDDY FOKS
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
New Left ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Cultural Criticism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Stuart Hall

Castigated as theoretically naive by Perry Anderson, or praised as culturally sensitive by later writers, the political thought of the “first New Left” has often been understood in relation to F. R. Leavis's cultural criticism. This article seeks to reframe the writings of E. P. Thompson, Stuart Hall, Charles Taylor and Alasdair Macintyre from this period as interventions in a fundamentally sociological debate about the nature of capitalism in the managed economy of postwar Britain.

Community and communitarianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Political Life

Reflections on the nature and significance of community have figured prominently in the history of Western ethics and political philosophy, both secular and religious. In ethics and political philosophy the term ‘community’ refers to a form of connection among individuals that is qualitatively stronger and deeper than a mere association. The concept of a community includes at least two elements: (1) individuals belonging to a community have ends that are in a robust sense common, not merely congruent private ends, and that are conceived of and valued as common ends by the members of the group; and (2) for the individuals involved, their awareness of themselves as belonging to the group is a significant constituent of their identity, their sense of who they are. In the past two decades, an important and influential strand of secular ethical and political thought in the English-speaking countries has emerged under the banner of communitarianism. The term ‘communitarianism’ is applied to the views of a broad range of contemporary thinkers, including Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and sometimes Michael Walzer (MacIntyre 1981; Sandel 1982; Taylor 1979, 1989; Walzer 1983). It is important to note, however, that there is no common creed to which these thinkers all subscribe and that for the most part they avoid the term. There are two closely related ways to characterize what communitarians have in common; one positive, the other negative. As a positive view, communitarianism is a perspective on ethics and political philosophy that emphasizes the psycho-social and ethical importance of belonging to communities, and which holds that the possibilities for justifying ethical judgments are determined by the fact that ethical reasoning must proceed within the context of a community’s traditions and cultural understandings (Bell 1993: 24–45). As a negative view, communitarianism is a variety of anti-liberalism, one that criticizes liberal thought for failing to appreciate the importance of community. At present the communitarian critique of liberalism is more developed than is communitarianism as a systematic ethical or political philosophy. Existing communitarian literature lacks anything comparable to Rawls’ theory of justice or Feinberg’s theory of the moral limits of criminal law, both of which are paradigmatic examples of systematic liberal ethical and political theory. For the most part, the positive content of the communitarians’ views must be inferred from their criticisms of liberalism. Thus, to a large extent communitarianism so far is chiefly a way of thinking about ethics and political life that stands in fundamental opposition to liberalism. To some, communitarian thinking seems a healthy antidote to what they take to be excessive individualism and obsessive preoccupation with personal autonomy. To others, communitarianism represents a failure to appreciate the value – and the fragility – of liberal social institutions. The success of communitarianism as an ethical theory depends upon whether an account of ethical reasoning can be developed that emphasizes the importance of social roles and cultural values in the justification of moral judgments without lapsing into an extreme ethical relativism that makes fundamental ethical criticisms of one’s own community impossible. The success of communitarianism as a political theory depends upon whether it can be demonstrated that liberal political institutions cannot provide adequate conditions for the flourishing of community or secure appropriate support for persons’ identities so far as their identities are determined by their membership in communities.

The Rise and Fall of the Fact/Value Distinction

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Davydova ◽  
Wes Sharrock
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Moral Inquiry ◽  
Third Stream ◽  
The Social ◽  
Peter Winch ◽  
Sociology Of Morality ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Normative Considerations

The paper addresses the problem of the conceptualisation of morality in sociology. The traditional sociological conception of morality was based upon the acceptance of a fact/value dichotomy, implying that sociology portrays the factual nature of morality, which thereby becomes equivalent to group conformity The opposition of fact and value was brought into question by trends of thought that followed from, respectively, Alfred Schutz and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The line from Schutz's ideas led towards their reformulation by Harold Garfinkel, who to large extent integrated the ‘moral’ with the ‘cognitive’. Wittgenstein's influence, through, especially Peter Winch, John W. Cook and Alfred Louch undercut the idea that sociological descriptions were themselves purely factual, rather than integrally evaluative. A third stream is represented by Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, who adopt the idea that morality must be understood in its social and historical context, and explicitly reject the separation of fact and value in moral inquiry. The fact/value distinction is the source of chronic problems for the sociology of morality. Specifically, a sociological account of morality, that would define the correct understanding of the nature of morality – ie identify what substantive character and content is appropriate to it – is not possible. The disintegration of the fact/value dichotomy also means that the idea that the social context can itself be described independently of normative considerations is an illusion.

scholarly journals FORMALIDAD Y SUSTANTIVIDAD DE LA JUSTIFICACIÓN DE LOS DERECHOS FUNDAMENTALES, EN JOHN RAWLS

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (240) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Miguel Ángel Suárez Romero
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Will Kymlicka ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
Pensamiento Filosofico

<p>En el pensamiento filosófico, ético y jurídico de la actualidad, podemosidentificar tres grandes corrientes que tratan de explicar los problemas del tiempo presente. La primera de ellas, es aquella que se identifica con las voces del liberalismo como renovación del pensamiento kantiano, dentro de la cual se encuentran pensadores como John Rawls y Ronald Dworkin. La segunda, que critica severamente el modelo anterior, está representado por una serie de autores comunitaristas que presentan un planteamiento distinto al proyecto ilustrado de la modernidad, en donde podemos encontrar personajes como Charles Taylor y Will Kymlicka, pudiendo añadir aquel otro pensamiento completamente escéptico ante la posibilidad de fundamentar los derechos como sería el caso de Alasdair MacIntyre.</p><p>Por último, la tercera de las corrientes a las que nos hemos referido es la voz de la segunda escuela de Francfort, la cual mediante un intento de fusionar los dos modelos anteriores, pretende proseguir el liberalismo del programa moderno sobre bases teóricas hegelianas, cuyo principal representante es sin duda alguna Jürgen Habermas.<br /><br />El presente trabajo intenta analizar algunos de los aspectos más relevantes de un autor que representa a la primera de las corrientes antes aludida, es decir, del profesor de la Universidad de Harvard:John Rawls.<br />Las líneas subsiguientes se encuentran motivadas por la interrogante planteada, acerca de si la fundamentación de los Derechos Humanos propuesta por Rawls es, desde el punto de vista de la Teoría de la Justicia una fundamentación de carácter formal o más bien sustantiva.</p>

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