Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Bernstein, Richard J.
BOOKS Philosophy & virture for society's sake A lasdair Maclntyre is one of the most thought-provoking philosophers of our time. The title of one of his earlier books, Against the Self-image of...
...We can sometimes show, as he attempts to do with the Scottish tradition, that it is subverted from within...
...He does this by presenting a dramatic narrative of three traditions: the Aristotelian tradition that emerges from the conflicts of the ancient polis and transforms the Homeric understanding of the virtues...
...Maclntyre argues, on the contrary, that rival traditions each claiming "truth" are not self-enclosed window-less monads...
...In After Virtue, Maclntyre recognized the need to support his claims with an account of rationality, specifically the practical rationality involved in deciding what we shall do and how we shall act...
...Maclntyre anticipates the two typical modern responses to his claims...
...Against Enlightenment and liberal WHOSE JUSTICE...
...The only way to understand a living, ongoing tradition is by telling the story of its development...
...A rational tradition can only be properly understood when we discover its origins, the way in which it develops, the conflicts it engenders, and the way in which subsequent thinkers succeed or fail in addressing and resolving these conflicts...
...We seem to be in a double bind...
...But if we think there is any other way of answering questions about rationality and justice except with reference to living argumentative traditions, we are deceiving ourselves...
...In After Virtue, Maclntyre not only sought to expose the rotten foundations of modern liberalism but to reconstruct and rationally vindicate the moral tradition of Aristotelian practical philosophy and the virtues...
...The perspectivist claims we cannot speak of the truth or falsity of rival traditions...
...Maclntyre has been a relentless critic of the ideologies, shibboleths, fragmented, conflicting beliefs and practices that shape our everyday lives...
...Lacking any firm beliefs, we are pushed and pulled by ephemeral manufactured desires and emotions...
...He insists that the concept of truth is timeless...
...The working out of the Enlightenment project-seeking to justify morality by the appeal to abstract reason-has led to chaos and interminable conflicts and disagreements in our moral lives and moral philosophy...
...He argued that this tradition provides a deeper and more coherent understanding of our moral and social lives...
...A consistent target of attack has been modern liberalism, which he takes to be a disastrous consequence of the Enlightenment legacy...
...If there is any adequate answer to the questions, "What is rationality...
...and the Scottish tradition that emerged in the seventeenth century and which at its climax of achievement was subverted from within by Hume...
...Which Rationality...
...Maclntyre's narrative of these three traditions and the ways in which they sometimes overlap and conflict with each other is breathtaking...
...Sometimes when confronted with a coherent, concrete, historical account of a tradition we will experience a shock of recognition...
...The thrust of Maclntyre's project becomes clear when we realize that he denies that there is any neutral universal standpoint from which we can understand and rationally evaluate rival conceptions of rationality and justice...
...In his more recent and controversial book, After Virtue (1981), he argued that a catastrophe occurred with the triumph of the Enlightenment mentality with its false belief in a universal, ahistorical, contextless reason which is presumably possessed by every "autonomous" human individual...
...Maclntyre leaves us with a deep unresolved problem...
...He also tells us that "genuinely to adopt the standpoint of a tradition thereby commits one to its view of what is true and false and, in so committing one, prohibits one from adopting any rival standpoint.'' But then how can we rationally resolve serious clashes about fundamental truth claims among rival traditions...
...WHICH RATIONALITY...
...The title of one of his earlier books, Against the Self-image of the Age, captures the spirit of his writings...
...BOOKS Philosophy & virture for society's sake A lasdair Maclntyre is one of the most thought-provoking philosophers of our time...
...He refers to himself as an "Augustinian Christian" and concludes his book by claiming that those who have thought their way through the topics of justice and practical rationality, from the standpoint of Aristotle and Aquinas, "have every reason at least so far to hold that the rationality of their tradition has been confirmed in its encounters with other traditions...
...It is precisely this problem that has led so many modern thinkers to be suspicious of the truth claims of competing traditions...
...And Maclntyre does not hide his own allegiances...
...must it refer to a specific tradition in its concrete historical linguistic detail-and if these traditions conflict with each other and are incompatible, what can it even mean to give a true account of justice and rationality...
...But here we encounter an apparent paradox, of which Maclntyre is fully aware...
...Dramatic narrative is what is required to understand a tradition and this is the way to develop a viable moral philosophy...
...Richard J. Bernstein prejudices, Maclntyre sought to reclaim what it means to participate in a living argumentative tradition that is rooted in concrete historical practices...
...Sometimes in order to enter into serious dialogue with a tradition, nothing less than a conversion is required...
...Maclntyre has eminently succeeded in doing what is all too rare in our time-he compels us to rethink the most fundamental moral issues that we face as human beings...
...We must always ask: Whose Justice...
...This is the issue that he confronts in his present book, showing us how different types of practical rationality are intimately related to different understandings of justice...
...On the contrary, his explicit aim is to give a "true account of justice and practical rationality...
...Alasdair Maclntyre Notre Dame, $22.95, 410 pp...
...Maclntyre thinks both these responses are radically mistaken...
...ace as human beings...
...Maclntyre acknowledges that there are other traditions whose narratives need to be related...
...They overlap and crisscross...
...Indeed they reflect the disastrous Enlightenment prejudice that either there is a universal neutral rational standard for evaluating truth claims or "anything goes...
...The conflict of authorities, each claiming for itself "the truth," was one of the main reasons for the Enlightenment attempt to discover an objective standard for evaluation...
...We have become rootless impoverished cosmopolitans...
...It is simply not clear how we can escape a situation where rival traditions confront each other and do not share any rational standards for resolving their conflicting truth claims...
...The erudition, linguistic sensitivity, historical imagination, and rhetorical skill he brings to bear in showing the developmental coherence of these traditions is dazzling and provocative...
...There are those (I include myself) who may think that, despite Maclntyre's spirited defense, he has not adequately answered the question, "How are we to respond rationally to the claims of rival incompatible and incommensurable traditions...
...Nevertheless, anyone interested in moral philosophy, the development of the three traditions so vividly portrayed, or the moral conflicts and discontents of modern life, will be stimulated by this book...
...the Augustinian version of Christianity rooted in the New Testament where the concept of will becomes fundamental...
...We can show, as he claims to do with the Thomistic integration of Aristotelianism and Augustinian-ism, that it can successfully meet the challenges of rival traditions...
...It depends on who we are and how we understand ourselves...
...Still we may be plagued by the question, ' 'To which tradition should we give our allegiance-an allegiance which does not simply involve intellectual consent but active participation in a distinctive form of life...
...We can sometimes show why a specific tradition judged by its own standards or even,by the standards of a rival tradition is rationally superior...
...By "liberalism" Maclntyre does not mean a specific political doctrine but rather a mentality that pervades and corrupts the ways in which we think, act, and feel...
...We would seriously misread Maclntyre if we thought that his primary objective is to tell the narratives of different traditions for their own sake...
...The relativist denies that rational debate and rational choice among rival traditions are possible...
...What is justice...
...If there is no neutral standpoint from which we can rationally evaluate rival claims of incompatible and even incommensurable traditions, how can we even pretend to give a true account...
...Maclntyre acknowledges that there is no easy answer to this question...
...He even argues that modern liberalism- despite its own self-understanding-must be understood as a tradition...
Vol. 115 • May 1988 • No. 10
