Philosophical Guiding Light in Modern Disenchanted Era: Alasdair MacIntyre
In his dying days, the esteemed philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, aged 96, left behind a legacy that echoes loudly in today's world. His critiques of the Enlightenment and proposals for how to fix modernity's missteps remain a timeless narrative for our times.
Patrick West, a columnist, discusses MacIntyre's work, which gained prominence in the '80s, when the Enlightenment's tenets were under fierce attack. MacIntyre, influenced by thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, believed that complacent liberalism and amoral capitalism had exalted individualism at the expense of community.
In his signature work, "After Virtue," MacIntyre condemned the Enlightenment for its mistaken belief in universal ethics and objectivity, its unfounded 'good' and 'evil' standards, and the catastrophes it unleashed upon the world. He particularly disdained the pernicious influence of bureaucracy and scientism that led to exploitation, alienation, and spiritual poverty.
MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist, despaired when postmodernism's leading lights questioned the Enlightenment principles that supported Marxism. His earlier work, "Against the Self-Images of the Age" critiqued Christianity and Marxism for their failure to establish adequate foundations for morality.
Embracing the work of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, MacIntyre proposed returning to Ancient Greek principles of virtue and telos - meaning and aim. In his view, a good life requires living with purpose, cultivating wisdom, and adhering to one's social setting's customs and traditions through education, participation, and mutual deliberation.
Although he rejected the terms, MacIntyre became associated with communitarianism and virtue ethics. Critics labeled him a moral relativist, but MacIntyre maintained that different conceptual frameworks and ethical systems are incommensurable, yet some can be more persuasive, successful, and worthy than others.
Today, MacIntyre's work resonates, albeit in two distinct settings: amidst those who reject Enlightenment reason and see it as a Eurocentric power-knowledge system, and among those engaged in the populist revolt against modernity that MacIntyre decried. A world teetering on the brink of nihilism due to modernity's shortcomings needs MacIntyre's moral compass to find shared values and a common purpose.
- The critique of complacent liberalism and amoral capitalism, as well as the debunking of universal ethics and objectivity, found in Alasdair MacIntyre's work, such as his signature book "After Virtue," is gaining a fresh relevance today, especially within the context of culture wars involving free speech, identity politics, and cancel culture.
- As a philosopher who despaired over the dismantling of principles underpinning Christianity and Marxism, MacIntyre's work, which advocates a return to principles of virtue and telos from Ancient Greek thought, offers an alternative perspective to General-News discussions centered around politics and modernity's missteps.
- Interestingly, while MacIntyre did not employ the terms, his communitarian and virtue ethics principles have found resonance in two distinct camps: those advocating for a change from Enlightenment-based reason, viewing it as a problematic Eurocentric power structure, and those engaged in a populist revolt against modernity that MacIntyre himself had decried.
