New Paradigms in Ethics

During my time at UoE, I wanted to take at least one full-blown philosophy course. ‘New Paradigms in Ethics,’ taught by a professor from the Divinity School, is a deep dive into a single philosopher: Alasdair MacIntyre. Admittedly, I had no idea who MacIntyre was before starting the course, but I have now read three of his works:

1. After virtue : a study in moral theory
2. Three rival versions of moral enquiry : encyclopaedia, genealogy and tradition
3. Ethics in the conflicts of modernity : an essay on desire, practical reasoning, and narrative

MacIntyre avidly criticizes many modern, normative philosophical movements, including utilitarianism, deontology, and contractualism. He is largely responding to the “enlightenment ethics” of Bentham, Kant, and Rawls. To do this, he goes back to Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, whose teachings provide many of the anchor points in MacIntyre’s own arguments. Aquinas is a particularly interesting influence since Aquinas was able to blend theology and philosophy into a single unified movement. MacIntyre himself adopted Catholicism early in the 1980’s, and I believe Aquinas’ teachings may have contributed to that decision, if not certainly, to MacIntyre’s theory of a unified life, whereby a meaningful life is one that is not fragmented. I’m drastically oversimplifying here for the sake of brevity.

Tomorrow is day one of intensives, which are eight-hour lectures set in UK time. For someone living on the West Coast, that means lectures typically begin at either 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. On the first day of intensives, each student is asked to present an interpretation of a particular topic taken from the readings—again, all of which are from MacIntyre. This isn’t a typical protocol for intensives, but it is interesting nonetheless. I was assigned the topic of tradition, which I found to be quite interesting and, in many ways, contrasting with my own preconceived ideas on the topic. I lay out a few key insights from the readings below.

1. We often think about “traditions” as events. But MacIntyre characterizes them as the embodiment and transferrence of values. These traditions are both fixed and fluid, which is somewhat of a paradox. They are fixed in the sense that the tradition itself must be robust enough to be considered meaningful but also malleable enough for it to be passed down to future generations.
2. We are all part of some tradition, whether that be the privileges we inherit or the social debts we incur. MacIntyre goes on to say that “we are what we inherit.” Thinking about traditions more as a lineage of values puts more responsibility on those who bequeath these values to future generations.
3. What causes traditions to decay is the practice—or lack thereof—of virtues. Virtues are the dominant theme in Aristotelian ethics, and in Aristotle’s theory, virtues can only be achieved through practice. This helps to make sense of MacIntyre’s views of traditions since traditions also must be practiced. But how do virtues play into traditions, exactly? Here are some examples, according to MacIntyre. We must exercise the virtue of truthfulness to maintain the spirit of the tradition itself. In the face of adversity, we must demonstrate courage, another virtue, should the tradition face social or familial adversity.

MacIntyre’s works were thought-provoking and opened some new avenues of thinking as I work toward my thesis, which is also a derivative of virtue ethics and the teachings of Aristotle. Below are a few questions I noted while reading MacIntyre’s work. Note that these insights are not exclusively germane to my thesis and can be interpolated for many other contexts.

1. Do we somehow lose something by trying to institutionalize ethics? For example, in ‘Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry: encyclopedia, genealogy, and Tradition,’ philosophy’ simply could not fit into the earlier curricular categories either of the faculty of theology or of the faculty of arts. In his unfinished commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitat, Aquinas pointed out that “The seven liberal arts do not adequately divide theoretical philosophy.
2. How do you evaluate ethical decision-making skills or even just comprehension? If a solution can be arrived at, could it be standardized? If it can’t be standardized, does it somehow lack value, or is it potentially devoid of meaning?
3. Is there some credibility lost based on which thinkers we choose to embed into the curriculum? For example, if we say the curriculum and learning objectives are based on Aristotle’s teachings, then might that be more socially palatable? In contrast, if we say that the curriculum is based on Oscar Wilde’s teachings, then it may seem less credible, irrespective of how salient Wilde’s points may be.