The Relativist and Perspectivist Challenges To MacIntyre S Meta-Ethics

T H E R E L AT I V I S T
TO
AND
PERSPECTIVIST CHALLENGE M AC I N T Y R E S META-ETHICS

a dissertation submitted as part of the requirements of the MA (Phil) degree at the University of London.
Ren Mario Micallef

London. August, 2002. (11,979 words.)
A BBREVIATIONS
ABBREVIATIONS
AV1 AV2 RPP WJWR TRV CCP MRTJ After virtue (1ed.): MacIntyre (1981). After virtue (2ed.): MacIntyre (1984). Relativism, Power and Philosophy: MacIntyre (1985). Whose Justice? Which Rationality?: MacIntyre (1988). Three Rival version of Moral Enquiry: MacIntyre (1990) Colors, Culture and Practices: MacIntyre (1992). Moral Relativism, Truth and Justification: MacIntyre (1994a).
1. I NTRODUCTION
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 R E A L I S M A N D R E L AT I V I S M I N E T H I C S A N D P H I L O S O P H Y O F S C I E N C E . In his writings, MacIntyre suggests that any evaluation of morality or moral philosophy must be historical, because the subject matters of moral philosophy at least [] are nowhere to be found except as embodied in the historical lives of particular social groups and so possessing the distinctive characteristics of historical existence (1984a). This historicism (reminiscent of MacIntyres Marxist background) brings into his ethics some of the discussion that has influenced the philosophy of science in recent years. Philosophy of science, since Quine and Kuhn, has grappled with notions such as incommensurable paradigms and programmes of research, while seeking to keep faithful to its realist tradition. Scientists and philosophers of science want to maintain that the scientific theories they uphold are true (or at least mostly true), and yet are fully aware of the non-static nature of science and especially of scientific revolutions that bring about paradigm shifts. There is always the spectre of a drift towards relativism that in science is generally deemed unacceptable. The shift from the physics of Aristotle to that of Newton to that of Einstein can in no way be understood as a smooth progression of one single super-theory. There was a time when radically different supertheories coexisted. Post-modern thought has recognized in the history of such periods and in scientific progress a major key to understanding science and its rationality. There is a time axis to be plotted: philosophy must forsake the atemporal rationality which we have inherited from our static metaphysics 1. The rationality of science depends not so much on a method or procedure but on its location in a programme of research, in a tradition. Hence, future scientists and philosophers of science can say more about the rationality of our science than ourselves, since they can tell the story better than us. And obviously, the evaluation can never be an a priori one. Alasdair MacIntyres aversion of relativism and his realist stance in both practical and theoretical philosophy (typical of a person sympathetic to Aristotle, Aquinas, Catholicism) has led him revisit the epistemological problems of philosophy of science as they apply to realist ethics (Murphy, 1995). The appeal of emotivism and the predominance of an overly-linguistic approach to meta-ethics had by and large precluded
Interestingly, Heideggers Sein und Zeit too insists on this.
1. I NTRODUCTION
moral philosophy from facing such problems. MacIntyres new approach to Ethics, inaugurated in AV1, led him to a confrontation with such epistemological problems, which has produced some very interesting solutions.
1.2
O B J E C T I V E S A N D M E T H O D O F T H E P R E S E N T WO R K MacIntyres solutions have stimulated considerable interest and various critiques. The purpose of this
essay is threefold: 1) to argue for the claim that most of the critiques of MacIntyres that accuse him of relativism are misguided; and that this is because the critics do not seem to grasp the whole complexity of his solution; 2) 3) to suggest some lines along which the debate may be refocused, given (1); to provided a detailed original exegesis of MacIntyres treatment of the problem of relativism across his corpus, that will serve as a groundwork for (2) and (3). Given that (1) and (2) depend on (3), I will dedicate most of this essay to an original exegesis (3), that will attempt to give, in synthesis, an account that does justice to the complexity and entirety of his discussion of relativism something MacIntyre himself does not provide (in one block) 2. I will then use the resources provided by the exegesis to briefly show how most of MacIntyres critics miss the point, and then to suggest where are the real weak points that the debate should develop.
A partial synthesis can be found in MRTJ (20-24). Fuller (1998:99-104) gives a grossly oversimplified account with is nevertheless mostly faithful to MacIntyres texts. Levy (1999) provides an insightful exegesis, though his interpretation is functional to his claim that MacIntyre is, after all, yet another modern philosopher.
1. I NTRODUCTION 1.3 T H E O RY A N D M E TA - T H E O RY
Given the purpose of this essay, let us also note, in passing, the meta-problems which it must bracket. MacIntyre provides a 3-level tradition-based ethical theory (virtue ethics theory, VET 3), and above this a coherentist meta-theory (meta-theory of practical rationality, MPR), that situates his VET among its rivals. Act-Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics are first-order ethical theories, like VET. A theory that would help us decide which of these three first-order theories we ought to adopt, is a meta-theory, such as MPR, or, say, a foundationalist alternative to MPR (x), or a Hegelian alternative (y). The present work is mainly interested with MacIntyres meta-theory: we will focus on MPR rather than VET (which are quite distinguishable, though intricately linked 4), and primarily on the relativism and perspectivism involved in the choice of theories such as VET (challenges that MPR hopes to overcome). The problem of choosing between theories comes up again at the meta-meta level: how do we choose between x, y, and MPR? This is a case of the regress of reasons in epistemology: we cannot justify a theory of justification of theories 5. MacIntyres MPR claims that all rationality is tradition-based while the predominant philosophical tradition (!) following claims going back to the Enlightenment claims it is not. Phrasing it in this way already makes it seem that there are two traditions to be compared (MacIntyres and that of his rivals), which already assumes MacIntyres reading at a meta-meta-level. To bracket the regress, we seek to remain at the level of his meta-theory and empathically assume MacIntyres criteria at the meta-meta level: his meta-theory is to be evaluated according to its internal coherence, and according to cross-traditional standards of what a good epistemological meta-theory should be like (actually, these are the very criteria by which, according to his meta-theory, we must evaluate his first-order ethical theory). Hence, at the back of our mind while going through these pages we will keep the following questions: Is this
3 VET is a three-tiered system of virtue ethics, where goods of effectiveness serve goods of excellence internal to practices; choice between goods of different practices is internal to the narrative order of a single life and choice between different narratively-ordered lives is internal to a tradition ( choice between traditions is then a question of meta-theory). Sweet (2000a:220-226) provides a very clear and reasonably faithful account of MacIntyres first-order theory ( it is unfortunate that he does not grasp so well his second-order theory (see section 3, below)). Horton and Mendus (1994a) give an interesting synthetic outline of his key concepts though they make the grave mistake of upsetting the ordering of the three-level structure (discussing the narrative self before practices and traditions). Ballard (2000) has chapters of interesting things to say on MacIntyres first-order theory (though his discussion of relativism (and hence 2nd-order theory) is limited to three-quarters of a page). 4 5
Several critiques fail because they confuse the levels: see Knight (1998:11ff.).
An interesting argument on this point is found in Murphy (1995) who suggests that fractally-structured justification is the most interesting (if not the most justified) justification.
1. I NTRODUCTION
meta-theory coherent? Given that philosophy is a practice 6, does this meta-theory feel philosophically sound to us, people engaged in the practice of philosophy and conversant with its internal goods and standards?
A practice is any coherent and complex form of socially established co-operative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realised in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially constitutive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended AV1:175. The notion has its origins in Wittgenstein. Some examples: chess, farming, painting, philosophy.
2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM
2. MACINTYRE, RELATIVISM AND PERSPECTIVISM

2.1 W H AT A R E T H E R E L AT I V I S T A N D P E R S P E C T I V I S T C H A L L E N G E S ? In this section I will examine the main texts in which MacIntyre deals with the problems of relativism and perspectivism, focussing on the most articulate account found in WJWR, and seeking to follow the historical development of MacIntyres dealings with such problems (MacIntyres own methodology). Clearly, what follows belongs primarily to his meta-theory, developed in the texts that followed AV1. Generally, Relativism 7 is a thesis on rational justification. If, for claims A and B, we have no rational way to prefer one over the other, then it would seem that we have to treat them as equally valid, any choice will be arbitrary from a rational point of view. Note that relativism does not claim that they are in themselves (objectively) equally valid, but that we should treat them as equally valid since we cannot know any better. Hence, if A and B are conflicting claims coming from two groups of people/traditions of enquiry/perspectives on the world, the relativist would see each party as holding onto their claim arbitrarily, with no possibility of rational debate between the two sides. Perspectivism, a thesis regarding truth, goes one step further, saying that A and B are equally valid and true since there is no truth but that accessible from ones perspective. This leads either to a coherence theory of truth (or in any case, a theory of truth, where the ordinary-language concept of truth is radically weakened) or else to the suggestion that one avoid making ascriptions of truth and falsity in the case of claims arising from particular perspectives or traditions.
2.2
P O S T S C R I P T T O T H E S E C O N D E D I T I O N O F A F T E R V I RT U E (1984)
2.2.1 Shared standards and Relativism

MacIntyres claim, in AV1, that there are non a-traditional standards of evaluation, no detached ideal observer stance, has provoked the critique that his position ultimately leads to relativism. In AV2, MacIntyre
7 MacIntyre provides definitions/interpretations of the relativist and perspectivist challenges in: RPP:12ff; WJWR:352ff; see also Knight (1998:272).
offers his first response to the charge of relativism in an answer to a critique by Robert Wachbroit. Wachbroit (1983) considers the situation arising when two traditions make incompatible claims on a certain matter. If there is no neutral standpoint, it seems that we have no good reason upholding one claim rather than the other; hence the situation calls for a relativist conclusion. MacIntyres answer is that the lack of an external a-traditional (idealobserver) standpoint does not entail the lack of shared standards, internal to all the standpoints in question, from which the matter may be decided: a tradition may appeal for a verdict in its favour against its rival to types of consideration which are already accorded weight in both the competing traditions (AV2:176). Clearly, when MacIntyre speaks of incommensurable traditions, he does not mean that they have nothing in common and that they may not share standards of evaluation; were it so, they would not even be able to tell that their claims on a given matter are incompatible, and Wachbroits problem would not arise (since nobody would notice the conflict and opt for the relativist solution): issues on which the adherents of the one tradition appeal to standards which are simply incommensurable with those appealed to by adherents of the rival tradition will not be and could not be the only kinds of issue to arise in such a situation (AV2:276).
2.2.2 The foundering of traditions and perspectivism

A further possibility that Wachbroit seems to ignore is that a tradition may founder by its own standards (AV2:277), due to internal incoherence. This suggestion of MacIntyre, together with the possibility of shared standards, is, in synthesis his reply to relativism, which will be further elaborated (but not substantially altered) in the years following AV2. But the idea of self-foundering, read in the context of the realism of AV1, could also be used to construct a first MacIntyreian response to the perspectivist challenge. A perspectivist would move a step beyond Wachbroits dilemma to claim that MacIntyre has to adopt a coherence theory of truth in order to be consistent in his defence of traditions. Many critics have argued that MacIntyres position is perspectivist since they have understood him to claim (or indirectly entail) that all traditions are equally true. But, according to MacIntyre, false theories tend to self-founder 8, and as they do, we tend to move towards objective truth. This conception of progress is possible because, in epistemology, a
We approach objective truth by eliminating falsehood: dropping false beliefs from inside a system by resolving incoherences, dropping systems which cannot resolve internal incoherences. We can only hope that such a procedure will bring us nearer to the truth: assuming as true the most coherent and longest-standing theory so far. Consider a witness in court providing an alibi. Either she was with the defendant or she wasnt: here, truth itself is not a matter of coherence. But it could well be that the only way the jury can tell is by examining the internal coherence of her account and maybe the coherence of her historical relationship with the law. Adopting a coherentist and historicist account of epistemic access and rational justification does not commit one to anti-realism.
8
coherence theory of justification is compatible with a correspondence theory of truth, and there are well-known metaphysical systems that could make the link perfectly intelligible 9. That MacIntyre is thus epistemologically committed is already clear from AV1: he is committed to a correspondence theory of truth (from his realism, his Aristotelianism, the logics assumed in his comments on reductio ad absurdum confutations) and to a coherence theory of rational justification (from his arguments on the incommensurability of traditions and the lack of an atraditional viewpoint for justification and evaluation). MRTJ makes this crystal-clear for critics like Rice (2001) and Sweet (2000a); it also hints at a metaphysics that links his conceptions of truth and rational justification 10. Returning to Wachbroidt, one has to note that shared standards and the possibility of a tradition foundering by itself do not guarantee that there will always be a rational way to decide between the incompatible claims of different traditions:
Nothing that I have said goes any way to show that a situation could not arise in which it proved possible to discover no rational way to settle the disagreements between two rival moral and epistemological traditions, so that positive grounds for a relativistic thesis would emerge. But this I have no interest in denying. For my position entails that there are no successful a priori arguments which will guarantee in advance that such a situation could not occur. AV2:277
9 As I see it, a person like MacIntyre - who is a realist and believes that there is a world out there, that there is an objective truth to which the mind must conform (adequatio intellectus ad rem see WJWR:356ff.), and that the laws of logic are not to be tempered with (e.g. MacIntyre (1991:620)) is committed to a metaphysics whereby, prima facie, there can only be one system of relationships between objects in the world (if E=mc2, it cannot be also equal to mc3; if killing a person in certain circumstances is wrong, it cannot be also right if you look at it from a different perspective). If so, for a given system of naming, there can only be one correct description of the world, and such a description would be internally coherent. Surely, due to problems of epistemological access and of naming, we have different descriptions of the world that all seem prima facie internally coherent. Hopefully, with progressive elimination of falsehood through the elimination of incoherence, each description will conform ever better to the objective truth: to the system of relationships between objects that exists in nature. On this view, relativism and perspectivism can be in principle overcome if we could translate all the descriptions of the world to a single system of naming and then noting which one is most coherent. For this to be possible, however, accurate translation must be possible: as we shall see, MacIntyre has strong doubts on whether rival descriptions can be adequate mapped onto one single system of naming, and hence compared if so, the only way by which a description may be eliminated is by its foundering internally. 10 MRTJ claims (p.8) that those protagonists of rival moral standpoints (such as MacIntyre himself), who claim truth for the central theses of their own moral standpoint are also committed to a set of theses about rational justification. For they are bound to hold that the arguments advanced in support of rival and incompatible sets of theses are unsound, not that they merely fail relative to this or that set of standards, but that either their premises are false or their inferences invalid. Hence, realism implies that, prima facie (unless one posits the possibility of things existing at the same time in contradictory universes), if two webs of beliefs/sets of thesis contradict each other at an intersection, then (at least) one must false (i.e. not true in its entirety, incoherent).
2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM 2.3
10
R E L AT I V I S M , P OW E R A N D P H I L O S O P H Y (1985), A N D T H E L A S T T H R E E C H A P T E R S O F W H O S E J U S T I C E ? W H I C H R AT I O N A L I T Y ? (1988)
2.3.1 What Relativism has to teach

The above comment suggests that there is a serious possibility of relativism emerging from MacIntyres account of traditions that he will not summarily dismiss. A cautious respect towards this possibility emerges in the last three chapters of WJWR which develop and elaborate the arguments of MacIntyres 1984 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, RPP; given the temporal proximity and substantial overlap, I will examine these two sources together, following more closely the more articulate account in WJWR 11. MacIntyre (RPP:5ff) claims that when a theory has to be refuted again and again in philosophy, it seems that prima facie, there must be at least a hint of truth in it, otherwise one good refutation would suffice. So it is with scepticism and relativism. What do we do if we find out that we possess no genuine refutations of local versions of relativism? We could either bow down and humbly accept such relativisms, or else accord our assent only with a recognition that what they present is a moment in the development of thought which has to be, if possible, transcended (RPP:5). And MacIntyre, who clearly has little sympathy for relativist conclusions, proposes the latter. So, recapitulating somewhat, the real threat of relativism is present since there is no a priori guarantee that the tools MacIntyre offers for transcending relativism and deciding which tradition is better (hence for deciding, prima facie, which traditions claims to objective truth are more sustainable) will do the job. These tools (a) comparison using shared standards (inter-traditional, but not a-traditional) and (b) foundering due to internal incoherence (mainly intra-traditional, though secured by a challenging encounter with a rival tradition) may leave us in a state of indecision for long periods of time, if (i) a proper encounter between traditions does not take place (and a traditions beliefs remain unchallenged);
11 A comment of MacIntyre in his interview with Giovanna Borradori (Knight, 1998:256) hints that these two works together express the same reflection on cultures and untranslatability, and are hence to be read together.
2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM (ii)
11
unviable traditions do not experience insoluble internal crises (during such long periods of time) and fail to self-founder;
(iii)
unviable traditions do experience insoluble internal crises but no alien traditions are found that are in a better internal state (so even if there is a crises, one holds on to what one believes since one knows of no viable alternatives which to adopt) 12.
(iv)
A variant of (i) and (ii) is when a foundered tradition thinks that there are no alternatives and maintains its beliefs simply because of an improper encounter with a viable tradition. Such lengthy indecision breeds relativism, especially if traditions have no resources to deal with (i)-(iv)
and the indecision threatens to be eternal. If there were no such resources, the relativist would say that even though, in principle, traditions may progress towards objective truth, in fact they do not, and deciding which tradition to uphold will remain an arbitrary matter indefinitely. This is why MacIntyre develops an account of the rationality of traditions to show that possibilities (i)-(iv) are not so paralysing. Schematically, this rationality offers these methodological resources: I) (i) and (iv) can be dealt with by determining how an appropriate encounter between traditions may take place and actively seeking to make such encounters a real possibility; II) the possibility of internal crises in (ii) is made a powerful one by specifying the intellectual ethos of real traditions of enquiry (Popperianly, their search for corroboration by severe tests); III) the vacuum in (iii) is dealt with using something better than a wait and see attitude: the said rationality entails that a tradition in crisis must prepare itself for a successful encounter. MacIntyre stresses that the rationality of tradition-constituted and tradition-constitutive enquiry (TCE) is neither Cartesian nor Hegelian. Descartes and Hegel have devised ways of dealing with the above relativism: Cartesians seek to found all beliefs on indubitable (or self-justifying) beliefs; Hegelians tie the knot at the other end with a conception of final truth to which Geist leads; here the very powers of the mind lead to Absolute Knowledge. TCE is anti-Cartesian in that its starting point is the contingent and positive beliefs of a social
12
An example of this is the state of atomic physics between Bolzman and Bohr (WJWR:363).
2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM group 13, () initially assumed unquestioningly,
12
() then progressively examined for incoherences and
inadequacies, and () inventively reformulated and re-evaluated in time to eliminate incoherences and inadequacies (WJWR 354-356): TCEs robustness is coherentist not foundationalist. TCE is anti-Hegelian since it does not rule out a priori its being inadequately informed by its own powers: not everything leads inevitably to Absolute Knowledge, there are several dead ends and few guarantees of success in reaching the final truth: i.e. a relationship of the mind to its objects which would be wholly adequate in respect of the capacities of that mind (WJWR:360). Since TCE lacks the guarantees of linkage with truth at the arch (Cartesian) or at the tlos (Hegelian), a plausible account of its dealings with (i)-(iv) is urgently needed to show that progress towards truth is a real possibility even if not guaranteed. I-III seem to help in making plausible the link between the a posteriori coherentist conception of rational justification in TCE and its a priori realist notion of truth (i.e. that what is considered justified belief by TCE a belief sustained by the coherence of a traditions web of beliefs and by the traditions history of successful resolution of crises will, at least prima facie or tendentially, be objectively true).
2.3.2 Internal Standards, Self-Foundering and Epistemological Crises

Regarding (II), MacIntyre insists that he is concerned with traditions of enquiry, not any tradition: the very earliest stages in the development of anything worth calling a tradition of enquiry [i.e. and above] are [] already marked by theorizing (WJWR:356) 14. A tradition unable to question its beliefs radically and critically is not (yet) a tradition of enquiry, if it precludes such internal criticism constitutively it will never become one 15. Traditions of enquiry characteristically come to frame a theory of their own activities of enquiry, develop standard forms of argument and requirements for successful dialectical questioning (WJWR:359). The weakest form of argument will be the appeal to the authority of established belief. The cyclical going and coming between stages and reveal past falsehood and force TCEs into adopting a correspondence theory of truth that stems out of a correspondence theory of falsehood:
13
This characterisation of TCE strongly reflects the Aristotelian understanding of enquiry in practical philosophy, e.g. Nich. Eth. 1145b2-7, 1098a33-b4. As Ross (1949:189) argues, according to Aristotle, Ethics reasons not from but to first principles: it starts by assuming common opinions, dialectically purges them from inconsistencies and eventually finds them to yield truths more intelligible in themselves.
14 See also the distinction between liberalism as a changing body of theory (that in WJWR constitutes a tradition of enquiry) and liberal individualist modernity at large (which is the traditionless entity criticized in AV1) in MacIntyres interview for Cogito (Knight, 1998:271). 15
This brings to mind Poppers critique of psychoanalysis and Marxism as non-scientific because constitutively unfalsifiable.
13
Falsity is recognized retrospectively as a past inadequacy when a discrepancy between the beliefs of an earlier stage of a tradition of enquiry are contrasted with the world of things and persons as it has come to be understood at some later stage. [] To claim truth for ones present mindset and the judgements which are its expression is to claim that this kind of inadequacy, this kind of discrepancy, will never appear in any possible future situation no matter how searching the enquiry, no matter how much evidence is provided, no matter what developments in rational enquiry may occur. WJWR:357-8 16.
From this notion of truth, it follows that the test for truth in the present is always to summon up as many objections of the greatest strength possible; what can be justifiably claimed as true is what has sufficiently withstood such dialectical questioning and framing of objections (WJWR:358). All this intellectual ethos opens up a tradition of enquiry to a real possibility of foundering (tool (b) above against relativism and perspectivism) through the historical event of an epistemological crisis. This is by no means a remote possibility, since each TCE characteristically has, at any point in time, a current problematic, that agenda of unsolved problems and unresolved issues by reference to which its success or lack of it in making rational progress toward some further stage of development will be evaluated (WJWR:361). A healthy tradition will be engaged fruitfully with such an agenda and gradually deal with problems as they come along; stagnation, sterility mark the onset of an epistemological crisis 17. The inability to solve new problems or the discovery of incoherences which the TCE cannot resolve will radically put into question the tradition as a whole. A solution of such a crisis involves a theoretical leap: something new, radically innovative is invoked that will: A) B) furnish a solution to previously intractable problems; explain the sterility and stagnation: why the normal resources of the tradition could not deal with the problems that caused the crisis;
16
For a first characterization of MacIntyres correspondence theory of truth, that appeals to the pre-modern notion definition of adaequatio mentis ad rem, see WJWR (356ff): For an interesting discussion of truth as adaequatio and absolute truth as absolute assertion from a Catholic viewpoint, spanning History of Philosophy, the Analytic and the Continental tradition, see Brena (1995, Chapters 2,3).
17 This account somewhat mirrors that in Philosophy of Science proposed by some authors in the Popperian tradition: Th. Kuhns concept of a extraordinary phase in the history of science when a dominant paradigm is unable to deal with puzzling evidence, I. Lakatos conception of confrontation between programmes of research, L. Laudans arguments on the rationality of traditions of research. See Boniolo and Vidali (1999:642ff) for a good introduction, Murphy (1995) for an introductory comparison between MacIntyre, Kuhn and Lakatos, Miner (2002) for an in-depth comparison between MacIntyre and Lakatos, and Stern (1994:151ff) for a comparison between MacIntrye and Laudan. MacIntyres disagreement with these authors is in his claim that a progress towards objective truth is possible: MacIntyre (1994a:297); Miner (2002).
2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM C) exhibit fundamental continuity with the previous tradition.
14
(C) is particularly important: a solution must be very innovative to succeed, yet it must leave the tradition as recognizably that same tradition present before the crisis. As we saw in (iii) and (iv) above, such a solution might not be forthcoming. Here, a tradition does not immediately founder: e.g. proponents of a scientific theory will add ad hoc hypothesis to get around the problematic observations. You must know of a better theory before you abandon yours. Hence dealing the final blow in self-foundering (tool (b)) requires some contact with another tradition. That is why MacIntyre goes on to discuss how encounters between traditions provide for the defeat of relativism and perspectivism. A resolution to the crisis coming from another tradition will satisfy (A) and (B) but not (C), and will force the adherents of the tradition in crisis to shift their allegiance to the viable tradition. Such a shift will be rational and yet will avoid appealing to some fictitious tradition-neutral standards; hence it will adequately fend off charges of relativism such as that of Wachbroit.
2.3.3 Languages-in-use, encounters and the learning of a second first language

The discussion of this second tool against relativism (the possibility of self-foundering, aided by challenging encounter with a rival tradition), gets MacIntyre involved in some very interesting philosophy of language. Such an encounter between traditions is made possible by a number of historical circumstances. Rival traditions must meet at some place at a certain point in time. This does not as yet constitute an encounter, since there is a language barrier to be overcome. If and when that barrier is overcome, there is the problem of one traditions interest in what the other has to say. If both traditions are flourishing by their own standards, then, (aa) for the boundary-dwellers (those people who can appreciate the rationality of both) relativism is a real issue, but (bb) to those strongly partisan of one tradition (those as yet incapable of a deep empathy for and understanding of the other tradition) relativism will not appeal 18. If, on the other hand, one of the traditions is experiencing a crisis, then the understanding of the rival tradition that filters into the foundering tradition may promote a shift of allegiance by the foundering traditions own standards (rather than by shared standards, as in
18
In Chapter 20 of WJWR, MacIntyre characterizes three types of undecided person, typically modern characters, which are neither boundary-dwellers nor strongly-partisan18, and suggests ways how they can become first strongly-partisan, and from there develop an empathy towards alien traditions. In CCP, MacIntyre discusses how encounters between flourishing traditions could provide a rational way to choose between them using shared standards provided by shared practices.
15
tool (a)): the borrowing of concepts from the rival traditions will satisfy the internal requirements (A) and (B) above, but not (C). Let us therefore deal with the problem of the linguistic barrier. MacIntyres account is quite complex and has far too often been misunderstood by the critics. There are two key concepts introduced by MacIntyre in this discussion: that of a language-in-use and that of learning a second first language. MacIntyre is interested in language as a means of communication between (and in the case of liberal modernity, within sections of) traditions. He is interested in communication between people deeply-rooted within their traditions who can propose coherent systems of belief to each other, not in the alienated people living in metropolitan centres of modernity, speaking the gallimaufry languages of rootless cosmopolitanism (WJWR:388; RPP:14ff), incoherently picking and mixing fragments of moral arguments based on rival moral principles borrowed from here and there (AV1:6ff). Hence the means of communication with which he is concerned is not a language like English, but, rather, a language-in-use as, say, fourteenth-century-English-ofLancashire-and-surrounding-districts (WJWR:373): a means of communication with localization in space and time. In some way, languages-in-use are something like trade jargons, cants, argots, old dialects, tribal languages: a manner of speaking strongly linked to a social group (say nuclear physicists) or to a system of thought (say Christianity): hence a language-in-use (LIU) is the cant of a tradition of enquiry 19. There are two ways by which an alien tradition may become accessible to a deeply-rooted person: either its content is translated to the LIU of his or her tradition, or else he or she endeavours to learn the alien traditions LIU as a second first language that is, without translation, but by taking the plunge into the other tradition and learning its LIU just like a little child learns a first language, or as an anthropologist learns a newlydiscovered language (WJWR:347), or as the old-fashioned classical education taught 5th century Greek by getting pupils to read the canonical texts of that tradition and compose works in the styles and genres of that LIU (WJWR:347-8).
19 However, it is important to note that his analysis of MacIntyres LIUs is not simply an exercise in semantics. Extrapolating somewhat, a language can also understood to denote a forum of discussion. In this sense, not only late twentieth-century English but also institutions such as the the liberal university (WJWR:399ff) and other forums such as TV talk shows could be languages that pretend they can objectively represent all cultures, languages in which a traditions arguments end up distorted because mis-translated.
16
MacIntyre claims that the rationality of TCE strongly supports the second option. The problem with translation is untranslatability, which is rather a whole class of problems. (In time, a language may be neologized by another allowing the untranslatability to be overcome, but such a process requires the presence of a number of native speakers that know what is untranslatable in the other language (and hence what neologisms to include in theirs): they can know this only by learning it as a second first language. They must also be able to transmit to their fellows the concepts behind the neologisms). Untranslatability problems come in two types: (aaa) those between local, self-contained languages, and (bbb) those between such languages and the internationalised languages of modernity. Before discussing such problems in the following sections, we note that the end line here is that of overcoming relativism and perspectivism. Relativism. What cannot be translated will not be properly rendered in the rival traditions LIU; that part of the TCE will not be available to challenge the rival in the encounter; ultimately, a chance to defeat a tradition/propose a viable alternative to a foundered tradition may be thus missed and so, an opportunity to transcend the relativist deadlock will be lost. On the other hand, a person who makes the effort of learning the rival traditions LIU will be able to appreciate that tradition more fully: this may expose him or her to relativism if both traditions are flourishing and there are few shared standards to allow comparison (see the discussion of CCP below), but will clearly offer a way out of an epistemological crisis if his/her tradition is foundering and the rival tradition is flourishing. Thus, MacIntyre concludes (WJWR:387-8) that the rationality of TCE, when carefully examined, entails that we opt for learning LIUs as second first languages rather than for translation, especially when the LIU of an alien tradition shares very little with ones own LIU. Perspectivism. The rational conclusion of the above is that what is untranslatable must be deemed as possibly superior rather than discounted as obviously inferior, hence as a potential threat to ones tradition. Within the rationality of TCE (not Cartesian, not Hegelian), such a potential threat constitutes an asset against perspectivism: only traditions that are thus threatened can make truth claims, since they are open to the possibility of being challenged and defeated. Traditions not open to this possibility make assertions from a hegemony that cannot be put to question, cannot be falsified, and without the aid of some Hegelian Geist, they cannot link up to an objective truth. Traditions that can be challenged can make progress, and hence can sustain the link between an internal justification and an external truth, and hence can make non-perspectivist truthclaims.
17
MacIntyres relativism. If the rationality of TCE does promote the learning of alien LIUs as second first languages, then it specifies which type of relativism MacIntyre must treat with respect, and which type of relativism cannot be imputed to his epistemology. There is a relativism that says: areas of untranslatability in LIUs entail improper translation and hence inappropriate encounters between traditions. No encounter, no challenge. No challenge, no winner. Everybody keeps to his own camp; there is no rational way to decide between rival traditions. Each will forever seem as viable and as good as any other. This relativism MacIntyre can defeat by brandishing a rationality that encourages the members of a tradition learn the rivals LIU as a second first language, hence avoiding the problems of untranslatability, and an appropriate encounter is made possible. But there is also the relativism that says: O.K. People coming from a flourishing tradition learn alien LIUs as second first languages. Then they discover that there are other traditions prima facie as viable as theirs. Hence they will realize that they have no rational reason to stick to their camp, and no rational reason to shift to the rival camp. Every such tradition will forever seem as viable and as good as any other. This is the relativism that MacIntyre respects. However, as we have seen at the beginning of this section, (3.3.1), he expresses the hope that it will be transcended. That term forever can be rendered dubious by his meta-theory, but cannot be definitely refuted. In time, shared standards may emerge which will help us to decide (see below). In time, a tradition may founder and hence be removed from the list of viable traditions. But there are no a priori guarantees. We are back to tools (a) and (b). Back to the relativism that in AV2 MacIntyre had no interest in denying (section 3.2.2). If so, the discussion on translatability and second first languages will have served to ward off the first type of relativism: that which he has an interest in denying.
2.3.4 The problems of translation between self-contained LIUs

I have sought, in the above section, to outline the argument against perspectivism and against the first type of relativism, that would follow from MacIntyres discussion of the problems of translation. What are, therefore, the problems regarding translation of LIUs? In this section we will deal with case (aaa) above: translation between self-contained LIUs. There are two types of fellows we meet in this type of situation: (aa) the boundary-dweller and (bb) the mono-partisan 20. Imagine a situation on a Pacific Island in the early 19th century: we have a colonizer just arrived
20
The labels are mine.
18
from London, an old native landowner, and someone doing the translation between these two: a young lad, halfBritish, half-native, who grew up at the boundary between the two languages and cultures. The native and the Londoner are the ones I call mono-partisan, the translator is the boundary-dweller. The Londoner wants to acquire land for the British Government in a manner that is just. The native has a totally different conception of landownership, justice in distribution, appropriate use of land, value of property: his criteria for justice in this case are derived from local wisdom, proverbs, sacred texts . The discussion goes on at great length, since the native will not give in at certain points which to the Englishman are insignificant; the latter tries to bring obvious arguments to show this: arguments that on close analysis derive their premises from the Bible, Roman Law, the philosophy of Locke. Finally, the colonizer gets fed up, and calls in the troops. Then he settles his conscience by offering a fat compensation to the native fellow and his kinsmen. In this situation, both mono-partisans are sure they are in the right while the other is wrong. The use of force prevails in the end but on the colonizers part this is not purely an exercise of arbitrariness because for him, the native doesnt know what justice requires and so a civilized discussion is unattainable. He must be taught what his fair share is. From the natives point of view, the colonizer is totally wrong and simply obtains what he wants by the use of force. There is no relativism on their part, but this is not what MacIntyre would happy with, pace those critics who call him a traditionalist and a communitarian 21 (RPP, part 3). The relativism and arbitrariness in the situation is experienced by the translator, who, as he struggles to translate the words, finds himself unable to communicate the rationality behind them: in the natives LIU, the colonizers arguments appear arrogant, incomprehensible, queer; in the Londoner LIU, the natives justification of his position is primitive,
21
Politically, MacIntyre is more of a revolutionary than anything else: he seeks an upheaval of the liberal status quo and possibly a reorganization of society. He abandoned Marxism because it was not revolutionary enough: its revolutions assume once again the bureaucratic superstructure of modernity. He criticizes conservatives as much as radicals because they are both liberals. Pace Mulhall and Swift (1996)s and Kymlicka (2002)s compartmentalisation of contemporary political philosophy, MacIntyre categorically refuses the title of communitarian (Intervew with Giovanna Borradori; in Knight (1998:265)). A good introduction to MacIntyres political outlook can be found in Knight (1998:24ff).
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superstitious, ignorant. The translator can feel both the force of the arguments when perceived from the point of view of the speaker, and the weakness of the very same translated words from the point of view of the listener 22. Hence, as we have seen, there is a clear evaluative bias in translation between self-contained languages 23. To overcome such bias, as the ethos of traditions of rational enquiry insists, is to opt for the learning of second first languages, and hence become like the translator. In a way, for him, it seems that both are right and both are wrong by their own internal standards. The boundary-dweller is thus vulnerable to the relativist challenge. Even so, MacIntyre invites us enquirers to become boundary-dwellers and to put ourselves at the mercy of this relativism. He does not want me to remain walled in my tradition, especially if I start becoming sensitive to the fact that there is another tradition around, and I will not be able to tell whether it is superior to mine or not before I have become engaged in an encounter with it. The partisans certainty of being right and their lack of interest in making the effort to understand the other fully (even if this requires the very costly exercise of immersion in another culture) is no virtue of theirs, especially given that they do sense that the other has something to say to them that they cannot grasp. When the parties are traditions of enquiry, the very attitude of assuming the other tradition wrong before one can understand what it has to say is outright intellectual dishonesty (according to the very rationality of traditions): as we have just said above, avoiding potential threats in this manner entails blocking the channel of progress towards truth, and hence traditions end up simply asserting without being exposed to the possibility of being corrected or rejected (hence perspectivism resulting from Nietzscheian assertion: an exercise of the will to power without any reference to objective truth 24). This is
22
To support this claim, in RPP and WJWR, MacIntyre engages himself in an elucidation of the boundary-dwellers difficulties with translation between two self-contained languages. MacIntyre insists that there is more to names than pure referentiality: referring to an archipelago as the Falklands or as the Malvinas Islands may have significant political import. Besides names, MacIntyre mentions catalogues of virtues and psychological descriptions of how thinking may generate action: there is no tradition-neutral use of these, and hence any use may create translatability problems. Furthermore, who speaks a LIU as a second first language would know all the contexts where that word could be used (being green about the benefits of eating greens on a green table), the uses (straightforward, ironical, metaphorical, equivocal, literal), and what is being alluded to and what is being implicitly denied by its use (an attribution of phronesis to a person in Homeric Greek would exclude the possibility of certain behaviours which attributing prudence in Victorian English parliamentary jargon would not exclude). This is linked to acquaintance with the canonical texts of a tradition (in our Pacific Island story, we mentioned proverbs, political writings, Roman Law and the Bible). These embody, shape and are actively reinterpreted by the rationality of the tradition that conceives them, such that they are hallmarks of the internal standards of evaluation and justification.
It is interesting to note here, as does David Wong (1989:140ff), that it is only when incommensurability in translation starts to be overcome (by translation, gloss, paraphrase) that other kinds of incommensurability emerge: incommensurability in justification of divergent claims and incommensurability in evaluation of different traditions (for the purpose of giving ones allegiance to one rather than the other). It takes a certain knowledge of an alien language to realize that some parts of it are untranslatable because of problems that go beyond language itself understood as a closed system of symbols. One of the marks of a genuinely adequate knowledge of two quite different languages by one and the same person is that persons ability to discriminate between those parts of each language which are translatable into the other and those which are not (MacIntyre, 1985:10). Hence the untranslatability problems that raise incommensurability problems in justification and evaluation become evident only to the person who acquires genuinely adequate knowledge of the rival LIU, the person who overcomes incommensurability in translation.
23 24
MacIntyre engages in a critique of M. Foucault (a Nietzscheian perspectivist) in part 3 of RPP.
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why MacIntyre wants us to learn the other traditions LIU as a second first language, become boundary-dwellers and risk facing relativism. To repeat: his cure for relativism is not the traditionalist one; he does not want us to become more partisan. He obviously wants the culturally alienated people of the cosmopolitan centres of modernity intellectual nomads to become partisan simply because this is the only route to becoming boundary-dwellers: people at home in more than one tradition, not people at home in none. But as soon as one is culturally rooted, MacIntyre wants him or her to take the plunge into another culture, as a person, and as a moral and social agent engaged in enquiry (this is the essence of chapter 20 of WJWR) 25. So MacIntyre would like us to be like the translator. Certainly, not all boundary-dwellers are deprived of resources with which to decide and face relativism. But some are. And for these relativism is a problem; nevertheless, if they do possess the rationality of traditions (a rationality common to all instances of TCE, hence accessible doubly to the boundary dweller), their hope is that this relativism will be transcended in the (near) future. As always: (a) by development of shared standards for evaluation and (b) by one tradition faltering by its own internal standards (the main mechanism being: epistemological crisis importation of concepts from another tradition by boundary-dwellers who can fully comprehend the other tradition demise of that tradition). How could we avoid the use of force as the final solution in cases such as the one above? This is possible
only if the relativism [of the boundary-dweller] which emerged as the only rational attitude [i.e. intellectually honest, not merely internally rational] to the competing claims of two such antagonistic communities turns out not to be the last word on all relationships between rival human communities: only, that is, if linguistic and conceptual resources can indeed be supplied so that that relativism can be avoided or circumvented. (RPP:12)
MacIntyre goes on invoking the need of appeal to impersonal standards of judgement. What does this mean?
This is the ideal not everyone is capable of going so far, as MacIntyre (1991) points out in his reply to Juarrero Roque. Recall that for Aristotle, not everyone manages to actualise his potentiality for engaging in the enquiry of the sciences of the schol; similarly, MacIntyres solutions to relativism do not pretend to be actually available to every member of the species Homo sapiens, as the standards of Enlightenment and its ideal of humankind emancipated by universal reason would (rather unrealistically) demand. But certainly, some people within a culture/community do have such capabilities, and must take the burden of enquiry for the rest. Eventually, they will neologize the LIU for the others, and import for them alien concepts that may cause their tradition to founder.
25
21
There are no a-traditional standards. So MacIntyre is invoking tool (a) once again. The interesting thing is that when we have learnt the other LIU as a second first language, and have come to face the relativism of the boundary dweller, the quest continues. We need to discover or develop linguistic and conceptual resources to transcend the relativism of the boundary dweller: shared standards, impersonal standards of judgement to overcome the arbitrary use of power. This is what the liberals were ultimately after since the times of the wars of religion: in those days nobody cared about ecumenism learning the others tradition as a second first language and so the solution was to appeal to a fictitiously a-religious third-person: the modern State (in the end a system that represents the relative power of religious lobbies, a system where majoritarianism prevails and the arbitrariness is simply concealed). If I cannot agree with the other as to whether, say, the Confucian stance on divorce is the right one, or, alternatively, whether the Utilitarian stance is right (because this is what this epistemology is all about: choosing between ethical and political theories), MacIntyre claims that in such case there is an objectively right and wrong (unlike emotivism, subjectivism or perspectivism), and that the solution cannot come from a position alien to both parties (an emotivist or moral sceptic cannot provide any practical answers to policy makers without taking a side and doing this arbitrarily (a-rationally); a moral realist believes there is a rational way of taking sides). A Confucian can come to understand the Utilitarian stance by plunging into the rationality of the tradition sustaining it doing what he can to put himself, say, in the position of an ideal utility calculator. This is what it means to learn another LIU as a second first language. A staunch defender of the Mill may start reading Confucius and other old Chinese philosophical texts, preferably in the original language trying to see the matter from their point of view. Both will hence become boundary-dwellers; they will have overcome the presumptuous certainty of being right, typical of partisans. They will risk a relativist conclusion: Confucianism seems true to traditionalist Chinese people, seems false to Western Europeans, there seems to be no easy way of telling who is truly right or wrong (or at least whether the governments laws regarding divorce should reflect the Utilitarian or the Confucian understanding of the issue) from the inside the standpoints. Furthermore, if MacIntyre is right, there is no ideal-observer standpoint, either. Both parties will hope that this situation will be transcended: either one of the standpoints will falter due to incoherence, or impersonal standards will be discovered/developed to evaluate the matter (standards which are shared by, not abstracted from the two traditions as the neutral standards posited by the Enlightenment). We will come back to this; in RPP, MacIntyre suggests learning some third language that will be able to represent faithfully the
22
claims of the two parties, hoping that this would provide impersonal standards. In CCP, his approach involves invoking the standards internal to shared practices.
2.3.5 The problems of translation between a self-contained LIU and an internationalised language
The main problem of the internationalised languages of modernity is that they give the impression that they can translate everything. Indeed they can translate far more than any self-contained LIU (RPP:14). But the presumption of being able to translate anything is ill founded: the problem here concerns canonical texts (or oral equivalents). In the cosmopolitan centres of modernity, where internationalised languages such as English become as abstract from traditions as possible, there is no coherent body of literature, proverbs, folk wisdom, fables, philosophical corpuses, religious texts, etc. to which all can refer in an ethical debate. There are no roots: this makes proper dialogue (and encounter between traditions) impossible (though much dialogue of the interminable kind does take place): the audience does not share the same presuppositions as the speaker and though everyone is convinced that he or she understood everything, actually everybody understands very little, and even this is deformed by ones fragmented cultural background. Understanding precisely the same thing when reading the same text in philosophy or social theory is rarely the case. The situation becomes critical when someone seeks to explicate an old literary text (say a passage from Aristophanes) to a mixed audience: the recipe of translation + explanatory appendage does not work it takes much more than an explanatory appendage to read a text in its appropriate historical context (WJWR:385). The point here is obviously not one of ceasing to speak late-twentieth-century-English in favour of some tribal or archaic language, or to go and live on a Pacific Island to avoid the metropolitan centres of modernity. It is rather that our politics should not presume to know everything about everything. That the news we hear on the most-unbiased TV channel comprises a distorted view of reality. That what we learn about rival ethical traditions and philosophical theories from manuals and simplified schemata is very poor and misleading, even if (and especially since) it claims to be objective. That a proper evaluation of Aristotle requires a very good knowledge of his language and culture. Ultimately, modernity offers no good impersonal standards to judge between traditions; its translation of LIUs, though not suffering from the evaluative bias (as in translation between self-contained LIUs) because it is not bound to one set of canonical texts, suffers all the same from the inability to evaluate because it is not bound to any set of canonical texts.
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Conclusions: (1) we have to learn the LIU of a tradition as a second first language to understand that tradition; (2) when we have done this, and experienced the relativism of the boundary-dweller, an appeal to modern languages (i.e. forums of discussion, ways of framing a dialogue, political institutions, systems of moral enquiry in universities) as impersonal standards does not work.
2.4
C O L O R S , C U LT U R E A N D P R AC T I C E S (1992) The quest for intra-traditional standards of evaluation of the coherence of a tradition, and for the
extension of language so as to be able to adequately represent other traditions and allow inter-traditional evaluation, brings MacIntyre to a suggestion that in some way links the two. In his 1992 paper, Colors, culture and practices, MacIntyre discusses colour discrimination, following a conclusion from empirical studies conducted by George Lakoff to the effect that colour language is partially underdetermined by the neurophysiology and physics of colour perception. Colour naming and identification involves different systems of slicing up the visual spectrum, which systems are not physically but rather socially determined; hence a universally applicable neurophysiology does not guarantee neither commensurability, nor universal translatability between such systems of naming. MacIntyres preliminary answer to this relativism resulting from Lakoffs work is that of proposing contemporary English as the medium affording impersonal standards of evaluation: after all it is the language Lakoff uses to translate and represent the incommensurable conceptual schemes inherent in different colour vocabularies, and he evidently does a good job in this. MacIntyre quickly brings up a first relativist objection: good translation does not resolve linguistic incommensurability. MacIntyre dismisses this objection saying that English does a good job not only at translating but more importantly at offering a high degree of understanding. Then MacIntyre raises a new relativist objection to this apparent solution: Lakoffs technical English does a good job serving the ends of his enquiry: that is precisely a good because the internal standards of his tradition say so. Hence, says the relativist the fact that contemporary English, in representing the colour vocabulary of other LIUs, does obtain the goods that a particular social and cultural order (SCO a new term for traditions of enquiry) values does not mean that it is any better than other LIUs (because the SCOs behind those rival LIUs may not value such goods as a good article in an academic journal). Conclusion: there are no impersonal standards of evaluation (of rival colour vocabularies and analogously, of rival moral traditions).
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Such a relativist argument is what MacIntyre wants to challenge in this paper. In outline: the main flaw in the above argument is that English does not simply do a good job at obtaining the goods of the SCO that uses English; it does a good job at obtaining the goods of a linguistic and anthropological exercise that people from this SCO (like Lakoff) engage in. Furthermore, it does a good job by the standards internal to these practices (comparative linguistics, anthropology). But such practices can be shared practices, which people from rival SCOs may engage in: in this way, practices attain a certain autonomy from the SCOs of the people engaged in them, and can hence have their own standards of evaluation that are shared (cross-traditional) yet impersonal with respect to the individual SCOs. MacIntyre considers the standards (and standpoint) offered by partially independent cross-traditional practices as the only impersonal standards (and, Nagelianly, the view from nowhere in particular) available to us:
It is from the standpoint and only from the standpoint afforded by and internal to practices, such as the practice of painting, that questions about the adequacy or inadequacy of such vocabularies and conceptual schemes can be intelligibly posed, let alone answered. MacIntyre, 1992:220
In RPP:13, MacIntyre hinted at the possibility of appealing to a third language, which in WJWR becomes a suggestion of an extension of one of the LIUs to include the canonical texts of the other, and introduce the untranslatable in the form of neologisms (as Septuagint Greek introduced the Hebrew canonical texts and rationality into the originating Greek LIU: WJWR:372). Here, he specifies how this works: practices often innovate linguistically and could not progress towards their goals without so doing. e.g. coping with the discriminatory tasks required of a painter at a certain stage of the development of his art. Linguistic innovations required by those practices enrich or displace or otherwise transform the prior vocabularies of the general languages-in-use (CCP:19). This mechanism helps us to overcome the problems of untranslatability and allows us to use the same language (that of our LIU extended by shared practices) to compare our SCO with its rivals and evaluate. Clearly, certain SCOs will shun this possibility of being evaluated (at least for some time) since they cannot (or refuse to) accommodate certain practices. And relativism remains a threat, not only regarding such SCOs, but also while the cross-traditional practices are developing. Moreover, evaluation by such shared
25
standards may be inconclusive. But MacIntyre has nevertheless shown us an alternative path out of relativism when and while self-foundering does not materialize. Note here that unlike some ideal observer position, practices are social structures, not extensions of the unsituated self, hence they do avoid the arbitrariness of choice according to personal preference alone:
Relativism about social and cultural orders thus fails, insofar as the standards provided by practices, such as the practice of painting, can be brought to bear upon their evaluation. The languages-in-use of some social and cultural orders are more adequate than those of some others in this or that respect; the vocabularies of color of some social and cultural orders are more adequate than those of some others in respect of the tasks of color discrimination set by the practice of painting. MacIntyre, 1992:22
2.5
M O R A L R E L AT I V I S M , T RU T H A N D J U S T I F I C AT I O N (1994) In his 1994 paper, Moral Relativism, truth and justification, MacIntyre cements his meta-theoretical
edifice with an elucidation of the relation between his conception of rational justification as tradition-bound and historical and his conception of truth as objective, tradition-neutral and timeless. We have already said that MacIntyres position since AV1 has always been quite clear on this point, notwithstanding numerous misinterpretations; the discussion in MRTJ adds nothing new, but simply evinces and confirms what we have said above (section 2.2.2). MacIntyre builds on the Aristotelian definition of truth as the telos of a theoretical enquiry (Metaphys.993b20-1; cit. in MRTJ:11), and the Thomistic notion of attainment of truth in the terms of adaequatio, to arrive at his notion of progress in enquiry: this is a matter of transcending the limitations of particular and partial standpoints in a movement towards truth (MRTJ:11). This is the epistemology to which a protagonist of a certain moral standpoint that claims truth for his or her stance (and MacIntyre is one) is committed to. MacIntyre then argues that this notion of truth, that follows from the rationality of standpoints (traditions) implies that such a protagonist is committed to three theses: (1) that the standpoint does not suffer from the limitations and partiality of a merely local point of view; (2) that if the scheme and mode of rational justification of some moral standpoint supports a conclusion incompatible with any central thesis of their account, then that scheme and mode must be defective in some important way (MRTJ:12); (3) that if one
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discovers that a rival standpoint is superior, then, given the ethos of the rationality of traditions, one should be ready to abandon his/her own and adopt his/her rivals. MacIntyre then engages in a synthetic overview of his meta-theory and its basic tenets, which confirms my scheme in 2.3.1 above. The only thing he adds here is an extra feature of what I call the intellectual honesty of traditions, one that links up to the insistence of the parties that their standpoint is the true one. Having learnt what it would be to think, feel and act from the rival standpoint (i.e. having become boundary-dwellers) and having remained firm in fighting relativism and in maintaining that their standpoint is the true one, protagonists of rival standpoints are expected to provide an explanation to their rivals (whose rationality and language they now know well), in their rivals own language and by their own standards precisely where such rivals are wrong. Clearly, besides being an exercise in intellectual honesty, such activity constitutes a mechanism whereby one can undermine a rivals standpoint from its interior and causing it to abort if it is really inferior to that protagonists standpoint.
3. C RITIQUES
27
3. CRITIQUES
3.1 M I S C O N C E I V E D C R I T I QU E S
3.1.1
Macintyre as Perspectivist
A good number of critiques fail to understand MacIntyres concomitant commitment to objective truth and to particularist, coherentist justification, e.g. Sweet (2000a), Rice (2001), Bellantoni (2000:31ff), Stern (1994, see also MacIntyres (1994:297) reply). For instance, William Sweet (2000a) claims that his paper argues to the conclusion that MacIntyre is a relativist, in spite of what MacIntyre himself says (pp. 220, 239). After giving a list of arguments against MacIntyre (asserted, rather than argued, in the paper), he offers his adjudication regarding MacIntyres relativism. Here is the entire argument:
Admittedly, MacIntyre would respond that he can reply to (at least some of) the preceding charges, but if practices and traditions cannot be evaluated externally, if moral theories are incommensurable with one another, and if there is no narrative that can adequately comprehend all moral systems, it is not obvious that he can avoid relativism. Sweet (2000a:230)
All this says is that without a second-order theory, the moral theory of AV1 is not obviously safe from relativistic charges. But this is precisely why MacIntyre developed a meta-theory between 1981 and 1994 that Sweet (in 2000) seems to be totally oblivious of he doesnt even mention it let alone show if or why it fails. He then goes on to salvage bits of MacIntyres theory to create one of his own, that,
Unlike MacIntyres view, [] holds that traditions may not only be brought into contact, but into coherence. This allows that some of the beliefs that are held within a tradition can be shown to be false and that some traditions should be abandoned as a result of their coming into contact with other traditions. [] One must not forget, however, that according to the view presented here, while the meaning and truth of ethical beliefs are established through appeal to a standard of coherence, truth is not a simple matter of agreement among beliefs, or among members of a community; ethical beliefs must also cohere with the world with what is. Sweet, 2000a:237
3. C RITIQUES
28
Hence, Sweets operation works, or so he believes, because it saves us from MacIntyres anti-realism and perspectivism. Hence, it may be news to Sweet that a Thomist Aristotelian like MacIntyre cannot but be realist by definition! All of MacIntyres effort in the works discussed above was intended to find a way of abandoning traditions that are not viable (ultimately because they are distant from the truth) without bringing them to coherence with one another, whatever that may mean. 26 Similarly, Eugene Rice (2001) argues that MacIntyre has an a posteriori coherence notion of truth (and hence cannot but be a relativist and a perspectivist):
[D]espite his rejection of both the Kantian view of reason as universal in scope and the concept of transcendent moral truth, MacIntyre claims that rationally defensible, even universal moral claims from within a particular moral tradition remain possible. MacIntyres immanentism thus seeks the middle ground between ahistorical moral universalism and a relativism that threatens outright skepticism. Rice, 2001:62
Rice claims to find hallmarks of this in MacIntyres texts, for instance in the passage where MacIntyre says he adopts a correspondence theory of truth (sic!):
It is worth noting that MacIntyre describes [his] notion of a tradition-bound, yet non-arbitrary, truth as an elementary correspondence theory. The term correspondence here refers not to the relation between belief and an objective mind-independent reality, but rather the informed mind having considered both old and new views in a re-presentation, enabling the individual to see the inadequacy of the former view based on its present purpose. Rice (2001:74)
This is a typical example of violence, done not only to MacIntyres text, but also to the medieval notion of adaequatio, which MacIntyre does not denature by interpreting it anti-realistically, as Rice claims 27. How could one possibly adopt the scholastic notion of adaequatio intellectus ad rem and not refer to a relation between belief and an objective mind-independent reality? MacIntyre assumes objective truth to be internally
26 How does one bring two incommensurable webs of belief into coherence with each other? They would have to be commensurable in the first place. But this is what MacIntyre denies in his critique of Davidson (see chap. 3 of Fuller (1993)). From MacIntyres viewpoint, this expression simply means that the solution to relativism is: either that of denaturing traditions such as to force them to coincide into one which is, in fact, representative of none (such as contemporary liberalism); or else that of forcing people with arbitrary use of force to abandon their traditions and adopt the hegemonic one (and claim, in the end, that their traditions were nothing more than poor, primitive versions of the hegemonic one).
3. C RITIQUES
29
coherent, and hence that what is incoherent must be objectively false. He does say that correspondence with truth is attained through a process of elimination of (objective) falsehood (by comparing old and new views), and that TCE, being internalist and coherentist, can only promise to eliminate (objective) falsehood (through detection of incoherences) rather than directly provide access to objective truth. But if the approach to truth is coherentist, truth itself need not be. In a realist world, the progressive elimination of (objective) falsehoods does offer the hope of an authentic progress towards (objective) truth.
3.1.2
MacIntyre as Kierkegaardian
MacIntyre claims that WJWR is primarily addressed to someone who, not as yet having given their allegiance to some coherent tradition of enquiry, is besieged by disputes over whose justice and which rationality is the better. WJWR proposes to take this someone from the multiplicity of justified rationalities and justices of the opening paragraphs to the one true justice and rationality at the end of the book. These claims have raised several critiques (e.g. George (1989), Haldane (1994), Bellantoni (2000:23ff)). George (1989:600) claims that WJWR fails to achieve its objective because it faces a dilemma: standards of evaluation are internal to traditions (hence adopting a tradition is arbitrary) while if such choice is arbitrary MacIntyre is ultimately a relativist (since the book cannot offer a rational answer to its rootless addressee). This is simply a rewording of Wachbroits dilemma (AV2:276). George claims that MacIntyre does not solve the dilemma because the process on pages 393ff. of WJWR seems arbitrary: here MacIntyre invites the alienated modern to choose for himself or herself a tradition using a procedure that is not very rational in the Cartesian sense of the term. Now if this is MacIntyres solution to relativism, then it is hardly any solution at all. A similar critique is that of John Haldane (1994):
[The mechanism of WJWR:393ff] seems to imply that MacIntyres position on the present case is either contradictory or else lends support to a relativist conclusion. We are prohibited from saying that the rootless addressee can choose on the basis of transcendent norms of practical reason, so that excludes a realist resolution.
Haldane (1994:96-7)
In the cited passage (WJWR:356), MacIntyre argues that the adaequatio theory is the correspondence theory of truth modern correpondence theories of truth are poor substitutes (because they seek to link judgements directly to facts so as to avoid pronouncing themselves on mens/intellectus (Mind)). Then he embarks on a critique of such modern surrogates probably this critique is what makes Rice think that MacIntyre is coherentist on truth.
27
3. C RITIQUES
30
If such critics were right, MacIntyre would be susceptible of the very critique he addresses to Kierkegaards Enten-Eller (AV1:38-43), viz. that one cannot accept a position wherein the ultimate choice is arbitrary. Actually, these critiques confuse the mechanism of choice with that of embedding. Choice is only possible within a tradition, so an alienated person standing outside all traditions (and this is more a hypothetical being rather than some contemporary of ours), or, more realistically, a person who does not feel he or she belongs to a particular tradition, must first embed himself/herself in a tradition in order to be able to choose between traditions. The mechanism of embedding (WJWR:393ff) may not seem too rational (in the modern, Cartesian sense of the term): roughly speaking MacIntyre says feel about, and choose the tradition that seems to you most suited to your personal history and way of thinking 28. But this cannot surely be MacIntyres solution to relativism in choice between traditions, if anything because, as such, it makes no sense to the many persons born into a tradition, who, unlike the rootless addressee, have no need of embedding themselves into one. The contingent fact of being born, say, in a Hebrew tradition (and hence of being embedded in such a tradition) does not constitute a rational choice between traditions. So if we are looking for MacIntyres solution to the choice between traditions, it is not to be found in these pages of WJWR. Rational choice is a possibility open only to those who have options. The boundary-dweller has options (different traditions that seem viable) from which to choose (rationally, one hopes). The mono-partisan has hardly any: the only option he/she has is to abandon their tradition (rationally) in the event of an epistemological crisis for an alien tradition that seems more promising (mainly because the boundary-dwellers of his/her tradition say so by effectively explaining the crisis using concepts imported from the alien tradition). The alienated modern does not even have this option since he/she doesnt have a tradition to hold on to or to forsake; surely, he/she faces several traditions claiming his/her allegiance, but, unlike the boundary-dweller, he/she is deprived of MacIntyres tools to choose rationally between them. And to become a boundary dweller, you need to become partisan. Hence the need of a mechanism of embedding (that need not be particularly rational), required to get into the process (by becoming a member of tradition) distinct from the mechanism of choice (that must be rational). The real mechanism of choice is obviously the use of the two tools, (a) and (b), above.
28
In any case, this seems much more rational than, say, tossing a coin.
3. C RITIQUES 3.2 T H E R E A L C H A L L E N G E S T O T H E M E TA -T H E O RY
31
Robert Miner (2002) brings out some interesting problems in MacIntyres meta-theory 29. One is the problem of distinguishing a genuine epistemological crisis from an apparent one:
How does one know that what appears to be a failed theory has genuinely failed by its own standards? At many points during the history of a tradition, a gap will appear between what the theory does and what its criteria say it ought to do. When is the gap so wide that it constitutes a failure? Certainly in narratives written by the opposition the size of the gap will render the theory dead, never to rise again. But proponents of the theory can often tell another story, in which the alleged failures are transitory setbacks, or even specimens of the anomalies that, on MacIntyres own account, are the condition of all intellectual progress.
This reminds us of the discussion of adhocness in philosophy of science: when one obtains observations that are aberrant and seem to falsify a theory, falsification may be avoided by an ad hoc correction to the theory. When does the level of adhocness become unacceptable? This is a very hard question for a coherentist, since his standards are internal to theories/traditions. MacIntyres use of trans-traditional practices and their standards in CPP may help: he always has this backup tool when self-foundering becomes problematic. Certainly, people at home in more than one tradition can come to abandon a tradition with too much adhocness on the basis of the intellectual honesty that is characteristic of all TCE. But where adhocness is not excessive, the problem remains:
We can imagine a scenario in which two rival, incommensurable theories differ. One theory has criteria that are easy to meet; those of the second are more difficult to satisfy. Yet it is possible that the second theory is better than the first, even if the first succeeds in terms of its own criteria and the second fails. Why abandon the second tradition, if the only reason for doing so is the cheap success of the first? Miner (2000)
Miner then suggests that a viable tradition may always decrease the exactingness of its criteria, but raises the further issue of tradition-identity. Before going into this, I note that the partisans of the second tradition would still be somewhat tempted to abandon their tradition rather than diminish its exactingness. Besides the case of premature abandonment of a viable tradition due to overly demanding criteria, I see the same problem also in the case of different ratios of internally coherent beliefs to objectively true beliefs in blossoming traditions. A theory/tradition may get it all wrong but have very few incoherences. Another may have many truths but is not complex enough to establish the proper links between them. The Greek atomists did get
3. C RITIQUES
32
something right about the structure of matter more than their rivals, but at the time, the incoherences and simplicity of their account made it falter. It is very possible that several viable traditions faltered in the past because not sufficiently developed to counter their rivals. This is one consequence of teleological evolutionary theories in epistemology (and MacIntyres can be classified as such): progress towards truth is not always a straight line directed towards the future, as German Idealism maintained 30. There are dead ends. There are moments where the good road is abandoned. MacIntyre would accept this as part of life: on his account there is no other way towards truth. Note that there is a similar argument regarding epistemological crises (e.g. Colby, 1995:55ff) that does not work. According to this argument, MacIntyre begs the question because he uses external and universal criteria to define the test of response to epistemological crises; instead he should hold that there are no such criteria. This is false for several reasons: (1) there is no such test: MacIntyre simply describes how traditions falter (using the logical consequences of a shared practical rationality confirmed by historical evidence); (2) the postulated shared rationality of TCE is neither a-traditional, nor universalist: it applies to traditions of rational enquiry as characterized by MacIntyre and is presented as a representation of the objectively true shared rationality of traditions from the viewpoint of MacIntyres own tradition (not from an ideal-observer stance); (3) it is a description being made within the practice of philosophy, that may establish criteria for the evaluation of traditions independently (to some extent) of the traditions themselves. Obviously, an answer such as (3) raises separate problems, as does, in general, the solution in CPP: Why use the standards of Philosophy and not of another practice? Is the practice of Philosophy genuinely cross traditional? What, if anything, makes Indian philosophy a practice identical to, say, Western Philosophy? Such are the questions that one would like to see raised by MacIntyres critics. The identity of practices brings us back to Miners objection regarding the identity of traditions: what makes a tradition the same (or not the same) before and after an epistemological crisis? MacIntyre insists that there be fundamental continuity with the tradition before the crisis. What is this precisely? As Miner notes:
29
An interesting critique that accuses MacIntyres first-order theory of internal relativism (in choices between goods within practices and narratively-ordered lives) is that of Feldman (1986).
3. C RITIQUES
33
What distinguishes the substance of a tradition from its accidents? How does one map the logical relations among various traditions? When does a body of doctrine become a tradition? The persistence of these issues as disputed questions requires MacIntyre to say more about the ontology of traditions.
A partial answer here is that a tradition may be considered something less clear-cut than MacIntyres philosophy posits for the sake of clarity. There is an amount of fluidity in telling two traditions apart, and in deciding what is really a tradition of enquiry and what isnt. Whether or not the Scottish Enlightenment is a continuation of Calvinism, Augustinianism, Hellenism, Platonism, Eleatism, and to what extent, is secondary to the more important issue of progress towards truth. Yet unless MacIntyre provides more details concerning how to make non-arbitrary distinctions between traditions, we will experience some relativism in applying his meta-theory: is my rival really coming from a different tradition or just from another body of opinion within my tradition? For instance, according to some Charles Taylor is just another modern, and to evaluate his theory we simply use the intra-traditional standards of liberal modernity; according to others, Taylor belongs to a totally different tradition (and to evaluate him we should use the mechanisms of MacIntyres meta-theory). Which interpretation is the better? How does one tell (rationally)? MacIntyre may oblige and seek to provide a noncircular tradition-based characterization of the limits of a tradition, or may claim that the shared rationality of traditions cannot give us more criteria than those he gives when describing epistemological crises: in any case, to avoid the particularism of criteria coming from just one tradition, we may still appeal to practices such as philosophy to tell us to what groups of people and bodies of theory MacIntyres observations on traditions apply.
30
Similarly, more evolved forms in biology are not necessarily more complex. Humans have lost many useful features that their biological ancestors possessed: the possibility of synthesising proteins, the possibility of digesting cellulose, etc. Some very evolved creatures have developed parasitic forms that are anatomically very simple (and deficient). If there is a general trend of progress towards more complex forms, this is not always attested locally.
4. E VALUATION
34
4. EVALUATION
I endorse Miners objections, though I can see how MacIntyre may answer them partially (I have suggested such possible answers in the above discussion). I similarly endorse Miners conclusion: that the presence of unanswered questions (of a current problematic) does not show MacIntyres meta-theory to be non-viable: the very weakness of the bulk of the critiques discussed above indicates that MacIntyres rivals can hardly claim that his theory is facing an epistemological crisis, and much less those sympathetic to his views. Hence, it does not falter by its own standards, though it does need adherents to confront the current problematic, and continue MacIntyres work of deconstruction of his rivals from the inside. MacIntyres rivals too are called to participate in the work of corroborating his theory by understanding it from the inside (as a second first language) and thus attempting to deconstruct it from the inside. Unfortunately, as we have seen, MacIntyres critics have remained mostly at a superficial level of understanding of his theory: they have not adopted an empathic attitude in reading his texts, and have simply misinterpreted the passages that were untranslatable into their philosophical frame of mind. This explains my effort to provide an extensive view from the inside of MacIntyres view to my readers, so that the debate may be refocused, and more interesting critiques may emerge (to corroborate, or make falter, MacIntyres theory). One problem I remark in MacIntyres philosophy is that he often does not draw the down-to-earth conclusions of his arguments: he does not specify the possible outcomes of his solutions. For example: impersonal standards come through practices: what practices will help us evaluate his ethical theory over its rivals? (and, after all, what ensures that the evaluation of rival schemes of colour naming must have the same structure as the evaluation of rival ethical theories?) Can more concrete criteria for determining what constitutes tradition, what makes a tradition identical to itself, what constitutes an authentic epistemological crisis be determined? If yes, what are they? If not, why not? If not, does this constrict us to some sort of interpretative relativism? MacIntyres reluctance to move directly from a general framework to particular solutions, I think, is characteristic of an ongoing programme of research that, while striving to outline possible solutions, does not rush to draw conclusions as though such solutions were already consolidated. For instance, in WJWR, MacIntyre says that his meta-ethical framework does hint that Thomism is the best ethical system, but does not pretend that
4. E VALUATION
35
WJWRs meta-ethics is the last word on the subject and that a choice of Thomism by everyone is categorically unavoidable. Again, some of the misunderstandings of the critics are due to MacIntyres excursi into philosophy of language, phenomenology of colour, philosophy of Mind, etc., the conclusions of which are not brought strongly to bear on his meta-ethics. The reader must make the effort of trying to apply what is said in such excursi to MacIntyres ethics. Actually, MacIntyre does do the job, but usually he does it elsewhere, in the next instalment of his theory. The conclusions from WJWR regarding whose justice and which rationality MacIntyres metatheory deems more rational to adopt are properly elaborated in TRV; the conclusions of the arguments regarding LIUs are applied to moral theory in MRTJ. This technique, though somewhat confusing to the reader unwilling to read through his corpus, allows individual parts of his theory to be evaluated according to their own merits: in this way one may adopt some of MacIntyres theory, and put aside what one considers more controversial, rather than let the latter prejudice ones reading of the former (as if all his philosophy were functional to some political agenda). Thus, some of his ideas may filter into the theories of his rivals, and may even cause them to falter. Another considerable problem is the exactingness of the requirement of learning alien traditions from the inside, as second first languages, to open ourselves to the rationality of choice that MacIntyres tools against relativism afford. Surely, to demand that everyone become a boundary dweller is to ask too much. From MacIntyres reply to Juarrero Roque (MacIntyre, 1991), it seems that MacIntyre is demanding this only of a few people in a tradition, an elite. They will be the ones to bring in objections and solutions from other traditions (possibly causing their own tradition to falter, and if not, expanding it and corroborating it); they are the ones who will attempt to deconstruct other traditions from the inside. However, if the capacity for translation, learning second first languages, and intercultural understanding is rare, then most people will not have the chance of putting into question the given of their tradition, since they will not have access to other traditions and probably not even to the standards of the trans-traditional practices. Their clinging onto the tradition they were born in (or that they chose so as to escape rootlessness) will be arbitrary. MacIntyre could respond to this by saying that the possibility of rational choice between traditions is ultimately available to communities, not to
5. C ONCLUSION
36
individuals: an elite body within a community makes the choice and the others follow31. This brings up a further problem, given our modern societies: which community do we belong to? Who do we listen to when we are pointed to different traditions from which to choose?
5. CONCLUSION
We have thus by the exegesis of section 2, the evaluation of critiques in section 3 and the questions raised in section 4 reasonably attained the three objectives set in section 1.2. I think that MacIntyres theory, at least by its standards, is very promising. It would be more promising if there were successors and rivals that understood it well enough to engender a fruitful debate that will far outlast MacIntyre himself. I hope to have revealed some of the real current problematic in the above series of open questions, and that by the help of exegesis such as the one attempted in this paper, the discussion will focus on such real issues rather than on the usual misunderstandings.
31
This would recover an other interesting feature of pre-modern traditions of enquiry: the Pythagoreans, the Peripathetics, the Stoa, the Dominicans were communities that upheld certain traditions critically, not because they were all critical thinkers, but because they constituted a group wherein the emergence of critical thinkers was made possible.
R EFERENCES
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REFERENCES
Ballard, B. W. 2000. Understanding MacIntyre. University Press of America. Lanham, U.S.A. Bellantoni, L. 2000. Moral progress: a process critique of MacIntyre. State University of New York Press. Albany, U.S.A. Boniolo, G. and P. Vidali. 1999. Filosofia della Scienza. Bruno Mondadori. Milan. Brena, G. L. 1995. Forme di verit: Introduzione allepistemologia. Ed. San Paolo. Cinisello Balsamo, Milan. Colby, M. 1995. Moral traditions, MacIntyre and historicist practical reason. Philosophy and Social Criticism. 21:3. 53-78. Feldman, S. 1986. Objectivity, pluralism and relativism: a critique of MacIntyres theory of virtue. Southern Journal of Philosophy. 24:3. 307-319. Fuller, M. 1998. Making Sense of MacIntyre. Ashgate Publishing. Aldershot, U.K. Brookfield, U.S.A. George, R. P. 1989. Moral particularism, Thomism and traditions. Review of Metaphysics. 42. 593-605. Gormally, L. (ed.). 1994. Moral Truth and Moral Tradition. Essays in Honour of Peter Geach and Elizabeth Anscombe. Four Courts Press. Dublin. Gutting, G. 1999 Pragmatic Liberalism and the critique of modernity. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, U.K. Haldane, J. 1994. MacIntyres Thomist Revival: What Next?. in Horton and Mendus (1994). Honderich, T. (ed). 1985. Morality and objectivity: a tribute to J.L. Mackie. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London. Horton, J. and S. Mendus (eds.). 1994. After MacIntyre. Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Polity Press. Cambridge, U.K. Horton, J. and S. Mendus. 1994a. Alasdair MacIntyre: After Virtue and after. in Horton and Mendus (1994). Juarrero Roque, A. 1991. Language competence and tradition constituted rationality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 51:3 611-617. Knight, K. (ed.). 1998. The MacIntyre Reader. Polity Press. Cambridge, U.K. Krausz, M. 1989. Relativism: interpretation and confrontation. University of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, U.S.A. Kymlicka, W. 2002. Contemporary political philosophy: an introduction. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Levy, Neil. 1999. Stepping into the present: MacIntyres Modernity. Social Theory and Practice 25:3. 471-490. MacIntyre, A. 1981. After Virtue. A Study in moral theory (1st edn.). Duckworth. London. MacIntyre, A. 1984. After Virtue. A Study in moral theory (2st edn.). University of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, U.S.A. MacIntyre, A. 1985. Relativism, power and philosophy. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 59:1. 5-22. MacIntyre, A. 1986. The intelligibility of action. in Margolis et al. (1986). MacIntyre, A. 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? University of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, U.S.A. MacIntyre, A. 1990. Three rival versions of moral enquiry: encylopaedia, genealogy, tradition: being Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh in 1988. Duckworth. London.
R EFERENCES MacIntyre, A. 1991. Reply to Roque. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 51:3 619-620. MacIntyre, A. 1992. Colours, culture, and practices. Midwest Studies in Philosophy. 17. 1-23 MacIntyre, A. 1994. A partial response to my critics. in Horton and Mendus (1994). MacIntyre, A. 1994a. Moral Relativism, Truth and Justification. in Gormally (1994). MacIntyre, A. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals. Why human beings need the virtues. Duckworth. London.
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Margolis, J., M. Krausz and R.M. Burian (eds.) 1986. Rationality, relativism and the human sciences. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Dordrecht, Holland. McDowell, J. 1985. Values and secondary qualities. in Honderich (1985). McMylor, P. 1994. Alasdair MacIntyre: critic of modernity. Routledge. London. Miner, R. 2002. Lakatos and MacIntyre on incommensurability and the rationality of theory-change. Paidea Archives: Philosophy of Science. On the www at site: http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Scie/ScieMine.htm Mulhall, S. and A. Swift. 1996. Liberals and Communitarian. (2nd edn.). Blackwell. Oxford, U.K. Malden, U.S.A. Murphy, N. 1995. Postmodern non-relativism: Imre Lakatos, Theo Meyering, and Alasdair MacIntyre. The Philosophical Forum. 27:1. 37-53. Rice, E. 2001. Combatting ethical relativism: MacIntyres use of coherence and progress. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. 75:1. 61-82. Ross, D. 1949. Aristotle. Methuen. London. Stern, R. 1994. MacIntyre and Historicism. in Horton and Mendus (1994). Sweet, W. (ed.) 2000. The Bases of Ethics. Marquette University Press. Milwakee, U.S.A. Sweet, W. 2000a. The foundations of Ethics and moral practices. in Sweet (2000). Wachbroit, R. 1983. Review of After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. Yale Law Journal, 92:3. 564-76. Wong, D. B. 1984. Moral Relativity. University of California Press. Berkeley, U.S.A. London. Wong, D. B. 1989. Three kinds of incommensurability. in Krausz (1989)
S UMMARY OF C ONTENTS
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SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

The Relativist and Perspectivist Challenges To MacIntyre S Meta-Ethics

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T H E R E L AT I V I S T

PERSPECTIVIST CHALLENGE M AC I N T Y R E S META-ETHICS

Ren Mario Micallef

Interestingly, Heideggers Sein und Zeit too insists on this.

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. MACINTYRE, RELATIVISM AND PERSPECTIVISM

2.2.1 Shared standards and Relativism

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2.2.2 The foundering of traditions and perspectivism

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM 2.3

2.3.1 What Relativism has to teach

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM (ii)

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM group 13, () initially assumed unquestioningly,

() then progressively examined for incoherences and

2.3.2 Internal Standards, Self-Foundering and Epistemological Crises

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2.3.3 Languages-in-use, encounters and the learning of a second first language

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2.3.4 The problems of translation between self-contained LIUs

The labels are mine.

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

MacIntyre engages in a critique of M. Foucault (a Nietzscheian perspectivist) in part 3 of RPP.

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

2. M AC I NTYRE , R ELATIVISM AND P ERSPECTIVISM

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