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Before Virtue
Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a powerful book in the ‘80’s called *After Virtue*. It shaped a whole generation of thinkers who are now exerting influence. Most of @PatrickDeneen ‘s *Why Liberalism Failed*, for example, is recycled MacIntyre.
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Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a powerful book in the ‘80’s called *After Virtue*. It shaped a whole generation of thinkers who are now exerting influence. Most of @PatrickDeneen ‘s *Why Liberalism Failed*, for example, is recycled MacIntyre.
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*The Benedict Option* of @roddreher, for another example, borrows its title from the final sentence of *After Virtue*. According to MacIntyre himself, though, that’s the only thing that Dreher’s book shares with his.
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I studied with MacIntyre and read all his work in my ‘20’s. It shaped me too. But I found it only took me so far. It had irreparable flaws on account of its Aristotelianism. How anyone can be an Aristotelian after Darwin amazes me.
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To his credit, MacIntyre tries to reconcile his Aristotelianism with modern biology (in *Dependent Rational Animals*). In my estimation, he fails. But at least he tries. His epigones don’t even see the problem and thus ignore it.
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That’s not surprising: they’re not philosophers. They’re not interested in the fundamental questions that preoccupy any philosopher. Instead, they’re looking for a philosophical patina for their political views. Or their religious views—sometimes there is no gap.
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I’ve published in a few different places (most of them obscure) a few critiques of this appropriation of MacIntyre. The most direct and accessible is my review of Deneen’s book.
https://quillette.com/2018/02/12/has-liberalism-failed/
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https://quillette.com/2018/02/12/has-liberalism-failed/
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I know of no reply to the arguments I made there, either by Deneen or any of the other epigones of MacIntyre (e.g., @Vermeullarmine, @ccpecknold, Sohrab Ahmari [blocked]). I’ll happily answer any serious reply.
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Anyway, seeing the flaws in Aristotelianism helped me appreciate the ways in which Aristotle departed from Plato were nearly all errors, making a great philosophy mediocre. For example, Platonism has no trouble accommodating Darwin.
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Indeed, if Plato is right about the sensible world—that it is a moving shadow of eternity—Darwin is exactly what you’d expect: species mutating through time; most fundamentally, no coherent notion of species.
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But I didn’t begin this thread to tout Plato, or to scold the Aristotelians, but rather to inject into the debate an idea I’ve never heard mentioned in this context. I believe this is the authentic teaching of Plato, on the Good, made clearest by Plotinus.
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It’s very difficult—and ultimately impossible—to communicate this idea. The limit here is not Twitter, but the insufficiency of words themselves. Nevertheless, I’ve stumbled upon a terse, poetic way of expressing it in Lao Tzu that will perhaps indicate it to some.
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“When the Way was lost there was Virtue;
“When Virtue was lost there was benevolence;
“When benevolence was lost there was righteousness;
“When righteousness was lost there were rites.
“The rites are the wearing thin of loyalty and trust, and the beginning of chaos.”
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“When Virtue was lost there was benevolence;
“When benevolence was lost there was righteousness;
“When righteousness was lost there were rites.
“The rites are the wearing thin of loyalty and trust, and the beginning of chaos.”
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We all see the chaos. Only nihilists welcome that. Many call for observance of the rites, those with more depth call for righteousness, benevolence, and ultimately virtue. After virtue, they correctly observe, there is inevitably chaos.
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But they have not gone all the way, and by going only so far they would make things worse were they ever to gain more influence and power.
For as chapter 38 of the Tao Te Ching says next ...
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For as chapter 38 of the Tao Te Ching says next ...
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“The ability to predict what is to come is an embellishment of the Way,
and the beginning of ignorance.”
If Lao Tzu is correct, the wise do not look for salvation in virtue, or benevolence, or righteousness, let alone the rites.
They recognize only the Way, before virtue.
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and the beginning of ignorance.”
If Lao Tzu is correct, the wise do not look for salvation in virtue, or benevolence, or righteousness, let alone the rites.
They recognize only the Way, before virtue.
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