The Relativist and Perspectivist Challenges to MacIntyre´s Meta-Ethics

TH E REL AT IV IS T A N D

PE R S P EC T IV IS T CH A L LE N G E

T O MACIN T Y RE’S

META-ET H IC S

a dissertat ion submitted as part of the requirements

o f the MA (Phil) degree at the Univers i ty of London.

René Mario Micallef

London. August , 2002.

(11,979 words.)

ABBREVIATIONS 2

ABBREVIATIONS

AV1 After virtue (1ed.): MacIntyre (1981).

AV2 After virtue (2ed.): MacIntyre (1984).

RPP Relativism, Power and Philosophy: MacIntyre (1985).

WJWR Whose Justice? Which Rationality?: MacIntyre (1988).

TRV Three Rival version of Moral Enquiry: MacIntyre (1990)

CCP Colors, Culture and Practices: MacIntyre (1992).

MRTJ Moral Relativism, Truth and Justification: MacIntyre (1994a).

1. INTRODUCTION 3

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 REALISM AND RELATIVISM IN ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.

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 MacIntyre’s 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 super-

theories 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 metaphysics1. 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 MacIntyre’s 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

1 Interestingly, Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit too insists on this.

1. INTRODUCTION 4

moral philosophy from facing such problems. MacIntyre’s 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 OBJECTIVES AND METHOD OF THE PRESENT WORK

MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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) to suggest some lines along which the debate may be refocused, given (1);

3) to provided a detailed original exegesis of MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s critics miss the point, and then to suggest

where are the real weak points that the debate should develop.

2 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 MacIntyre’s 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. INTRODUCTION 5

1.3 THEORY AND META-THEORY

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”, VET3), 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

MacIntyre’s meta-theory: we will focus on MPR rather than VET (which are quite distinguishable, though

intricately linked4), 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 theories5. MacIntyre’s 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 (MacIntyre’s and that of his rivals),

which already assumes MacIntyre’s reading at a meta-meta-level.

To bracket the regress, we seek to remain at the level of his meta-theory and empathically assume

MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s first-order theory (though his discussion of relativism (and hence 2nd-order theory) is limited to three-quarters of a page).

4 Several critiques fail because they confuse the levels: see Knight (1998:11ff.).

5 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. INTRODUCTION 6

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?

6 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. MACINTYRE, RELATIVISM AND PERSPECTIVISM 7

2. MACINTYRE, RELATIVISM AND PERSPECTIVISM

2.1 WHAT ARE THE RELATI VIST AND PERSPECTIVI ST CHALLENGES?

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 MacIntyre’s dealings with such problems (MacIntyre’s own methodology). Clearly, what follows

belongs primarily to his meta-theory, developed in the texts that followed AV1.

Generally, Relativism7 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 one’s 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 POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION O F ‘AFTER VIRTUE’ (1984)

2.2.1 Shared standards and Relativism

MacIntyre’s 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. MacIntyre’s answer is that the lack of an external a-traditional (‘ideal-

observer’) 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 Wachbroit’s 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 Wachbroit’s 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

MacIntyre’s 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-founder8, and as they do, we

tend to move towards objective truth. This conception of progress is possible because, in epistemology, a

8 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 wasn’t: 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.


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 intelligible9. 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 a-

traditional 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 justification10.

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).


2.3 ‘RELATIVISM, POWER AND PHILOSO PHY’ (1985), AND THE LAST THREE CHAPTERS OF

‘WHOSE JUSTICE? WHI CH RATIONALITY?’ (1988)

2.3.1 What Relativism has to teach

The above comment suggests that there is a serious possibility of relativism emerging from MacIntyre’s

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 MacIntyre’s 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 WJWR11.

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 tradition’s 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 tradition’s 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.


(ii) 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).


group13, (α) initially assumed unquestioningly, (β) then progressively examined for incoherences and

inadequacies, and (γ) inventively reformulated and re-evaluated in time to eliminate incoherences and

inadequacies (WJWR 354-356): TCE’s 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 arché (Cartesian) or at the télos

(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 tradition’s web of beliefs and by the

tradition’s 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. β and γ 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 one15.

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 β and γ 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 MacIntyre’s interview for Cogito (Knight, 1998:271).

15 This brings to mind Popper’s critique of psychoanalysis and Marxism as non-scientific because constitutively unfalsifiable.


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

one’s 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:357-816.

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 crisis17. 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) furnish a solution to previously intractable problems;

B) 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 MacIntyre’s 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. Kuhn’s 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. Laudan’s 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. MacIntyre’s disagreement with these authors is in his claim that a progress towards objective truth is possible: MacIntyre (1994a:297); Miner (2002).


C) exhibit fundamental continuity with the previous tradition.

(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

tradition’s 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 appeal18. 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 tradition’s 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.


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. MacIntyre’s 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-of-

Lancashire-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 enquiry19.

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

tradition’s 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 newly-

discovered 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 MacIntyre’s 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 tradition’s arguments end up distorted because mis-translated.


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 tradition’s 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 tradition’s 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 one’s 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 one’s 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 truth-

claims.


MacIntyre’s ‘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 rival’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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-partisan20. Imagine a situation on a Pacific Island in the early 19th century: we have a colonizer just arrived

20 The labels are mine.


from London, an old native landowner, and someone doing the translation between these two: a young lad, half-

British, 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 colonizer’s part this is not purely an exercise of arbitrariness because for him,

the native doesn’t know what justice requires and so a ‘civilized’ discussion is unattainable. He must be taught what

his fair share is. From the native’s 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 native’s LIU, the colonizer’s arguments appear arrogant,

incomprehensible, queer; in the Londoner’ LIU, the native’s 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 MacIntyre’s political outlook can be found in Knight (1998:24ff).


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 listener22.

Hence, as we have seen, there is a clear evaluative bias in translation between self-contained languages23.

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 truth24). This is

22 To support this claim, in RPP and WJWR, MacIntyre engages himself in an elucidation of the boundary-dweller’s 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.

23 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 one’s 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 person’s 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’.

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


why MacIntyre wants us to learn the other tradition’s 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?

25 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 scholé; similarly, MacIntyre’s 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.


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 other’s 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 government’s 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


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 one’s 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.


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 COLORS, CULTURE AND PRACTICES (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.

MacIntyre’s preliminary answer to this relativism resulting from Lakoff’s 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: Lakoff’s 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).


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


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 MORAL RELATIVISM, TRUTH AND JUSTI FICATI ON (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

MacIntyre’s 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


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 rival’s.

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 rival’s standpoint from its interior and causing it to abort… if it is really inferior to that protagonist’s

standpoint.

3. CRITIQUES 27

3. CRITIQUES

3.1 MISCONCEIVED CRITIQUES

3.1.1 Macintyre as Perspectivist

A good number of critiques fail to understand MacIntyre’s concomitant commitment to objective truth

and to particularist, coherentist justification, e.g. Sweet (2000a), Rice (2001), Bellantoni (2000:31ff), Stern (1994,

see also MacIntyre’s (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 MacIntyre’s 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 doesn’t even mention it let alone show if or why it fails. He

then goes on to salvage bits of MacIntyre’s theory to create one of his own, that,

Unlike MacIntyre’s 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. CRITIQUES 28

Hence, Sweet’s operation works, or so he believes, because it saves us from MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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. MacIntyre’s

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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s text, but also to the medieval notion

of ‘adaequatio’, which MacIntyre does not denature by interpreting it anti-realistically, as Rice claims27. 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 MacIntyre’s 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. CRITIQUES 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 Wachbroit’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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)

27 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.

3. CRITIQUES 30

If such critics were right, MacIntyre would be susceptible of the very critique he addresses to

Kierkegaard’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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 doesn’t 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 MacIntyre’s 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. CRITIQUES 31

3.2 THE REAL CHALLENGES TO THE META-THEORY

Robert Miner (2002) brings out some interesting problems in MacIntyre’s meta-theory29. 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 MacIntyre’s 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. MacIntyre’s 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. CRITIQUES 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 MacIntyre’s can be classified as such): progress towards truth is not always a

straight line directed towards the future, as German Idealism maintained30. 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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s critics.

The identity of practices brings us back to Miner’s 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 MacIntyre’s first-order theory of internal relativism (in choices between goods within practices and narratively-ordered lives) is that of Feldman (1986).

3. CRITIQUES 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 MacIntyre’s

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 isn’t. 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 MacIntyre’s meta-theory). Which

interpretation is the better? How does one tell (rationally)? MacIntyre may oblige and seek to provide a non-

circular 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 MacIntyre’s 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. EVALUATION 34

4. EVALUATION

I endorse Miner’s objections, though I can see how MacIntyre may answer them partially (I have

suggested such possible answers in the above discussion). I similarly endorse Miner’s conclusion: that the

presence of unanswered questions (of a ‘current problematic’) does not show MacIntyre’s meta-theory to be

non-viable: the very weakness of the bulk of the critiques discussed above indicates that MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s work of deconstruction of his rivals from the inside. MacIntyre’s 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,

MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s view to my readers, so that the debate may be refocused, and more interesting

critiques may emerge (to corroborate, or make falter, MacIntyre’s theory).

One problem I remark in MacIntyre’s 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? MacIntyre’s 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. EVALUATION 35

WJWR’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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

MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s 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 MacIntyre’s theory, and put aside what one considers more controversial, rather than let

the latter prejudice one’s 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 MacIntyre’s tools against

relativism afford. Surely, to demand that everyone become a boundary dweller is to ask too much. From

MacIntyre’s 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. CONCLUSION 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 MacIntyre’s 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.

REFERENCES 37

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SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 39

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Documents

The Relativist and Perspectivist Challenges to MacIntyre´s Meta-Ethics