WEBVTT

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Prof: Okay, good morning.

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One prefatory point before we
get into today's lecture.

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That's occasioned by having you
read MacIntyre,

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but I ought really to have
mentioned it before.

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MacIntyre's book,
After Virtue,

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is in part a conversation with
major figures in the tradition

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who you have not read,
or at least not in this course,

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Aquinas,
Nietzsche, Hegel and many

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others.

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And of course this came up with
John Rawls,

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and indeed Robert Nozick,
both of whom depended on

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arguments from Immanuel Kant
that we haven't studied in this

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course either.

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And so one question that arises
is, well, to what extent are you

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responsible for understanding
the people on whom they are

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commenting?

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And of course you're entering
into an ongoing conversation

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among these thinkers that's been
going on for centuries,

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and to some degree you just
have to jump in somewhere.

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Nonetheless,
for the purposes of our course

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here you're certainly not
responsible for understanding

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Kant's ethics,
and indeed I could give several

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lectures on why it is the case
that Kant would not have agreed

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either with Rawls's
interpretation of his own work

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or with the Rawlsian enterprise.

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But we're not really interested
in Kant in this course,

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but in Rawls,
in that instance.

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So to the extent he depends
upon a faulty reading of Kant's

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Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals,

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that's not a question with
which we're engaged in this

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course.

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It's not that we're taking a
position about it;

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we're just agnostic.

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Likewise, with the various
thinkers that MacIntyre engages,

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you're not expected to know
Saint Benedict,

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or Nietzsche,
or Aquinas, or anybody else,

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or indeed Aristotle,
about whom I'll have quite a

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bit to say today,
except insofar as they are

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building blocks for MacIntyre's
argument.

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So MacIntyre's work,
in some ways,

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is a commentary on the history
of ideas,

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but really it's first and
foremost an argument,

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and we're interested in it as
an argument,

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and that's how we're going to
evaluate it.

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So, of course,
it's an invitation to you,

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later on, to go into some of
these thinkers in-depth with

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whom he is engaged and see
whether ultimately you agree or

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disagree with the way in which
he engages those thinkers,

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but that's not our agenda here.

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Our agenda here is to think of
Alasdair MacIntyre as somebody

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who's making an argument in his
own right,

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and that's how we're going to
engage with his work.

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He is a political theorist who
currently teaches at Notre Dame.

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Interestingly,
they say that the hand that

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rocks the cradle controls the
person forever after.

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He started out,
I think he was raised in a

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Catholic--
he had a Catholic upbringing,

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but early on in his career,
he must be well into his 80s

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now, early on in his career he
wrote a book called Marxism

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and Christianity,
and he was clearly wrestling

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with who wins out of Marx and
Christianity.

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And in that book he concluded
the Marxism won.

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And in his early incarnations
he was a fairly conventional

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Marxist,
but then gradually he came full

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circle and ended up rejecting
not only Marxism,

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but the larger Enlightenment
project of which Marxism,

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as you all know,
is only one part.

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And he ended up affirming a
kind of traditional mix of

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Aristotelianism and the Catholic
tradition that informs his

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argument both in After
Virtue and then a subsequent

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book,
which I'm not having you read,

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called Whose Justice?
Which Rationality?

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So he is somebody who,
in an important sense,

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has come full circle.

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And I think that's an important
piece of background to know in

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understanding his work After
Virtue.

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He's written many other books
too but this is the book for

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which he will be remembered.

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You might think it odd that a
book with a title like that

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could have become a bestseller,
but it really was a

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philosophical bestseller when it
was published,

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I believe, in 1984,
and the edition you have

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includes an afterword where he
responds to critics of the

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original book.

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So who is Alasdair MacIntyre,
and how does he relate to the

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historical anti-Enlightenment
thinkers we've already

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discussed, namely Burke and
Devlin?

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Well, he is very much in the
spirit of the tradition in which

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they both wrote,
although, as you could probably

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guess from his historical
trajectory,

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one thing that differentiates
him is that at least for much of

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his life he thought of himself
as somebody on the political

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left,
whereas they were people on the

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political right,
and we'll come back to the

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significance of that later.

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He is part of a general
undertow or reaction against the

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Rawlsian enterprise in political
theory.

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Other thinkers,
which you're not reading but

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with whom he would naturally
have some elective affinities,

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are the philosopher Richard
Rorty who died recently,

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who wrote a fabulously good
book called Philosophy and

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the Mirror of Nature,
which was a critique of the

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Enlightenment project in
philosophy.

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Rorty's argument was basically
that the Enlightenment quest

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with certainty was a fool's
errand.

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That there is no such thing as
certainty to be had,

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we've discussed this quite
extensively,

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of course, in connection with
the early versus late

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Enlightenment,
which is not a distinction

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Richard Rorty made.

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But in any event,
he made the argument that the

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Enlightenment quest for
certainty was a fool's errand

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begun basically by Descartes and
taken to its apotheosis in

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Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason,

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and that philosophers from
Descartes to Kant got engaged in

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this hopeless endeavor of
justifying philosophy from the

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ground up from indubitable
premises.

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And when they failed to do that
they thought that some important

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philosophical failure had
occurred,

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whereas Rorty's point was they
should never have been engaged

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in that enterprise to begin
with.

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And he connects importantly to
the modern pragmatist tradition

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of Dewey,
and Peirce, and James,

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and to the postmodernist
thinkers like Lyotard,

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to some extent Michel Foucault,
and others that we don't have

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time to read in this course.

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So Rorty is an anti-modernist,
but he's a postmodernist

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anti-modernist if you want lots
of jargon.

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He thinks we should get beyond
the Enlightenment project.

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He has also written some about
politics,

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and indeed he has a political
analog of his philosophical

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argument,
which the bumper sticker

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version of it is that thinking
we have to justify our political

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institutions from the ground up
is also a mug's game,

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and indeed a dangerous mug's
game, because when we fail to do

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that we start to think that
there's something wrong with our

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political institutions that
they're illegitimate because we

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couldn't justify them from the
ground up successfully by the

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terms of the Enlightenment
project.

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Therefore, they're not
justifiable.

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And this, Rorty thinks,
puts us at a competitive

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disadvantage.

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Though he was writing during
the Cold War,

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so with our antagonists behind
the iron curtain,

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but I think he would make the
same argument were he alive

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today about fundamentalist
antagonists who we would,

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by Rorty's way of thinking,
be putting ourselves at a

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competitive disadvantage with by
holding ourselves and our

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institutions to a standard which
cannot be met,

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and then when we fail to meet
it losing confidence in our

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institutions.

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So we could have read Richard
Rorty in this course,

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but the truth is,
and this is a dogmatic

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statement and maybe some of you
will second-guess me on it

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later,
the truth is Rorty is a much

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better philosopher than he is a
political theorist.

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And so I've chosen to have you
read MacIntyre who I think is a

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better political theorist than
he is a philosopher.

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There are others.

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Perhaps one of the most famous
is Michael Walzer who wrote a

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book called Spheres of
Justice,

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who also rejects the idea
that the values guiding politics

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can be justified in a logical
sense from indubitable first

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premises and generate guides for
action in politics that must be

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compelling to any right-thinking
rational person.

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All of these thinkers,
Rorty, Walzer,

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MacIntyre sometimes get grouped
under this idea of

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communitarianism.

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Communitarianism.

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And communitarianism is linked
to the anti-Enlightenment

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endeavor in that it is the
ahistorical version of

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tradition.

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That is instead of with Burke
and Devlin appealing to

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tradition as the basis for our
values,

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communitarians appeal to the
community-accepted values as the

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basis for what should guide us.

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Now obviously the two things
are connected and we'll see

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they're deeply connected in
MacIntyre's historical account

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because communities are shaped
by traditions.

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But at the end of the day
what's going to be important for

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us is that the individual is
subservient to the community

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rather than the community being
the creature or the creation of

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the individual.

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So the community comes first.

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The individual is born into the
community rather than the

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community being the product of
some contract,

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or creation,
or construction of the

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individual.

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So that's what all of these
thinkers share in common.

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Now, one of the things that
makes MacIntyre's book a little

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bit difficult to read is it's a
work in the history of ideas

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that's written backwards.

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That is he starts with the
present and works back to the

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ancients.

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It's a very interesting thing
to do.

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In fact, I once taught the
political science 114 course,

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the intro to the history of
ideas, and partly inspired by

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MacIntyre's effort I did it
backwards.

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I went from Rawls to Plato.

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And there are interesting
pedagogical challenges there,

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and I'm not sure whether it's
worth doing just for its own

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sake,
but MacIntyre does it for a

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reason;
not just to be cute which I

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think maybe what I was trying to
do.

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MacIntyre does it for a reason
and his reason is that he thinks

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that at sometime around the
beginning of the Enlightenment

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the Western intellectual project
went badly off the rails.

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And in some way his argument is
an analog of the argument I made

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to you about Locke and
workmanship.

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Because, after all,
think about what I said about

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Locke and workmanship.

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I said there was basically a
coherent story.

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God created the world.

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He has workmanship knowledge
and rights over it.

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He creates humans with the
capacity to act in a god-like

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fashion,
miniature gods,

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although they're constrained by
God's will,

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and it all fits together as a
kind of coherent whole.

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Once you buy into the premises
it all fits together,

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but then what happens in the
history of the workmanship model

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is people start to secularize
it,

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and so start taking on bits and
pieces of the original

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workmanship idea without the
unifying assumptions that gave

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that model its coherence.

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And we saw the various
difficulties everybody ran into

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in doing that,
Marx, and Nozick,

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and Rawls and many others.

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So MacIntyre does something
analogous in his book.

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What he wants to say is that
the task of coming up with

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compelling moral values to guide
politics made sense in a

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framework of assumptions that we
inherited,

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but we inherited in a kind of
degraded way.

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That the unifying assumptions
that used to give political

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morality its coherence have been
jettisoned as a byproduct of the

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Enlightenment project and for
that reason we need to go back

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in time and see where the
project went off the rails,

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see what it was that happened
that caused modern thinkers to

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get involved in this fool's
errand of justifying morality

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from the ground up.

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Justifying morality from the
ground up cannot be done because

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of the expectations about
justification that we have

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developed,
but MacIntyre's claim is you

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can't see that unless you go
backwards in time to understand

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how and where the project went
off the rails.

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So that's the big enterprise of
his book, and we'll mostly get

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into that big enterprise on
Wednesday.

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But I want to focus at the
start on the beginning of his

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book, and the beginning of his
book deals with the symptoms of

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our problem.

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Perhaps the most important
symptom of our problem you've

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already confronted in this
course when we talked about the

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transition from classical to
neoclassical utilitarianism and

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the rise of emotivism,
Charles Stevenson and all that.

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Does anyone remember?

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Maybe you've already forgotten
all of this it was so long ago

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now.

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Remember Stevenson said--this
is the guy who didn't get tenure

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in the Yale Philosophy
Department because he seemed to

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have this extreme relativistic
and subjectivist view of ethics

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where moral choices were just
differences in taste,

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differences in flavors of ice
cream.

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You say the welfare state is
good.

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I say the welfare state is bad.

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It's just like saying chocolate
ice cream is good or strawberry

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ice cream is good.

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The differences about morality
are just merely subjective

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differences.

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So we go from this certainty,
subjective certainty in the

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early Enlightenment as making
politics like mathematical

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geometric proofs for Hobbes and
Locke to the mere subjectivism

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of the mature Enlightenment
which produces this kind of

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relativist morality where
everything is just subjective

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opinion that morality is nothing
more than emotion,

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and there's no particular
reason even to think we have the

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same emotions.

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Remember that,
as I think I said to you at the

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time,
Stephenson was criticizing

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David Hume,
who's another important

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utilitarian thinker who we
didn't have time to read in this

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course either but you should all
read at some point in your

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lives.

18:41.818 --> 18:44.268
And Hume had said,
"Well yes,

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you can't get any important
statements about what ought to

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be the case from empirical
statements about the world.

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There's no way to get from is
to ought,"

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as Hume said,
"But, you know what?

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Most people are pretty much
alike.

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Most people are pretty much the
same."

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So we can, to use the jargon of
utilitarianism,

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we can make pretty confident
interpersonal judgments about

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people.

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People are pretty similar,
and so what's good for one

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person is likely to be good for
another,

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and that's why Hume has this
rather cryptic one-liner that

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scholars have debated,
to the effect that "if all

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factual questions were resolved
no moral questions would

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remain."

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It's this notion,
well, people are pretty much

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the same and so even though
morality is rooted in people's

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emotional reactions to
situations it's not a big

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problem to having a morality
that can form the basis of a

19:51.525 --> 19:52.795
society.

19:52.798 --> 19:56.508
Stephenson said,
"How do you know?

19:56.509 --> 19:58.139
How do you know?

19:58.140 --> 19:59.300
How do you, David Hume, know?

19:59.298 --> 20:04.018
Maybe Adolph Eichmann has one
set of emotional reactions to

20:04.020 --> 20:09.150
the prospect of shipping people
off the concentration camps,

20:09.150 --> 20:13.290
and you and I have a different
set of emotional reactions to

20:13.285 --> 20:16.505
shipping people off to
concentration camps,

20:16.509 --> 20:20.389
and if you're saying there are
no principles by which we can

20:20.391 --> 20:22.761
adjudicate among those
reactions,

20:22.759 --> 20:26.669
those emotional reactions,
you're throwing us into a sea

20:26.673 --> 20:28.243
of relativism."

20:28.240 --> 20:33.650
And so when you get to
emotivism, you're getting to

20:33.651 --> 20:39.711
this world in which we are
completely without instruments

20:39.711 --> 20:45.341
for making moral judgments when
people disagree.

20:45.339 --> 20:48.869
That is the emotivist culture.

20:48.868 --> 20:56.638
It is a culture of tastes and
not of interpersonal judgments.

20:56.640 --> 21:01.880
And one of the things MacIntyre
wants to say is that all of this

21:01.884 --> 21:05.884
becomes inevitable in the
seventeenth century.

21:05.880 --> 21:08.030
It's just a question of time.

21:08.029 --> 21:10.439
It's just a question of time.

21:10.440 --> 21:15.190
Once you look at what was
really going on in the beginning

21:15.185 --> 21:20.345
of the Enlightenment you're
going to wind up with emotivism.

21:20.349 --> 21:23.259
Just a question of time.

21:23.259 --> 21:27.419
And the politics that comes out
of it is pretty ugly.

21:27.420 --> 21:32.850
The politics that comes out of
it basically leaves you without

21:32.852 --> 21:38.292
standards of moral judgment and
indeed without questioning the

21:38.285 --> 21:40.685
raw assertion of power.

21:40.690 --> 21:44.370
So it's not only that in
philosophy we wind up with

21:44.365 --> 21:49.065
emotivism, but in politics we're
ultimately going to wind up with

21:49.069 --> 21:50.099
Nietzsche.

21:50.098 --> 21:55.868
We're going to wind up with
kind of nihilist assertion of

21:55.865 --> 22:01.935
the inevitability of the triumph
of the will, the triumph of

22:01.940 --> 22:02.970
power.

22:02.970 --> 22:07.630
So again, Nietzsche is somebody
else I wish we had time to talk

22:07.634 --> 22:12.134
about in this course,
but you'll have to read him for

22:12.125 --> 22:15.935
our purposes through the eyes of
MacIntyre.

22:15.940 --> 22:21.340
So it all goes back around the
late sixteenth and early

22:21.342 --> 22:26.942
seventeenth century and then
we're just rolling down this

22:26.944 --> 22:32.854
hill into the abyss of modern
subjectivism in philosophy and

22:32.847 --> 22:35.447
nihilistic politics.

22:35.450 --> 22:40.580
Pretty depressing story you
might think.

22:40.578 --> 22:44.768
So that's one symptom,
that we live in this what

22:44.771 --> 22:49.591
MacIntyre wants to describe as
an emotivist culture.

22:49.589 --> 22:53.389


22:53.390 --> 23:00.860
Another symptom of it,
which you might not find as

23:00.863 --> 23:06.663
dispiriting as what I've just
said,

23:06.660 --> 23:11.050
is what we--this isn't
MacIntyre's terminology,

23:11.048 --> 23:15.278
but I think it makes the
point--is a world in which

23:15.280 --> 23:17.990
instrumentalism has triumphed.

23:17.990 --> 23:25.200
A world in which there has been
a total separation between means

23:25.200 --> 23:26.460
and ends.

23:26.460 --> 23:32.810
One symptom of this,
again, not one he mentions in

23:32.805 --> 23:38.055
his book,
but I think captures neatly

23:38.064 --> 23:45.614
what he's talking about is the
proliferation of business

23:45.609 --> 23:47.119
schools.

23:47.118 --> 23:51.218
A hundred years ago there was
no such thing as a business

23:51.219 --> 23:53.049
school in a university.

23:53.048 --> 23:57.208
Nobody had ever thought of the
idea of even having a business

23:57.214 --> 23:57.844
school.

23:57.839 --> 24:00.899


24:00.900 --> 24:06.190
And what's, I think,
notable about business schools

24:06.185 --> 24:13.055
is that they're teaching skills
that are unrelated to purposes.

24:13.058 --> 24:21.128
So business schools,
after all, are trying to teach

24:21.127 --> 24:27.097
people how to become good
managers.

24:27.098 --> 24:30.858
Whether you're going to manage
the Coca Cola Corporation,

24:30.858 --> 24:35.558
or whether you're going to
mange Goldman Sachs,

24:35.558 --> 24:39.698
or whether you're going to
manage a university.

24:39.700 --> 24:44.980
The assumption is there are
certain kinds of skills that

24:44.980 --> 24:49.300
managers have,
that it's important to know.

24:49.298 --> 24:53.898
But business schools will not
teach you whether it's a good

24:53.896 --> 24:57.226
idea to manage Coca Cola,
or Goldman Sachs,

24:57.226 --> 24:59.046
or Yale University.

24:59.048 --> 25:03.828
That is not what business
schools are about.

25:03.828 --> 25:06.378
So business schools,
if you like,

25:06.377 --> 25:10.597
are predicated on the divorcing
of means from ends.

25:10.598 --> 25:19.338
They're teaching certain kinds
of instrumental skills that you

25:19.344 --> 25:27.804
can find helpful regardless of
what the enterprise is you're

25:27.801 --> 25:31.961
going to end up managing.

25:31.960 --> 25:36.050


25:36.048 --> 25:41.498
Being a good manager is being
somebody who is inherently an

25:41.500 --> 25:43.570
instrumental person.

25:43.568 --> 25:48.348
And of course that leaves
unanswered the question,

25:48.349 --> 25:53.719
"Well, but shouldn't we
attend to what it is we are

25:53.715 --> 25:55.565
managing?"

25:55.568 --> 25:59.128
After all, that was a question
that came up in our very first

25:59.132 --> 26:02.402
lecture in this course when we
talked about the Eichmann

26:02.396 --> 26:05.166
problem;
that he didn't care.

26:05.170 --> 26:06.730
He wanted to do well.

26:06.730 --> 26:08.220
He wanted to impress his
superiors.

26:08.220 --> 26:09.900
He wanted to get an A.

26:09.900 --> 26:13.680
He was happy shipping Jews
around the Third Reich to

26:13.675 --> 26:16.855
concentration camps as well as
he could,

26:16.858 --> 26:21.088
but he would have been equally
happy shipping munitions parts,

26:21.088 --> 26:25.608
or for that matter office
supplies.

26:25.608 --> 26:28.908
It wasn't important as far as
he was concerned.

26:28.910 --> 26:32.510
He wanted to be a good manager.

26:32.509 --> 26:35.839
So this is a very
twentieth-century kind of

26:35.843 --> 26:38.863
preoccupation that we put the
goal,

26:38.858 --> 26:45.158
the purpose,
the ultimate endeavor aside,

26:45.160 --> 26:48.250
and we say, "What are the
characteristics of being an

26:48.250 --> 26:49.660
effective manager?"

26:49.660 --> 26:58.300
To use the philosophical jargon
it is an erratically

26:58.296 --> 27:02.526
anti-teleological view.

27:02.528 --> 27:06.038
Teleology, teleological,
have I told you what

27:06.040 --> 27:09.310
teleological--what does
teleological mean,

27:09.311 --> 27:10.351
somebody?

27:10.348 --> 27:11.868
Student:
>

27:11.868 --> 27:13.738
Professor Ian Shapiro:
Right, telos comes from the

27:13.742 --> 27:14.892
Greek word telos or purpose.

27:14.890 --> 27:18.100
Goal-directed, right?

27:18.098 --> 27:27.468
MacIntyre thinks that the
rejection of teleology is a huge

27:27.468 --> 27:36.998
problematic enduring mistake,
and I'm going to come back to

27:37.000 --> 27:41.110
why in a few minutes.

27:41.108 --> 27:45.578
But first I want to return to
the first symptom I mentioned of

27:45.579 --> 27:46.459
our times.

27:46.460 --> 27:50.410
There are these two symptoms,
the rise of subjectivism and

27:50.409 --> 27:54.569
emotivism and the nihilistic
kinds of politics it brings with

27:54.567 --> 27:58.247
it on the one hand,
and secondly this rejection of

27:58.250 --> 28:02.910
teleology on the other hand,
and I'll say a little bit more

28:02.914 --> 28:04.684
about each of them.

28:04.680 --> 28:10.750
"Neither of them is what
is seems,"

28:10.752 --> 28:13.102
says MacIntyre.

28:13.098 --> 28:18.448
Who knows what the TV program
that used to be on CNN for a

28:18.452 --> 28:22.212
long time called
Crossfire was?

28:22.210 --> 28:25.720
Anybody, anyone ever see
Crossfire on CNN?

28:25.720 --> 28:27.680
Yeah? Tell us how it works.

28:27.680 --> 28:30.840
Take the microphone and tell us
how it works.

28:30.839 --> 28:32.249
How did it work?

28:32.250 --> 28:32.830
Student:
>

28:32.833 --> 28:33.403
Professor Ian Shapiro:
Anyone?

28:33.400 --> 28:35.350
You might be too young.

28:35.352 --> 28:36.882
It's kind of sad.

28:36.880 --> 28:39.110
Yeah, some of you might not be
quite too young.

28:39.107 --> 28:39.977
How did it work?

28:39.980 --> 28:41.790
Student: I think it was like a
point-counterpoint exchange.

28:41.788 --> 28:43.348
Professor Ian Shapiro:
Yeah, so how did it work?

28:43.348 --> 28:46.568
Student: So I'm not sure going
into it whether you knew which

28:46.567 --> 28:49.837
side you--you definitely had to
have known which side you were

28:49.836 --> 28:50.906
debating, or no?

28:50.910 --> 28:52.200
Do they just kind of give it to
you,

28:52.200 --> 28:55.570
and then you either debate for
or against a certain thing,

28:55.568 --> 28:58.428
and then there was a judge at
the end who decided who the

28:58.425 --> 28:59.085
winner was?

28:59.088 --> 29:02.028
Professor Ian Shapiro:
Basically, except for your last

29:02.026 --> 29:02.466
point.

29:02.470 --> 29:03.780
There was no winner.

29:03.778 --> 29:05.348
I'll come back to that.

29:05.348 --> 29:07.118
But basically you've got it
right.

29:07.118 --> 29:11.868
The idea was they have a
left-wing host and a right-wing

29:11.874 --> 29:12.484
host.

29:12.480 --> 29:16.520
So they would have Robert Novak
as the right-wing host and

29:16.521 --> 29:19.391
Michael Kinsley,
say somebody like that,

29:19.391 --> 29:24.721
as the left-wing host,
and there would be some topic

29:24.720 --> 29:28.070
du jour,
whether it was partial birth

29:28.069 --> 29:30.919
abortion,
or whatever it was,

29:30.915 --> 29:33.055
affirmative action.

29:33.058 --> 29:39.398
And what would happen was they
would then usually have two

29:39.404 --> 29:45.194
guests, and the guests were
chosen also to be sort of

29:45.192 --> 29:48.312
ideologically different.

29:48.308 --> 29:55.558
And the Novak type person would
fire questions at the left-wing

29:55.557 --> 29:57.887
guest,
and the Kinsley like person

29:57.887 --> 30:00.627
would fire questions to the
right-wing guest and they would

30:00.634 --> 30:04.734
argue back and forth,
and it would get more and more

30:04.727 --> 30:07.147
voluble and impassioned.

30:07.150 --> 30:15.050
And then at two minutes to
eight the commercial would come

30:15.049 --> 30:18.099
on and it would end.

30:18.099 --> 30:19.719
Why do I bring this up?

30:19.720 --> 30:24.760
I bring this up because of
MacIntyre's observation right at

30:24.760 --> 30:29.980
the beginning of the book where
he says there's a certain odd

30:29.976 --> 30:34.666
feature to moral argument in
this emotivist world.

30:34.670 --> 30:36.790
There's a strange feature.

30:36.785 --> 30:40.685
On the one hand it's
subjectivist in all the ways

30:40.690 --> 30:42.480
we've talked about.

30:42.480 --> 30:47.510
Everybody's views are equal to
everybody else's.

30:47.509 --> 30:52.579
There's no authoritative figure.

30:52.578 --> 30:55.738
There's no authoritative figure
to settle our disagreements,

30:55.740 --> 31:01.530
at least not an earthly one,
and everybody is what they are

31:01.532 --> 31:05.032
and who they are and that's
that.

31:05.028 --> 31:06.598
On the other hand,
MacIntyre says,

31:06.603 --> 31:08.753
"If you look at things
like abortion,

31:08.750 --> 31:11.800
or affirmative action,
or nuclear weapons,

31:11.798 --> 31:18.988
people argue about these
questions as though there were a

31:18.991 --> 31:21.691
right answer."

31:21.690 --> 31:23.670
They give reasons for their
views.

31:23.670 --> 31:26.460
They try to show the other side
as being hypocritical.

31:26.460 --> 31:29.300
They want to say,
"My premises are more

31:29.303 --> 31:31.753
plausible than your
premises."

31:31.750 --> 31:35.860
They argue with each other as
though there were an answer to

31:35.858 --> 31:38.648
this question,
should we outlaw abortion,

31:38.645 --> 31:41.915
or should we outlaw partial
birth abortion.

31:41.920 --> 31:45.380
The arguments they get into
suggest that everybody's

31:45.381 --> 31:48.641
assuming there is an answer to
that question,

31:48.640 --> 31:51.670


31:51.670 --> 31:54.950
but actually nobody expects the
question to be resolved.

31:54.950 --> 32:01.290
And that's why I mentioned the
Crossfire because what

32:01.286 --> 32:07.296
could never have happened on
that TV show is sort of,

32:07.298 --> 32:14.078
at 7:46, Michael Kinsley
turning to Novak and saying,

32:14.078 --> 32:18.318
"Hmm, you know,
I never thought of that.

32:18.318 --> 32:22.508
Actually maybe you're
right."

32:22.509 --> 32:25.889
If they did that,
first of all the sponsors would

32:25.888 --> 32:27.648
pull their commercials.

32:27.650 --> 32:29.530
Kinsley would be fired.

32:29.528 --> 32:35.458
That's not what it's about,
but then it's bizarre,

32:35.459 --> 32:36.789
isn't it?

32:36.788 --> 32:42.858
Because if everybody agrees
that we're all subjectivists and

32:42.859 --> 32:48.519
that all our views are equally
tenable or untenable,

32:48.519 --> 32:53.039
which they seem to,
then why is everybody going

32:53.037 --> 32:57.257
through the motions of arguing
like this?

32:57.259 --> 33:00.069
Why is everybody saying,
"You don't make any sense,

33:00.066 --> 33:02.456
and this is misuse of evidence,
and you're blah,

33:02.463 --> 33:03.233
blah, blah.

33:03.230 --> 33:06.070
And look, my argument's much
stronger, and blah."

33:06.068 --> 33:12.438
Why would anybody bother if we
really believed the subjectivism

33:12.440 --> 33:16.140
which we seem to take for
granted?

33:16.140 --> 33:19.960


33:19.960 --> 33:24.890
That, for MacIntyre,
is the real symptom of what's

33:24.890 --> 33:28.010
wrong with our circumstances.

33:28.009 --> 33:32.779
The fact that we engage in
interminable moral arguments

33:32.778 --> 33:38.428
that we do not expect to be able
to resolve is the symptom of the

33:38.430 --> 33:43.640
malady of our time in his view
because it suggests a kind of

33:43.641 --> 33:48.411
thirst and a set of expectations
from the past,

33:48.410 --> 33:52.490
he wants to say,
that we need to be able to

33:52.488 --> 33:53.458
recover.

33:53.460 --> 33:59.060
Because the fact that we carry
on arguing suggests we don't

33:59.064 --> 34:02.934
want to accept this emotivist
culture.

34:02.930 --> 34:04.570
We're not comfortable with it.

34:04.568 --> 34:09.558
It's not emotionally,
morally, psychologically,

34:09.557 --> 34:13.137
philosophically,
satisfying to us,

34:13.137 --> 34:15.737
not even acceptable.

34:15.739 --> 34:23.089
But so he thinks one of the
things we need to be able to do

34:23.094 --> 34:29.654
is account for this puzzle,
this puzzle that we engage in

34:29.650 --> 34:35.440
moral argument using the forms
of persuasive reasoning that we

34:35.438 --> 34:38.948
don't actually expect to
resolve,

34:38.949 --> 34:45.609
so that moral argument has this
quality of Crossfire.

34:45.610 --> 34:54.340
So that's the one thing that we
need to get some kind of grip on

34:54.342 --> 35:01.972
if we're going to understand
what's wrong with emotivist

35:01.965 --> 35:03.625
culture.

35:03.630 --> 35:09.150
The second is this problem with
teleology.

35:09.150 --> 35:15.560
They turn out to be related,
but here's the problem with

35:15.563 --> 35:18.133
rejecting teleology.

35:18.130 --> 35:26.700
If I walked in here one morning
and got up on this stage and I

35:26.702 --> 35:32.912
said to you,
"Well, this morning I got

35:32.907 --> 35:35.357
up,
got dressed,

35:35.355 --> 35:40.205
went for a run,
came back home,

35:40.210 --> 35:42.330
took a shower,
got dressed again,

35:42.329 --> 35:44.779
started walking down to the
office.

35:44.780 --> 35:48.050
I crossed down to Orange
Street, and then I crossed

35:48.045 --> 35:50.585
Cannon Street,
and I got down to Whitney

35:50.590 --> 35:51.310
Avenue.

35:51.309 --> 35:55.069
At some point pretty soon you'd
say, "What is the point of

35:55.065 --> 35:55.485
this?

35:55.489 --> 35:58.579
Why is he telling us this?"

35:58.579 --> 36:05.839


36:05.840 --> 36:09.470
Human beings always want to
know the purpose.

36:09.469 --> 36:11.619
What is the point?

36:11.619 --> 36:20.219
So we will never be satisfied
with any activity that is

36:20.219 --> 36:26.429
pointless, that doesn't have a
point.

36:26.429 --> 36:32.339
And the Enlightenment endeavor
of trying to be agnostic about

36:32.338 --> 36:37.758
purposes and scientific about
means is never going to be

36:37.755 --> 36:41.395
satisfying to us for that
reason.

36:41.400 --> 36:44.750
People want to know the point.

36:44.750 --> 36:50.350
They want to believe their
existences have a point,

36:50.349 --> 36:55.729
and if they don't they become
disaffected, bored,

36:55.726 --> 36:59.306
agitated, unhappy,
or worse.

36:59.309 --> 37:07.649


37:07.650 --> 37:12.760
MacIntyre actually has a
brilliant little essay called

37:12.760 --> 37:18.450
Epistemological Crises and
Dramatic Narratives

37:18.452 --> 37:23.952
where he points out that if a
young child asks you why the

37:23.949 --> 37:27.949
earth doesn't fall down,
you tell them,

37:27.949 --> 37:31.559
say, a story that it's being
held up by a giant,

37:31.559 --> 37:34.569
giant's holding the earth in
his hands,

37:34.570 --> 37:37.590
that's why it doesn't fall down.

37:37.590 --> 37:42.020
That's adequate for a while,
and then they ask for another

37:42.023 --> 37:45.373
story when they stop believing
in giants.

37:45.369 --> 37:48.549
But his claim is,
it's something about the

37:48.547 --> 37:53.277
structure of human psychology
that even explanations rooted in

37:53.275 --> 37:57.225
physics ultimately take the form
of narratives.

37:57.230 --> 38:02.140
People want to be able to tell
a story that we fit into,

38:02.141 --> 38:08.171
that has some point or purpose;
that our basic understanding of

38:08.170 --> 38:13.740
the world is as teleological
purposive creatures who tell

38:13.737 --> 38:18.407
narratives to give point to
their existence.

38:18.409 --> 38:25.479
And we're going to become
uncomfortable if we don't have a

38:25.481 --> 38:31.561
way of understanding politics
that has a point.

38:31.559 --> 38:37.679
So that is the symptom of our
plight,

38:37.679 --> 38:41.089
that we live in this emotivist
world that we can't accept,

38:41.090 --> 38:44.330
and we have this bizarre
love-hate relationship with it

38:44.333 --> 38:47.703
when you look at the kinds of
moral arguments we actually

38:47.697 --> 38:48.537
engage in.

38:48.539 --> 38:53.319
And secondly we live in this
world in which we have tried to

38:53.318 --> 38:57.858
cope with the deep pluralism
Rawls writes about by taking

38:57.855 --> 39:02.835
goals off the table,
purposes off the table and

39:02.844 --> 39:06.954
seeing can we just be
instrumental.

39:06.949 --> 39:09.969
So if you want another
political theorist we don't have

39:09.974 --> 39:13.234
time to read,
but who has a good one liner to

39:13.226 --> 39:16.796
capture what MacIntyre thinks is
the problem,

39:16.800 --> 39:20.840
it's Rousseau's line in the
first paragraph of The Social

39:20.842 --> 39:25.272
Contract where he says,
he's going to come up with a

39:25.266 --> 39:30.166
design of institutions for
society "taking men as they

39:30.172 --> 39:33.472
are and laws as they might
be."

39:33.469 --> 39:37.749
Taking men as they are and laws
as they might be,

39:37.750 --> 39:42.730
and the reason MacIntyre would
think that problematic is,

39:42.730 --> 39:47.080
taking men as they are,
men and women we might say

39:47.079 --> 39:49.489
today,
as they are,

39:49.490 --> 39:57.150
ignores important questions
about how they have come to be

39:57.148 --> 40:04.938
as they are and what the role of
morality is in shaping and

40:04.938 --> 40:08.698
reshaping human nature.

40:08.699 --> 40:14.209
So the title of the book is
After Virtue,

40:14.210 --> 40:23.030
and virtue, what modern
philosophers call virtue ethics,

40:23.030 --> 40:26.090
come out of a different
tradition than anything we've

40:26.085 --> 40:28.315
considered thus far in this
course,

40:28.320 --> 40:31.840
namely the Aristotelian
tradition.

40:31.840 --> 40:35.390
Aristotle was the person who
talked about the virtues,

40:35.389 --> 40:41.869
and what MacIntyre wants to say
is,

40:41.869 --> 40:47.219
"We are at some important
level that we don't fully

40:47.224 --> 40:53.434
appreciate or understand,
products or the inheritors of a

40:53.434 --> 40:58.724
kind of degraded Aristotelian
tradition."

40:58.719 --> 41:02.639
We have taken over concepts and
categories for thinking about

41:02.643 --> 41:05.393
ethics from the Aristotelian
tradition,

41:05.389 --> 41:09.819
but in a way that has become
degraded,

41:09.820 --> 41:17.760
in a way that abandons the most
important assumptions behind the

41:17.755 --> 41:24.805
Aristotelian tradition that make
it all hang together.

41:24.809 --> 41:30.699
And the two key notions,
the two analytical devices that

41:30.702 --> 41:36.812
make this argument work are what
he calls a practice and a

41:36.811 --> 41:37.991
virtue.

41:37.989 --> 41:42.489
Practice comes first,
and I'll say a little bit about

41:42.487 --> 41:45.277
that,
and then I'll say a little bit

41:45.280 --> 41:48.680
about virtues,
and then we'll go into his

41:48.682 --> 41:52.022
argument in more detail on
Wednesday.

41:52.018 --> 41:55.728
A practice he says here,
"Any coherent and complex

41:55.726 --> 41:59.426
form of socially established
cooperative human activity

41:59.432 --> 42:02.732
through which goods internal to
that activity are

42:02.728 --> 42:04.168
realized."

42:04.170 --> 42:07.470
Not an engaging sentence.

42:07.469 --> 42:13.269
Let me try and give it content
for you, so first of all the

42:13.268 --> 42:15.368
idea of a practice.

42:15.369 --> 42:20.479
This is the intuition.

42:20.480 --> 42:26.610
When you walk into a class at
Yale for the first time,

42:26.606 --> 42:32.616
say, as a freshman,
think about what you don't do.

42:32.619 --> 42:36.929
You don't say to yourself,
"How should this class be

42:36.934 --> 42:37.864
run?"

42:37.860 --> 42:42.040
You don't immediately interrupt
other people and say,

42:42.041 --> 42:45.821
"Let's all decide how to
run this class.

42:45.820 --> 42:48.970
Shall we vote on it?

42:48.969 --> 42:50.809
Shall we talk about it?"

42:50.809 --> 42:53.359
That's not what you do, right?

42:53.360 --> 42:57.780
When you walk into your first
Yale class as a freshman you sit

42:57.780 --> 43:01.550
down, you look around,
you say, "What's going on

43:01.547 --> 43:02.197
here?

43:02.199 --> 43:03.119
What are the norms?

43:03.119 --> 43:07.099
What's expected of me?

43:07.099 --> 43:09.709
What am I supposed to do?"

43:09.710 --> 43:12.940
That's what you say to yourself.

43:12.940 --> 43:17.440
So right there MacIntyre wants
to say the social contract

43:17.440 --> 43:21.770
metaphor is really bad,
it's the misleading of the

43:21.768 --> 43:27.368
human experience because people
don't create tabula rasa.

43:27.369 --> 43:32.099
Rather people are born into
practices that they inherit from

43:32.101 --> 43:35.391
the past and reproduce into the
future.

43:35.389 --> 43:40.569
A practice, it's complicated.

43:40.570 --> 43:42.470
It's already socially
established.

43:42.469 --> 43:45.169
It's ongoing when you discover
it.

43:45.170 --> 43:48.250
People have been teaching
courses at Yale for centuries

43:48.246 --> 43:51.496
and there have been freshmen who
have walked into them and

43:51.496 --> 43:54.136
saying,
"What do I do now?

43:54.139 --> 43:56.609
What's expected of me?"

43:56.610 --> 44:00.460
So the point is that the
practice precedes the

44:00.460 --> 44:03.970
participants,
not the other way around.

44:03.969 --> 44:10.709
So that's the first idea,
a coherent and complex--it's

44:10.713 --> 44:16.443
coherent in that it has some
goal, purpose.

44:16.440 --> 44:20.130


44:20.130 --> 44:22.700
Enlightenment,
let's say, is the purpose in

44:22.702 --> 44:25.772
this course, not in the sense of
the Enlightenment,

44:25.766 --> 44:27.296
but enlightening you.

44:27.300 --> 44:31.640
Socially established,
it's cooperative that

44:31.643 --> 44:37.023
everybody, he wants to say
practices are not coercive

44:37.023 --> 44:42.613
(we'll come back to that later),
it's cooperative.

44:42.610 --> 44:47.310
Human activity through which
goods internal to that activity

44:47.306 --> 44:48.496
are realized.

44:48.500 --> 44:51.950
So that's an important term,
internal.

44:51.949 --> 44:55.419


44:55.420 --> 45:03.370
And here he has in mind let's
suppose you're playing chess.

45:03.369 --> 45:07.349
You're playing chess with me
and I have to go and answer the

45:07.347 --> 45:09.637
phone in the middle of the game.

45:09.639 --> 45:15.139
And while I'm not in the room
you take one of my pawns off the

45:15.141 --> 45:18.121
board, I come back and you win.

45:18.119 --> 45:21.729
That's not playing by the rules.

45:21.730 --> 45:24.840
That's not an internal
realization of a good.

45:24.840 --> 45:28.280
That's what we would call in
his terminology,

45:28.280 --> 45:30.080
"External."

45:30.079 --> 45:35.329
So the idea of a practice is
there are rules constituting the

45:35.333 --> 45:38.663
practice by which you have to
excel.

45:38.659 --> 45:41.329


45:41.329 --> 45:43.719
So you have to learn the rules.

45:43.719 --> 45:46.109
Cheating doesn't count.

45:46.110 --> 45:49.490
So that's the notion of a
practice.

45:49.489 --> 45:54.369
I'll go into it in more detail.

45:54.369 --> 45:58.609
Virtues are what give practices
their point.

45:58.610 --> 46:03.350
Virtues have to do with the
goals imminent in practices.

46:03.349 --> 46:06.499
He says a virtue is "an
acquired human quality,

46:06.500 --> 46:11.120
the possession and exercise of
which tends to enable us to

46:11.119 --> 46:15.819
achieve those goods which are
internal to practices and the

46:15.818 --> 46:20.278
lack of which effectively
prevents us from achieving any

46:20.275 --> 46:22.135
such goods."

46:22.139 --> 46:29.969
So, I'll leave you with this
thought and we'll pick up from

46:29.969 --> 46:32.399
it on Wednesday.

46:32.400 --> 46:37.030
"What human beings want is
to excel internally in

46:37.029 --> 46:39.999
practices,"
says MacIntyre.

46:40.000 --> 46:43.860
You've all heard the phrase
"he's a pitchers'

46:43.858 --> 46:45.118
pitcher."

46:45.119 --> 46:49.449
When we say "he's a
pitchers' pitcher"

46:49.445 --> 46:54.875
what we have in mind is the
notion that he's so skilled that

46:54.876 --> 47:00.396
only a true pro can appreciate
how skilled he really is.

47:00.400 --> 47:06.410
So if I write books and I also
build sheds,

47:06.409 --> 47:09.569
if I show my books to people
who know how to build sheds and

47:09.567 --> 47:10.997
they say,
"Oh yeah,

47:10.998 --> 47:13.988
a really good book,"
and I show my carpentry to a

47:13.989 --> 47:16.359
bunch of nerdy academics and
they say,

47:16.360 --> 47:19.990
"Oh, that's really
good," that's not going to

47:19.992 --> 47:24.232
be satisfying to me because I
want to be a pitchers' pitcher.

47:24.230 --> 47:28.100
I want people who know about
books to be impressed with my

47:28.099 --> 47:31.759
books, and I want people who
know about carpentry to be

47:31.764 --> 47:33.534
impressed by my sheds.

47:33.530 --> 47:38.930
That's the notion of internal
goods that every practice has

47:38.934 --> 47:44.624
goods by reference to which you
excel within that practice.

47:44.619 --> 47:47.489
You don't want to win at chess
by stealing the pawn when the

47:47.489 --> 47:48.609
person's not looking.

47:48.610 --> 47:53.600
You want to beat them in terms
of the norms and rules of

47:53.603 --> 47:55.513
playing good chess.

47:55.510 --> 47:59.140
So the notion is you walk into
the classroom,

47:59.139 --> 48:03.349
you want to get an A,
but not by downloading a paper

48:03.347 --> 48:05.077
off the internet.

48:05.079 --> 48:09.219
You want to get the A by
reference to the norms and

48:09.222 --> 48:13.532
practices governing what goes on
in the classroom.

48:13.530 --> 48:18.040
So that's the basic idea of
virtues being internal to

48:18.039 --> 48:21.509
practices and giving them their
point.

48:21.510 --> 48:25.210
And MacIntyre wants to say that
these two terms,

48:25.210 --> 48:29.750
these practices and virtues
capture a lot more that is

48:29.746 --> 48:35.056
relevant about human psychology
than the assumptions that drove

48:35.056 --> 48:36.936
the Enlightenment.

48:36.940 --> 48:38.690
And we'll start with that on
Wednesday.

48:38.690 --> 48:44.000