In 2016, Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre published Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, which is perhaps the capstone of a series of important works analyzing and evaluating the evolution of western moral philosophy from its Greco-Roman and Christian foundations to various competing secular systems. Beginning in 1981 with After Virtue and extending through its sequel Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and his Gifford lectures Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, MacIntyre has mounted a sustained attack upon modern moral philosophies derived from the Enlightenment’s rejection of the medieval Christian metaphysical and moral framework.[1] MacIntyre maintains that modernist moral philosophies of all sorts (e.g., Kantian, utilitarian, or contract theories) lack coherence because they build upon different, isolated moral intuitions and principles that their metaphysics and views of human practical reason cannot properly integrate or explain. To use his famous analogy from the beginning of After Virtue, it is as if modern moral philosophers are trying to rebuild a new world after a catastrophe that destroyed most of human civilization using the scraps and fragments of that prior civilization but without the larger systems and contexts that integrated those fragments in an intelligible whole. According to MacIntyre, Friedrich Nietzsche rightly perceived the arbitrariness of these modern philosophies, and thus the only serious alternatives to the cul-de-sac of Enlightenment moral philosophy are Nietzsche’s nihilism or a recovery of the Christian Aristotelian system that the Enlightenment wrongly discarded.
For MacIntyre, the philosophical system that most fully integrates and grounds human morality and practical reason is a Thomistic-Aristotelian framework that was broadly accepted by both Catholic and Protestant traditions into the 18th century.[2] His work is not, however, simply a restatement of Aristotelian ideas but rather an extended study of the challenges to embracing and defending classical Christian moral philosophy posed by the highly pluralistic contexts of the modern western academy and modern liberal societies more broadly. This makes MacIntyre a helpful interlocutor for Christians struggling to justify Christian moral thought in this pluralistic setting, and I would like to briefly sketch three lessons I have learned from his work regarding a rational vindication of Christian moral tradition vis-à-vis rival traditions of thought and practice.
A narrative approach to apologetics (part 1): comparing systems of thought
In a pluralistic society, contradictory views derived from contradictory philosophies regularly collide. What can we do to justify our views and persuade others when we reach an impasse between competing beliefs that seem consistent and convincing within their own systems of thought? MacIntyre turns to narrative in order to shift the dialogue into a broader historical dimension. One of the most important ways that we can discern the truthfulness of traditions and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses is to trace their growth and change in history. A tradition with the strongest claim to truthfulness demonstrates the capacity to incorporate new information coherently and to adapt to new questions and new challenges (whether internal or external) by drawing upon its own resources to work out its implications for new applications with new explanatory power. Moreover, a tradition vindicates its own rationality with special force by directly interacting with competing traditions and establishing a historical track record of adjustments and refinements that provide a more coherent and comprehensive alternative to its rivals at the precise points at which rival systems fail on their own terms. The test of truth is “to summon up as many questions and 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”(Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 358).
MacIntyre cites multiple examples of this dialectical process of argument. Aristotle defended his philosophy by showing how he built upon, adapted, and refined ideas from his pre-Socratic and Platonic predecessors to fill gaps, clarify confusions or ambiguities, and correct errors with new concepts. Thomas Aquinas’s work has proven to be powerfully compelling and enduring because of the way he self-consciously synthesized neo-Platonic insights mediated through Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine with Aristotle’s philosophy in the service of expounding Christian theology by drawing out the implications of biblical revelation more comprehensively than prior theologians had done. Indeed, the very form of Thomas’s Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles addresses multiple historical challenges to every point from Greco-Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sources. Thus, Thomas situates his positions within a historical, communal dialogue and shows the strength of his position by resolving problems raised by his strongest rivals.
MacIntyre uses this historical approach to explain the failure of Enlightenment moral philosophies. First, he demonstrates that they are historically conditioned traditions despite presenting themselves as highly abstract, universal theories largely divorced from a thick account of human persons and polities. Whereas the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition developed moral rules to clarify the means to realize common goods for the communities that constitute human life, modern philosophies are shaped by modern individualistic social orders that lack any consensus about most common goods. Pluralistic liberal democracies construct political orders to enable individuals to maximize their own individual preferences within the parameters of laws that sufficiently constrain the means of pursuing one’s desires in order to preserve a stable social order. Modernist moral philosophies create a moral system by abstracting the form of this particular socio-political order to craft an allegedly universal set of philosophical principles made in its image. Thus, such philosophies assume social conditions and views of their historical context, and yet their claim to ahistorical universality manifests a blindness to their nature as socially and historically rooted traditions.
The inevitable result is incoherence and a failure to account for human moral experience. Different schools of thought operating within these modernist parameters assume particular views of humanity that they cannot explain. Whatever truthful moral obligation is expressed in their moral rules remains compelling for reasons that these philosophies exclude (Three Rival Versions, 193). Moreover, they cannot explain some key moral motivations. Insofar as modern philosophies locate ultimate moral motivation and authority in the subjective desires and preferences of individuals, they have no method for individuals to rationally discriminate between conflicting desires and no way to explain why certain goods motivate us toward certain virtues and ends precisely because we take our judgments about those goods to be matters of objective fact (not mere subjective values) about human nature and human flourishing.[3]
Thus, one key lesson that we can learn from MacIntyre is that a Christian moral apologetic in a modern context can be effective by first situating modern philosophies within a larger historical narrative that reveals their nature as a tradition among other traditions. Christians can then make a case for Christian moral philosophy by demonstrating how its account of humanity better explains the moral rules and judgments that modernist moral philosophies share in common with the Christian tradition and by resolving problems at points where modernist systems have proven incomplete or incoherent.
A narrative approach to apologetics (part 2): evaluating personal growth
Perceiving the truth of the Christian moral tradition not only requires rational analysis of competing systems at a large historical scale but also at the scale of the individual life. For MacIntyre, an ethical tradition is rationally vindicated in the life of an individual insofar as an individual can discern in his or her own life a narrative of moral growth in which competing desires are rationally sifted according to the standards of that tradition by ranking goods to pursue in a way that produces greater moral maturity, consistency, and flourishing.
MacIntyre begins his analysis at this individual level by focusing on very specific practices and social roles and the acquisition of the skills and virtues necessary to function well within those roles. Becoming a good piano player, farmer, woodworker, accountant, or parent requires submitting to a tradition of practice and the teachers who can successfully impart knowledge and skill because of their own demonstrated competence in the practice. Moreover, succeeding in a practice requires particular intellectual and moral virtues. In order to acquire skills and function well in any role, one has to acquire and cultivate the right set of general character traits such as patience, perseverance, humility, and honesty, as well as the knowledge and skills of body and mind specific to particular tasks.
This starting point for explaining a Christian moral philosophy has some advantages in modern contexts. First, it can help establish the objectivity of standards of goodness and of the personal virtues that are necessary to attain the goods of particular practices. It is quite obvious that the standards governing what constitutes a good piano player, basketball player, or sculptor are not merely the subjective feelings or preferences of individuals; rather, there are objective standards inherent in the practices themselves that individuals must recognize and to which they must submit. And we can recognize the achievement of these objective goods when we see them in action.
The objectivity of standards for individual flourishing are especially evident in the growth and development of children. It is easy to observe how children have destructive or disproportionate desires whose indulgence will harm them and others. The growth of children into functioning adults requires submission to the external authority of good adult guidance and to good reasons for denying some desires in order to cultivate certain objective virtues and behaviors that result in their survival and flourishing. In this sense, MacIntyre would say that all good parents parent like Aristotelians.
Starting moral dialogue by considering specific practices helps us move beyond modernist tendencies toward subjectivism by linking the standards of morality to the many objective features of human flourishing. Having determined what it means to become good at a particular skill or role, the Christian can then pose the broader question about what it means to become a good human being and thus connect human goodness to all the objective virtues, skills, and behaviors that constitute human flourishing in general. This is the framework that can help objective Christian moral standards and rules seem more intelligible and less arbitrary to modern people.
Thus, a second lesson that we can learn from MacIntyre is the importance of personal testimony about moral and spiritual growth made possible by Christian moral standards and virtues. Christian moral philosophy is compelling insofar as we can narrate how pursuing the worship of God as our chief end and conformity to the image of Christ as our example helps order our desires and balance our pursuit and enjoyment of all other goods in satisfying ways that lead to our flourishing in an observable, objective fashion.
An Aristotelian theistic moral argument
MacIntyre’s philosophy also provides an Aristotelian method of constructing a theistic moral argument. Some popular forms of theistic arguments from morality frame the argument in legal terms by appealing to God as a source of authority as a law-giver and the best explanation of our experience of objective moral obligations.[4] MacIntyre, however, constructs an argument based on God’s role as the ultimate telos or final cause of human life. When we focus on specific practices, we can see that we pursue some ends for the sake of other, broader ends. A piano player pursues mastery of scales so that she can have the technical skill to play more complicated pieces of music. A farmer perfects the practices of agriculture for the purposes of feeding others. As we broaden our perspective by ascending from the goods of specific practices to more general questions about a good human life, we are naturally led to ask about the primary purpose or telos of our life as a whole, especially when we realize that the multiple lesser ends we pursue can come into conflict and that we need to rank the goods and ends we pursue according to some higher, integrating purpose.
What qualities would such an ultimate end possess? MacIntyre names three criteria that any potential final end must satisfy. First, it must be “an end that can be pursued by a rational agent through all the different stages of her or his life, an end to the achievement of which all the very different activities of such a life, each with its own particular end, can be directed. That is to say, it must be the end of rational activity as such.” Second, “it must be an end that completes and perfects the life of the agent who achieves it,” so that “someone who had achieved it could have no reason to want anything further or to seek anything further.” Third, the final end is “unqualifiedly good and stands to other goods as a measure stands to what is measured” (Ethics, 52-53).
The power of this line of argument to lead to a theistic conclusion is strengthened by considering other finite, created goods according to these three criteria. MacIntyre points to Thomas’s analysis and rejection of various finite goods such as honor, wealth, pleasure, or goods of the body or the soul, as humanity’s chief end to suggest that only an infinite end can ultimately fulfill the necessary criteria of humanity’s ultimate telos, an end that possesses the attributes of God.[5] Thus, an Aristotelian analysis of human practical reasoning can lead us to see that God is our chief end and the standard of human morality because only God can order our pursuit of all other goods in proper proportion and provide the most rational and satisfying standard for bringing about maximal human flourishing.
Rev. Dr. Michael Farley is the pastor of spiritual formation at Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. He has served as an adjunct professor of theological studies at Saint Louis University and is an adjunct professor at Covenant Theological Seminary.
[1] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981); Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquity: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990).
[2] MacIntyre devotes three chapters in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? to describing how the Scottish academy in the 17th and 18th centuries had appropriated this broadly Aristotelian philosophy within its educational institutions and its Reformed theological system. The work of contemporary historical theologians such as Richard Muller and David Sytsma document widespread Protestant reliance upon Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy in metaphysics and morality.
[3] MacIntyre, Ethics, 140.
[4] For example, see the work of authors who hold a divine command theory of ethics, e.g., Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods; C. Stephen Evans, God and Moral Obligation.
[5] Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 2-3. For a popular version of this analysis of various contenders for humanity’s final end, see the dialogue by Peter Kreeft, The Best Things in Life: A Contemporary Socrates Looks at Power, Pleasure, Truth, and the Good Life.
