Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to answer the two questions in Alasdair MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality? ;In Part I I explain the four major premises in the case for moral scepticism--what MacIntyre terms 'emotivism'. I then zero in on the key premise. This is the claim that there is an unbridgable logical gulf between "is" and "ought". Since only "is" statements are capable of either empirical confirmation/disconfirmation or logical proof/disproof it seems to follow that moral judgements are incapable of empirical testing or rational assessment. In chapter 3 I attempt to circumvent this by arguing that, while it may be true that we cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is", the reverse is not true. We can derive an "is" from an "ought" and hence in principle refute or criticize our ethical theories even if we cannot verify or prove them. Thus rational choice in ethics is possible in the same way that the falsificationist strategy in philosophy of science is supposed to save the rationality of science despite the breakdown of positivism and inductivism. ;Part II is both expository and critical. I explain MacIntyre's views about virtue, reason, tradition and justice. I indicate why he rejects both liberal individualism and an empirical approach to meta-ethics as well as why he thinks we need an Aristotelian arche or summum bonum. ;In Part III I begin by defining what I mean by "individualism" and develop an argument which I term the compossibility argument. I try to show that while MacIntyre's arguments may be valid against other theories this position is immune to those arguments. His key claim is that we need an Aristotelian arche in order to make rational choice possible in ethics and political philosophy. On the contrary I argue that rational choice is possible without this given only the theory of moral reasoning developed in chapter 3 of Part I. ;I attempt to defend the rule of law and formal equality but reject the concepts of social justice and welfare rights