Introduction: the question of reason -- The Frankfurt School critique of reason -- Habermas's communicative rationality -- Macintyre's tradition-constituted reason -- A substantive reason -- Beyond relativism: reasonable progress and learning from -- Conclusion: toward a Thomistic-Aristotelian critical theory of society.

The argument between Jacques Maritain and Charles de Koninck over the primacy of the common good is well known. Yet, even though Mary Keys has carefully arbitrated this debate, it still remains problematic for Alasdair MacIntyre, particularly because of the role rights play in both Maritain and Catholic Social Thought. I examine Keys’ argument and, in addition, Deborah Wallace’s account of MacIntyre’s criticism of rights in Catholic social thought. I argue, in the end, that what Maritain, and in consequence Keys (...) and Wallace, miss about the common good is its relationship to practical reasoning, and that MacIntyre highlights both that relationship and the role of the common good in human dignity. (shrink)

Caritas in Veritate leaves us with a question, Does Benedict XVI see politics as a practice or as an institution? How one answers this question has tremendous implications for how one should address the inequalities of contemporary society and the increasing globalization of the world. Alasdair MacIntyre, for instance, would consider politics to be primarily a practice with a good internal to its activities. This good consists in rational deliberation with others about the common good. If one considers politics an (...) institution, however, as seems to be the case with Jacques Maritain, then one pays less attention to the common good and more attention to the mechanics of the political institution. The difference in understanding goes a long way toward how one conceives of, determines, and achieves the common good, a central task for Catholic social teaching. It also prefigures whether and how one can justify self-sacrifice for the common good, demanded of police officers and soldiers, for instance, as well as whether and how one prioritizes the practices of a given political community. Caritas in Veritate (CIV) brings to the forefront issues of self-sacrifice and prioritization of practices at the global level. This paper shall address the position Benedict XVI lays out on globalization with reference to a global politics through the lens of the common good and the distinction between practice and institution. (shrink)

In Reason, Tradition, and the Good, Jeffery L. Nicholas addresses the failure of reason in modernity to bring about a just society, a society in which people can attain fulfillment. Developing the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Nicholas argues that we rely too heavily on a conception of rationality that is divorced from tradition and, therefore, incapable of judging ends. Without the ability to judge ends, we cannot engage in debate about the good life or the proper goods that (...) we as individuals and as a society should pursue. Nicholas claims that the project of enlightenment—defined as the promotion of autonomous reason—failed because it was based on a deformed notion of reason as mere rationality, and that a critical theory of society aimed at human emancipation must turn to substantive reason, a reason constituted by and constitutive of tradition. To find a reason capable of judging ends, Nicholas suggests, we must turn to Alasdair MacIntyre’s Thomistic-Aristotelianism. Substantive reason comprises thinking and acting on the set of standards and beliefs within a particular tradition. It is the impossibility of enlightenment rationality to evaluate ends and the possibility of substantive reason to evaluate ends that makes the one unsuitable and the other suitable for a critical theory of society. Nicholas’s compelling argument, written in accessible language, remains committed to the promise of reason to help individuals achieve a good and just society and a good life. This requires, however, a complete revolution in the way we approach social life. “Jeffery Nicholas has written an important and valuable book that invites its readers to discover the difficulties of late modern Western thought from the perspective of twentieth-century critical theory, and to consider a response to those difficulties drawn from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor.” —Christopher Stephen Lutz, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. (shrink)

In the TV series, Joe Miller is the stop‐cap which keeps James Holden occupied so he does not have time to send constant broadcasts out to the world. When we think about Holden helping others, why he's always in the midst of things, it's helpful to think about what distinguishes Holden from other characters in the series and what makes him unique—that he grew up on a farm. Holden is the exact opposite of Dresden, Strickland, Mao, and Marco. And that's (...) what Naomi loves about him. The Expanse is dark science fiction whose references are to a war of all against all (Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan), to the massacre of American Indians, and to a dark intelligence that maybe intended the ultimate domination of nature. And one of their protagonists is a guy who thinks he's a knight tilting at windmills. (shrink)

Frank Herbert’s Dune is the biggest-selling science fiction story of all time; the original book and its numerous sequels have transported millions of readers ...

This paper examines two practices — the Roman Catholic Practice of Eucharist and the game Dungeons and Dragons — to show how social critique can be mounted from within a practice. It begins by relating Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of tradition to his earlier analysis of ideology and to the notion of ideology in general. The paper then tackles two dominant forms of ideology — Commodity Fetishism and Scientism — and shows how both Eucharist and Dungeons and Dragons promote critical thinking (...) to resist those ideologies. In the process, it denies the Althusserian-Foucauldian analysis of ideology as mere materiality and defends a conception of ideology as material and ideal. (shrink)

In, Love and Politics Jeffery L. Nicholas argues that Eros is the final rejection of an alienated life, in which humans are prevented from developing their human powers; Eros, in contrast, is an overflowing of acting into new realities and new beauties, a world in which human beings extend their powers and senses. Nicholas uniquely interprets Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism as a response to alienation defined as the divorce of fact from value. However, this account cannot address alienation in the (...) form of the oppression of women or people of color. Importantly, it fails to acknowledge the domination of nature that blackens the heart of alienated life. Alienation must be seen as a separation of the human from nature. Nicholas turns to Aristotle, first, to uncover the way his philosophy embodies a divorce of human from nature, then to reconstruct the essential elements of Aristotle's metaphysics to defend a philosophical anthropology based on Eros. Love and Politics: Persistent Human Desires as a Foundation for Liberation presents a critical theory that synthesizes MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and Social Reproduction Theory. It will be of great interest to political theorists and philosophers. (shrink)

Neste artigo lanço três tradições umas contra as outras para levantar algumas questões de pesquisa futura sobre a natureza da razão e a razão da natureza. Max Horkheimer e Theodor Adorno, da Escola de Frankfurt, sustentavam que a razão tende a dominar a natureza e que a dominação é parte da essência da razão. Dirijo-me, então, para examinar Aristóteles e aristotélicos contemporâneos, mais precisamente Mary Midgley e Alasdair MacIntyre, para mostar um recurso possível na tradição da filosofia ocidental na qual (...) a razão emerge da natureza. Usando modernos estudos de animais, Midgley e MacIntyre ampliam a visão aristotélica sobre a natureza da razão como parte de nossa natureza animal. Por fim, discuto os Lakotas, Primeina Nação dos povos da América do Norte, que tem uma visão da razão que é o espelho oposto daquela encontrada na modernidade. Essa comparação sugere que dominar a natureza não é essencial à razão. (shrink)

Ender, in Ender's Game, seems to be more a superhuman or a god than a normal human being. Colonel Graff structures Ender's life to support Ender's maturation into a superman. A focus on the power of the human will—over oneself or over another—frames the story of Ender. Ender occupies a middle position between Peter and the buggers, who share a hive mind. His development fleshes out insights that Aristotle had about friendship and humanity over two thousand years ago. The fact (...) that the queen is able to communicate with Ender establishes a form of “political” community between them in Aristotle's sense. The real heart of the story lies in the truth about human nature that Aristotle realized long ago: that friendship is necessary for human life and human beings are political animals, not solitary supermen. (shrink)

Dungeons Dragons gamers exemplify Aristotle's claim that “no one would want to live without friends”. One might even see gaming as an attempt to find friends and build that political community of which Aristotle says friendship is the root. The really interesting thing about gamers is that, as they play Dungeons Dragons, they at one and the same time build bonds between their characters and between each other as players. The trajectory of these bonds often mirrors the trajectory of friendships (...) we find in epic fantasy literature where the characters, at first suspicious of each other, in the end have developed true friendships and established peaceful kingdoms where chaos had reigned before. Aristotle's philosophy of friendship can help us to understand this development. Dungeons Dragons players know a lot about friendship and the value of friendship in a person's life, despite the popular depiction of gamers. (shrink)

Today’s Left has inherited and internalized the rift that split the New Left. This split led to Alasdair MacIntyre’s Herbert Marcuse: An Exposition and a Polemic, a book that angered many because of MacIntyre’s harsh treatment of Marcuse. I situate MacIntyre’s engagement with Marcuse against the background of the split in the New Left: on the one side, E. P. Thompson, MacIntyre, and those who then saw the revolutionary class in the proletariat, and on the other side, Perry Anderson, Robin (...) Blackburn, and Marcuse who seemed to put their faith in radical student intellectuals, Third World movements, and identity politics. I examine—without polemics— this rift in search of a new basis for Left unity, particularly as regards the question of radical, working class subjectivity. I argue that we must draw from MacIntyre his concept of revolutionary practices and from Marcuse—in One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization—the analysis of technological rationality, aesthetic reason, phantasy, and imagination. (shrink)

I argue that we must read Alasdair MacIntyre’s mature work through a Marxist lens. I begin by discussing his argument that we must choose which God to worship on principles of justice, which, it turns out, are ones given to us by God. I contend that this argument entails that we must see Mac- Intyre’s early Marxist commitments as given to him by God, and, therefore, that he has never abandoned them in his turn to Thomistic-Aristotelianism. I examine his reading (...) of Marx, with its emphasis on the concept of alienation as a Christian concept, and explain how this reading differs from the dom- inant scientific-determinist reading of Marx. This examination then leads to a discussion of why MacIntyre abandoned both Marxism and Christian- ity in 1968. Finally, I turn to his more recent writing on Marx. I contend that if we view them through his argument about the principles of justice and which God to worship, we see MacIntyre’s mature philosophy as more Marxist than most people, perhaps even MacIntyre himself, would allow. (shrink)

Enter The Expanse to explore questions of the meaning of human life, the concept of justice, and the nature of humanity, featuring a foreword from author James S.A. Corey The Expanse and Philosophy investigates the philosophical universe of the critically acclaimed television show and Hugo Award-winning series of novels. Original essays by a diverse international panel of experts illuminate how essential philosophical concepts relate to the meticulously crafted world of The Expanse, engaging with topics such as transhumanism, belief, culture, environmental (...) ethics, identity, colonialism, diaspora, racism, reality, and rhetoric. Conceiving a near-future solar system colonized by humanity, The Expanse provokes a multitude of moral, ethical, and philosophical queries: Are Martians, Outer Planets inhabitants, and Earthers different races? Is Marco Inaros a terrorist? Can people who look and sound different, like Earthers and Belters, ever peacefully co-exist? Should science be subject to moral rules? Who is sovereign in space? What is the relationship between human progress and aggression? The Expanse and Philosophy helps you answer these questions—and many more. Covers the first six novels in The Expanse series and five seasons of the television adaptation Addresses the philosophical issues that emerge from socio-economics and geopolitics of Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance Offers fresh perspectives on the themes, characters, and storylines of The Expanse Explores the connections between The Expanse and thinkers such as Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Hannah Arendt, Wittgenstein, Descartes, and Nietzsche Part of the popular Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, The Expanse and Philosophy is a must-have companion for avid readers of James S.A. Corey’s novels and devotees of the television series alike. (shrink)

That moral orders infiltrate social imaginaries is the focus of Taylor’s study. A social imaginary is “the [way] people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations”. Taylor carefully notes that imaginaries are constituted by practices and norms that are both ideal and material; changes occur on both levels.

One of my friends defends liberalism but disavows knowing much about Rawls; he is more concerned with Jefferson and other traditional liberals. Philip Selznick’s The Communitarian Persuasion is written specifically for such a Jeffersonian liberal, for Selznick discusses the liberalism of Madison, Jefferson, Dewey, and the legal tradition more so than that of Rawls and Dworkin.