Last month, a philosopher died. His passing is remarkable because it confirms an assertion he had made decades ago. Alasdair MacIntyre observed that philosophy was dead, retreating beyond the horizon of relevance because of paths chosen from the Enlightenment to present. Evidence of this irrelevance is that the most important and “influential” philosopher of the past century can die, and it doesn’t make the news.
MacIntyre’s most influential book, 1981’s After Virtue, not only explained the state of contemporary Western civilization but also meticulously described how we got here.
In laying the foundation for his thesis, MacIntyre asks the reader to imagine a post-apocalyptic world where society attempts to rebuild, but the building blocks of their technological society have been obliterated. All that remains are discreet fragments of information without context or an overarching theory of how things work (e.g., understanding electricity without the benefit of Watt, Ohm, Edison, or Tesla).
In terms of moral philosophy, MacIntyre convincingly argues that contemporary Western society exists in a post-apocalyptic world. He asserts that the Western tradition of critical evaluation and a foundational orientation toward virtue have been eroded and ultimately abandoned. From Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and others, the West lost faith in critical reasoning and the belief that transcendent truths were discoverable.
Sean O’Connor” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://images.americanthinker.com/ze/zesrllkvc1govbjty0le_640.jpg” width=”300″ />The Western tradition of critical analysis and logical inference succumbed to emotivism, the belief that any statement of moral value is merely a statement of subjective preference. Emotivism is the key that locks all doors to intellectual understanding of right versus wrong, and ultimately, true versus false.
Take, for example, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In 2021, AOC stated that two-thirds of her “Medicare for all” proposal could have been funded with the $21 trillion in alleged Pentagon accounting errors between 1998 and 2015. The Washington Post awarded Representative AOC a “four Pinocchio” rating for this statement. When questioned by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, she suggested that it was more important to be morally right than factually correct.
“If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees,” she said. “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
In this statement, Ms. AOC argues that a factual premise is not necessary for a morally correct conclusion. This raises two questions: Can a correct conclusion be drawn from an incorrect premise? And, on what basis is her moral claim justified?
Any freshman in high school could tell you that a correct conclusion cannot be drawn from an incorrect premise and that the congresswoman should find a premise that agrees with the conclusion, or vice versa.
The more troubling question was the basis on which AOC justified her moral claim regarding her “Medicare for all” proposal? How is it moral to take money from some people and spend it on the healthcare of other people? Is her moral claim based on religious doctrine? Is there a Technocratic theory of right and wrong regarding healthcare, and does this theory have moral value? Or is it an emotivist position that requires no moral foundation?
The emotivist position possesses the benefit of making morals unnecessary. It requires only that AOC feels good about herself, and others view her in an admirable light. This, and countless other examples, are the result of the death of philosophy after the West headed down a dead end four hundred years ago.
MacIntyre, however, believed that moral claims can and must be evaluated in relation to the virtues, which could broadly be conceived as the individual’s orientation to the society in which he lives (Aristotelian) and his orientation to God (Thomistic). Central to this idea is that each virtue is not practiced individually, distinct from the other virtues, but is balanced with other virtues (Aristotle lists 12 virtues and Thomas Aquinas lists seven).
In practice, when a politician, such as AOC, demands that we must provide healthcare to every American resident, including illegal immigrants, we should ask the moral basis for the claim. AOC might have responded that healthcare for all would express the virtue of charity. But, using this example, the virtue of charity would conflict with the virtues of prudence and justice (we do not have the resource-prudence, and people are not entitled to resources by virtue of their proximity-justice).
MacIntyre suggested that when the West abandoned classical and scholastic philosophy, it destroyed the structures that both rendered the world understandable and provided a means to resolve conflict.
By recognizing and dismantling emotivism, we could resolve our conflicts regarding tax policy, immigration, abortion, education reform, and a host of other issues that drive us apart. We need not return to Aristotelian or Thomistic philosophy, but they could be the building blocks of a new world, a world that makes sense.
Chris Boland can be reached at Cboland7@outlook.com.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
