Emotivism

I would be remiss if I started this review of MacIntyre without a "discussion" on emotivism. Thus, an outline of points raised in a recent discussion with a fellow philosopher of After Virtue's first chapters.

First, why does this matter? MacIntyre structures his argument very thoughtfully. He gives us a succinct picture of what a faded discipline might look like in everyday language, explains that it would be difficult for "historians" to notice the problem, but gives us hints as to how we might carefully discern the problem. Then, he gives us examples of common ethical discussions of today and points out that they exhibit the same easy-to-miss but nevertheless telltale signs of having been built on a since-collapsed knowledge structure. We should be very worried, he says.

An obvious retort would be to acknowledge that there is an emptiness behind ethical discussion, but to disagree with the assertion that this emptiness is a problem, or that the problem is solvable. MacIntyre knows that if this position were true, it would deflate his argument, so he chooses to encounter the opposition on the offensive.

Second, what is emotivism? Our discussion identifies MacIntyre's definition of it as a theory that claims that the sentence "Honesty is right" is the same as "Yay, honesty." MacIntyre views emotivist theories as linguistic theories, that is, theories about the meanings of sentences. Perhaps there is room here for deepening emotivist theories to discuss claims, not sentences. Certainly there is room for a wide variation of emotivist theories, and MacIntyre does recognize his opponent as a family of theories, rather than a single school. If MacIntyre can succeed in convincing us that emotivism is false, he is one step closer to convincing us that there is some other reason ethical language is empty, and that this is a dire problem.

Thirdly, how prevalent is emotivism? Part of MacIntyre's urgency is grounded in his opinion that most people function as emotivists and that the ethical history we acknowledge as a society is perpetuates this by consistently recreated the ethical mood to which emotivism was a natural reaction. Therefore we are consistently steered away from recognizing the dismal state of the discipline of ethics while at the same time continuing to value it as if it were not empty.

How much do we agree with MacIntyre's opinion that mild emotivism is so prevalent? On the one hand, I tend to disagree that people would ever admit to recognizing emotivism in their own ethical convictions, even if they were pressed to the point that they could give no deeper defenses of those positions. Is this just denial, buried under MacIntyre's "desire to be rational"? Possibly, but quite possibly not as well. On the other hand, I have begun to think about whether we might be able to recognize emotivism on a cultural rather than personal scale. I would certainly agree that cultural relativism is prevalent in modern American culture. Could this be construed as emotivism on a societal level? We might not be willing to identify our ethical convictions as boiling down to "Yay X" or "I approve of X." We do seem more willing, though, to explain and accept that another person's beliefs could be boiled down to "my parents/community/religion/culture taught me that yay X." Might we even be willing to use such an explanation of our own beliefs? I would say, arguably yes. And if so, the very same problems that arise with personal emotivism regarding an emptiness in ethical communication would arise here. The very same arguments that MacIntyre makes against the emotivist trends could apply.

MacIntyre and Sci Fi

MacIntyre begins After Virtue with a picture of a world that, following some disaster, has lost the framework of knowledge on which our scientific language rests. No one agrees on the correct meaning of terms like "electron" or "gravity," but these words are integrated into the spoken language to such a degree that the speakers of the language are unable to identify these words as meaningless or ambiguous, and thus continue to use them. MacIntyre asks, how could an historian, living after such a disaster, identify or explain what had gone wrong here? Seemingly scientific terminology would persist in conversation, but in actuality these conversations would be empty and meaningless (both in the sense that the participants would not agree on the meaning of the terms, and that there would be no readily available expert source). Since the terminology would continue, the historian would have to identify some other piece of evidence that something had in fact gone wrong. This evidence would have to be the facets of the empty conversation: the lack of agreement on the meaning of terms by the participants and the failure to identify a culturally agreed-upon expert source.

Of course, scientific language is a metaphor for another set of terms - ethics - and the futuristic age is a metaphor for another time - ours. MacIntyre's claim in After Virtue is that we have reached a similar stage of the degradation of the meaning of ethical language. The disaster (in this case, the failure of the Enlightenment project) is not identified by society at large for the same reason that the historian in the metaphor struggled: the use of ethical language persists. We continue to use terms like "good," "right," "should," and "sin" without significant agreement about what these terms mean. We also fail to identify a consolidated set of experts (though MacIntyre admits some philosophers and religious leaders are used to support our various ideas, but that we do not accurately acknowledge their historical context, and thus we do not properly use them as experts). Chapter 2 opens with several examples of hot ethical debates. We can see in each that the participants in the "conversation" are talking at, not with, each other. At a very basic level, they do not agree on the terms, and so when it seems they are debating the issue, they are in fact taking turns asserting their positions. Further evidence that we are indeed in such a dire situation, MacIntyre contends, is that we (subconsciously) realize that we are asserting, not arguing. The participants in the conversation quickly become, in his words, "shrill" because they are unable to convince or rationalize with their opponent. Because they are unconvincing (which they undoubtedly will be with no agreement of terms), they begin to feel unconvinced themselves.


Obviously MacIntyre's intentions in the use of the opening metaphor were to show the reader the situation of the invisible collapse of a discipline before making clear the true subject of that discipline. Nevertheless, his picture of the collapse of science is an intriguing one on its own. It is reminiscent of so many sci fi and distopia works of fiction. (Let us get it out of the way now: Yes, I like philosophy AND sci fi. I am an embarrassingly enormous nerd. Moving on...)

On such sci fi novel was mentioned in a review I read of After Virtue. The review suggested Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz as a novel with a premise of striking similar premise to that of MacIntyre's metaphor. I picked up the book and have been reading it alongside After Virtue, attempting to imagine it as a metaphor for ethical language also (though I have admittedly been drawn into reading the book for its own virtues and forgetting to "translate").

In the novel a world-wide nuclear war has wiped out most of the population, deformed many, and largely ruined all civilizations. As a reaction to the disaster, mobs of "simpleton" survivors take revenge upon the political leaders, the educated, and all learning (science, books, literacy in general), effectively erasing nearly all forms of the transference of knowledge. While civilization dwindles to roaming tribal clans, one organization has remained, drastically reduced in power. This organization is the Catholic Church (though not exactly as we would recognize it now). A small order has developed in the Church which quietly collects, copies, and memorizes any books, papers, or slivers of knowledge that seem scientific in nature. What is understood by the monks is at approximately the level we now guess at long-lost cultures like the Maya. Speculation and confusion abound, and the manpower involved is strikingly small. Still, the monks are diligent in their project, which they see as preserving pieces of information for "future generations," who will come after the rage against science has died. I think the same question is being raised here as is in After Virtue: once the knowledge and even the ways of obtaining the knowledge have been lost, is it at all possible for those future generations to piece together a discipline which was once so vast as to encompass a mind-boggling number of specialists, books, papers - a whole history of its own. We shall see if such a thing happens in this book, and if I am convinced it could happen with ethics.

Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue

The next major adventure of this blog will be a more modern one: Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue. The analysis will be based off of the original 1981 text, which does not include the Postscript and Prologue added in the two subsequent editions.

For a jumpstart on MacIntyre, check out the International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy, IEP's article on the philosopher, and First Things' Edward Oakes comments on MacIntyre's life achievements.

Absolute Knowing

VIII. Absolute Knowing (§788-808)

Envisioning unity in the indefinite future is a symptom of the Spirit still not quite identifying itself in the Other (in this case, the Divine). There are disadvantages to both identifying the self purely materially (as a manifestation) and identifying the self as purely abstract (the beautiful soul) (§795). There is still a break between duty and actions in the world. Forgiveness helps us to see past this division, and allow the Spirit to see itself as Spirit (§793). In this way, religion is the first way in which we can describe true Spirit self-understanding. However, philosophy is a more precise way to describe this recognition of Spirit by itself (§802).

Philosophy is able to more clearly grasp that opposites are unified; with it Ego is able to understand that it is, that it must accept, Nature as the various and true manifestations of itself. With it, Spirit can understand the notions that are itself, and transcend without denying these, into self-consciousness (§806). In this relationship with Absolute Knowledge, Spirit returns, in a more enlightened way, to the beginning of the processes - to sense-certainty (immediacy):

806. Absolute Knowledge contains within itself this necessity of relinquishing itself from notion, and necessarily involves the transition of the notion into consciousness. For Spirit that knows itself is, just for the reason that it grasps its own notion, immediate identity with itself; and this, in the distinction that it implies, is the certainty of what is immediate or is sense-consciousness – the beginning from which we started. This process of releasing itself from the form of its self is the highest freedom and security
of its knowledge of itself.

Still, Knowledge recognizes its limits, and understands that it, too, has an opposite. To join with its opposite, the Spirit passes into Nature. Flux exists here too: Spirit becomes Nature, Nature calls up Spirit (§807). In reaction to the limits of Knowledge, Spirit externalizes into Space.

Knowledge also recognizes itself, and must also come to terms with itself. It does so by externalizing Spirit into Time, that is History, the center of Hegel's philosophy (§808). Although he does not phrase it in this way, I think this explains why "original" creation by God (Divine Spirit) necessarily was, and necessarily was material (spatial) and changing (historical).

The Incarnation of God - Hegel's Theology

The Reality of the Incarnation of God (§758-787)

Out of its despair, however, the Spirit is driven to its essense: its knowledge of itself. It knows Spirit, thus it is a believer in Spirit, and recognizes Spirit as a "definite self-consciousness," as a reality, as the divine Self (§758) (critique of Descartes).

The incarnation of the Divine in human form, or Christ, is the obvious and natural revelation of the Absolute Spirit as a divine self. But the individual of Christ is in a way lacking, in a way not universal (as the Spirit revealed in government will). It must dialectically pass into the past (die) in order to synthesize a universal (Holy Spirit) that all of the believing community can participate in (§763-764). Concentrating religious belief on the individual (historical) Christ can stagnate religion (§766).

The dialectics of the Divine and the individual are procedurally the same, and are intertwined. The individual progresses from thought (logic) to material (Nature), then to self-consciousness (Spirit). The Divine progresses from essence (Father) to being-for-self (Logos, Christ), then to "self-knowledge in [the] other" (Holy Spirit) (§770).

Creation and the supposed fall of man is also a natural process, in which the pure thought of God becomes manifest in nature, then becomes an independent thinking Spirit of its own (§773-773). This independence is judged as evil (angelic or human) (§776). Hegel rejects, however, the theological view that evil is the absence of God. Instead, the big picture is that evil is a "distant" part of God (there is nothing outside God), and that in the individual (human/angel), an evil act is the beginning of morality, of self-ness. This understanding of evil characterizes it as disobedience, but not as unnatural, inhuman, or even entirely ungodly.

Disobedience and individual selfhood is our dialetical step "away" from identifying with God, and reconciliation is our step back, and salvation (unity with God) is the synthesis. Hegel explains that the reason believers see salvation as an occurence "something far away in the future" and reconciliation as "away in the distance of the past" is that the spiritual place inhabited by believers is still in the process, it has momentum between the antithesis and the synthesis (§787).