Alasdair MacIntyre ed. by Mark C. Murphy (review)

646 BOOK REVIEWS Alasdair Macintyre. Edited by MARK C. MURPHY. Contemporary Philosophy in Focus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 219. $65.00 (cloth), $23.00 (paper). ISBN 0-521-79042-5 (cloth), 0-521-79381-5 (paper). The unified project of Alasdair Macintyre's later work, beginning with After Virtue, constitutes an important contribution to the study of philosophy. Nevertheless, secondary works on Macintyre have until recently been restricted mainly to journal articles and book reviews, many ofthem critical, with much of that criticism based on misinterpretation. Errant critics have faulted Macintyre for constructing a fairly conventional but entirely unworkable metaethical theory, for trying to advance Thomistic natural law while rejecting the metaphysics presupposed by it, and for allowing religion or ideology to drive his work. The mixed quality of this criticism-some of it produced by respected scholars-may confirm Maclntyre's comment on the ways that audiences hear lectures (Three Rival Versions ofMoral Enquiry, 2), but it certainly indicates the need for good secondary literature on Macintyre. AlasdairMacintyre, edited by Mark Murphy, will go a long way to help fill this need. The book focuses on Maclntyre's "After Virtue project." The authors of the seven essays provide some measured criticism, but the explication ofMaCintyre's position remains the focus of the book from beginning to end, and that end is pursued with considerable clarity. These writers come from a variety of specializations and show a real interest in Maclntyre's ideas; their work places Maclntyre's philosophy in the broader context ofcontemporary thought, reveals some of the crucial influences on its development, and identifies some of the criticisms ofit. Gordon Graham offers a veryuseful study ofMaclntyre's account of the role of history in the work of moral philosophy. Jean Porter explores the meaning and implications of Maclntyre's theory of tradition. Stephen Turner gives an excellent introduction to Maclntyre's work in the philosophy of the social sciences. J. L. A. Garcia offers an interesting reading of MaClntyre's critique of modern moral philosophy. David Solomon provides a m~sterful exposition of Maclntyre's assessment and critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Mark Murphy's own contribution to the book is a study of Maclntyre's political philosophy. Terry Pinkard completes the volume by examining MaClntyre's critique of modernity. Solomon'sessay, "Macintyre and ContemporaryMoral Philosophy," is easily the most important contribution to this book. Writing with the authority of a friend and colleague, Solomon traces the development of Maclntyre's ethical positions, and places his contribution to contemporary moral philosophy within the broader debates over metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Solomon draws on works from all stages of Maclntyre's career, beginning with his unpublished master's thesis, Tbe Significance ofMoral Judgments, to show that "the continuities in Maclntyre's ethical thought are more importantthan the changes in it" (114). Solomon demonstrates that "Maclntyre's reputation as an BOOK REVIEWS 647 outsider to mainstream academic moral philosophy is misleading." His philosophy has, in fact, developed in and through his engagement with contemporary ethical thought. Solomon traces Maclntyre's critique of conventional metaethics, from the criticism of Moore's intuitionism and Stevenson's emotivism in his master's thesis, through his criticism of Hare, and of conventional normative theories, both Kantian and consequentialist, to the synthetic achievement of After Virtue. Noting that Maclntyre's ethical theories "do not fit neatly" into any of the four standard categories of normative ethics (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and anti-theory), Solomon shows what Macintyre shares with and rejects in each of them. Solomon ends by addressing two lines ofcriticism that have been advanced againstAfterVirtue: (1) that Maclntyre's assessment of contemporary moral culture is wrong, and (2) that Maclntyre's characterization of the limitations of human inquiry is inconsistent with his claim "to be a moral realist whose central theoretical ambition in ethics is to achieve the truth (not just warranted assertibility) about ethics and to provide rational support for the claim that what is achieved is truth" (145). Solomon's essay should become a standard reference in any future work on Macintyre. Turner's "Macintyre in the Province of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences" will also...