Moral Progress: A Process Critique of MacIntyre (review)

Moral Progress: A Process Critique of MacIntyre. Lisa Bellantoni. SUNY Series in Philosophy, George R. Lucas, Jr., editor. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 126. $47.50 h.c., 0-7914-4443-0, $15.95 pbk. 0-7914-4444-9.

Alasdair MacIntyre is one of only a few contemporary philosophers who is oft cited in the popular press, his name usually being invoked as a great defender of morality and virtue. I must confess that I find this puzzling, as MacIntyre's work has always struck me as being rather seriously misguided. In Moral Progress: A Process Critique of MacIntyre, Lisa Bellantoni articulates some of the more serious flaws in MacIntyre's thinking. Utilizing the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, she undertakes a sustained critique of MacIntyre's view of practical enquiry, and, despite a few rough spots along the way, she ultimately demonstrates the general incoherence and inadequacy of that view. Bellantoni's project is important both for its critique of MacIntyre and for its development of a Whiteheadian model of practical enquiry. ¹ While the book is occasionally uneven and, from my perspective a little overly teleological (more on that later), it does represent a significant contribution to the development of Whitehead's thought in the area of moral enquiry.

After a helpful, clear introduction, Bellantoni's first chapter, "The Emotivist Challenge," consists of a general account of MacIntyre's overall project. This chapter provides an excellent exposition of MacIntyre's views. Chapter 2, "MacIntyre on Moral Traditions," is more focused and critical of MacIntyre's project. After dealing with MacIntyre's (mis)interpretation of Kant, and after a solid argument in favor of continuity among moral traditions (which MacIntyre denies), Bellantoni goes on to point out one of the major problems with MacIntyre's method, i.e., it is schizophrenic: sometimes he talks like a realist and other times he talks like a constructivist. When he criticizes other traditions and argues for the superiority of the Aristotelian/Thomistic tradition, he has the voice of a realist. When he argues for the independence and insularity of traditions he has the voice of a constructivist. "According to MacIntyre, the relativist grants no rational recourse across traditions, whereas the perspectivist grants no truth claims within any one tradition. MacIntyre's account, lingering between realism and constructivism, flirts with both of these positions. Indeed, his account must render truth neither wholly immanent to the tradition he espouses, nor wholly external to that tradition, if he is to defeat the twin challenges of perspectivism and relativism" (33).

In chapter 3, "Traditions of Enquiry: A Whiteheadian Alternative," Bellantoni begins to develop the Whiteheadian model of practical enquiry. This chapter begins with a very brief, yet very technical, description of Whitehead's metaphysics (36-37). The language at the beginning of the chapter is, to my mind, needlessly overtechnical, especially since the more technical aspects play little role in the subsequent chapters. For the purposes of this project, a more basic introduction would have sufficed. Nevertheless, when Bellantoni moves away from the more technical language, the analysis improves greatly, and the greater adequacy of the Whiteheadian model of enquiry begins to emerge. The main point of this third chapter is to show that a Whiteheadian model of enquiry is one that recognizes the dynamic nature of knowledge and of traditions. For Whitehead, traditions are important because they harbor truths, but a great danger arises when those truths are seen as static and when they don't evolve along with the society. Bellantoni's quotation from The Aims of Education is priceless: "Knowledge does not keep any better than fish" (47); to which I would add, from Adventures of Ideas, "The defence of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change" (Whitehead 1967, 268). The focus of chapter 4, "Perspectivism and Practical Truths," is sharper, delineating some detailed contrasts between the two thinkers. One...