Alasdair MacIntyre: Social Practices, Marxism and Ethical Anti-Capitalism

Abstract

Alasdair MacIntyre's concept of social practice sits at the core of his account of the virtue‐fostering forms of resistance to capitalism, liberalism and the modern (un)democratic state. However, while this concept was articulated, in part, as a response to perceived weaknesses with Marx's analysis of working‐class revolutionary praxis, and although MacIntyre has criticised Marx for the paucity of his theorisation of such practice, he has himself only gestured towards concrete instances of his alternative. This essay engages with one of these examples: MacIntyre's suggestion that Welsh mining communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should be numbered among those modern communities within which the virtues have flourished. I explore some of the ramifications of this example for MacIntyre's broader ethical theory through the lens of a discussion of the continuities and breaks between his youthful Marxism and his more mature thought. I suggest that this example problematises his concept of practice in a way that implies a space for reconciliation between his mature thought and his earlier Marxism.

Marxism Lost and Found: Alasdair MacIntyre and the Contemporary Debate

“…If MacIntyre means by "morality" what he used to mean by it, such communities cannot be a moral response to what the system is doing to humanity in the 21st century. Similar points are made by both Blackledge (2008b) and Davidson (2010), and all these echo a much earlier reservation with MacIntyre's radical politics from Schneewind who pointed towards the "profoundly pessimistic" and "self-defeating" qualities of After Virtue, sceptical of a localized form of resistance that would have "those of us who are clever and prosperous . .…”

“…What MacIntyre had essentially done in After Virtue, was to conflate the Marxist with the Stalinist in a way that ran counter to the very different roles that he saw these two characters playing in much earlier works such as Notes From the Moral Wilderness. More recently, this type of criticism has been more fully developed into immanent critique by those such as Blackledge, who has argued on numerous occasions that, whilst there is a rational kernel of truth to MacIntyre's critique of Marxism, MacIntyre himself once understood that, in certain forms, Marxism was not susceptible to the types of criticism of its ethics and politics that he now associates with all forms of Marxism (Blackledge 2005(Blackledge , 2008a(Blackledge , 2008b. Consequently, these contrasting views of MacIntyre's critique of Marxism have created some important and vigorous exchanges within the parameters of such debates which look well set to continue.…”

“…Undoubtedly, the seemingly pessimistic conclusions concerning the possibilities for moral resistance to modernity as seen in After Virtue also did not sit well with those on the revolutionary Left. Even the minority of Marxists who recognise the power and value in MacIntyre's work tend to be highly critical of the seemingly pessimistic political conclusions that After Virtue entails (Blackledge 2008a(Blackledge , 2008bCallinicos 2010;Harman 2009). As Sedgwick notes, it would be hard for those on the revolutionary Left to endorse MacIntyre's politics in which-or so it was perceived by some-political activism was not a virtue (Sedgwick 1982, 14).…”

Tradition: where MacIntyre meets Hayek to Ground Ethical Governance

“…It is noteworthy that MacIntyre and Hayek share certain junctures that define their intellectual trajectories. Both authors distance themselves from socialism and Marxism but with the former keeping some Marxist critics of market and Capitalism throughout his work (e.g., Blackledge, 2009;Ma-cIntyre, 2016: 124-129) and the latter defending free market and criticizing socialism emphatically (e.g., Hayek, 1988). Despite their different perspectives, both are valid for the reality of a governance network, as agents from different sectors participate in the co-production of a specific area's common good, such as education, health, or transport.…”

El impacto de "Tras la virtud" de Alasdair Macintyre en la filosofía del deporte: los equívocos del paradigma internalista

“…Podría trazarse un paralelo con la distinción webberiana entre la razón valorativa y la instrumental, diseñada, precisamente, con el fin de impedir que esta última nos introduzca en esa jaula de hierro que es el sistema extremamente racionalizado y capitalista. Por ello, el concepto de práctica, así como la distinción entre bienes internos y externos, "proporcionan un punto de resistencia ética al sistema caracterizado por el dominio de la racionalidad medios-fines" (Blackledge, 2009). Afirma MacIntyre que:…”