Volume 10 Number 1 1997
As the author of this book points out, the work of Alasdair MacIntyre is not easy to classify. McMylor describes him as a social critic, but this is itself rather misleading. His work is very different in character from that of many others to whom this label has been applied (such as, for example, C. Wright Mills). And this classification of him would not prepare one for the detailed discussions of the moral theory implicit in Homer, or of the ethics of Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, to be found in several of his recent books. Furthermore, it would lead one to expect a great deal more discussion of the concrete features of modem society than is to be found in his work. At the same time, there is a sense in which MacIntyre is a social critic: above all, as McMylor points out, he is a critic of modern liberalism.
This classificatory problem reflects MacIntyre's unusual intellectual career. He has taught in both philosophy and sociology departments; he was a Marxist (of a kind) at one time; he has been strongly influenced by Wittgenstein's later philosophy; and he is now a Catholic who draws his intellectual inspiration, for the most part, from Aristotle and Aquinas. His work is enormously stimulating, and very distinctive in orientation, particularly in his most recent books, After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry.
As far as I know, this is the first book-length study of MacIntyre's work, though there is at least one recent collection of papers (Horton and Mendus 1994), and a very large number of journal articles have been published dealing with his work. His thinking has had a considerable influence on philosophers and political theorists, but its impact on sociologists has been very limited. For this reason alone, McMylor's book is to be welcomed.
The author begins by looking at MacIntyre's early writings on Christianity and Marxism, showing that his commitment to these reflected his sense of alienation from modern liberal society. In both, he sought what he felt was missing from that society: a framework of common values by which individuals could understand and guide their lives. The rest of the book is an elaboration of the main arguments of MacIntyre's later work, particularly After Virtue. McMylor also looks at recent developments within Marxism to see how far they can now offer what MacIntyre came to conclude was not available, in particular, to what extent an Aristotelian Marxism is a possibility (looking at the work of Meikle). The author also explores MacIntyre's reliance on Polanyi's The Great Transformation, this being used to understand the divide between a society that still had a coherent moral framework, and the disintegration of this in the 18th and l9th centuries. It is MacIntyre's central theme that this social transformation has left us with a fragmentary collection of moral ideas which cannot provide ethical guidance, and which are no match for the social dislocation and impoverishment of life that the spread of capitalism produces, particularly in its bureaucratic forms.
The author's discussion is very much a reading of MacIntyre's work for sociologists; and a wide variety of other work is discussed, mainly that of social theorists. Indeed, at times, MacIntyre seems to disappear from view, despite being the ostensible focus of the book; furthermore, while often interesting, these elaborations tend to be rather too summary for anyone without prior knowledge. Nor is it always clear that the comparisons drawn are the most useful ones. Given McMylor's interest in the Marxist tradition, it is surprising that he does not compare MacIntyre with Adorno, for there are some very interesting similarities and differences.
It is also worth pointing out that a reader of this book who does not have any other knowledge of MacIntyre's work would probably not get an accurate sense of its nature. MacIntyre writes very much as a philosopher, and the interest of his books lies to a large extent in his treatment of particular philosophical issues, such as the nature of practical rationality or the character of liberalism. These sub-themes are for the most part missing from McMylor's book. As a result, for me the MacIntyre who emerges from it is barely recognisable. I certainly missed his engaging style of thinking, as compared with McMylor's rather looser and more discursive approach; however, the focus on MacIntyre's main argument perhaps reveals its weaknesses more starkly than MacIntyre's own writing does.
While broadly sympathetic to MacIntyre's social critique of modem society, McMylor clearly does not sympathise with his turn to Catholicism. Instead, he seems to be searching for an alternative in Marxism, and, in a sense, the book is as much a record of that quest as an account of MacIntyre's work. Moreover, the most important problem which faces those who seek altematives to liberalism is largely ignored by McMylor, even though it is dealt with at some length and with great subtlety by MacIntyre. This is the question of how we can make rational judgments about the validity of different traditions. This is a difficult problem for MacIntyre because he sees rational criteria as necessarily tradition-dependent, but he seeks to resolve it by drawing on post- positivist accounts of scientific development. The problem arises in an equally difficult form in relation to Marxism, as is made clear by post-structuralist and post-modernist critiques, but McMylor does not address the issue, and this is the most disappointing gap in his discussion.
This is a useful book, then, not least for drawing sociologists' attention to MacIntyre's work. There is much they could gain from that work: there is a sense in which it is an implicit critique of the foundational presuppositions of sociology (including Marxism) as much as it is a critique of modern society. Despite its value, though, McMylor's book is not an adequate introduction. For that, it would have to be supplemented with a reading of some of the discussions of MacIntyre's work in the philosophical literature; though, as McMylor himself points out, even this is no substitute for reading the original.
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