Review

Reviewed Work(s): After Virtue; A Study in Moral Theory by Alasdair MacIntyre

Review by: Nancy S. Struever
Source: MLN, Vol. 96, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1981), pp. 1193-1195
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2906250
Accessed: 03-09-2018 02:25 UTC

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 M L N 1193

Alasdair Maclntyre,
Notre Dame, India

It is indeed refresh
grammatic statem
large degree the pr
(238). This must e
investigation of eth
the literary histori
the historian or crit
and ethos, he sho
between "character
both character and
But he must also co
and discourse: "This
roles . . . could not have occurred . . . if the forms of moral discourse, the
language of morality, had not also been transformed at the same time"
(33-34).
Further, unlike the "political languages" of Skinner, MacIntyre's
construct of "language of morality" is a non-trivial one; his use of the word
"language" is not vacuous, almost metaphorical as in Skinner's usage, but
stipulated by his account of classical, i.e. well-motivated, moral theory;'
MacIntyre makes the extremely strong case that the structure of classical
morality is in part discursive (163). A precondition for the judgemental
propositions of classical theory is the belief in the narrative unity of life;
thus the object of dramatic, epic, and historical formal initiatives is the
subject of moral theorizing. It is no accident, then, that the last of his
classical moral writers is Jane Austen; her discursive sensitivity is integral
to her moral sensitivity; discursive artifice enables moral discovery (169f.,
222f.).
But for a precise identification of the mutuality of operations and goals
of literary history and moral theory, it is not necessary to turn to
MacIntyre's account of Homeric ethics in his chapter, "The Virtues in
Heroic Societies," a chapter, to be sure, marked by the clarity and good
sense he displays throughout. Rather, the mutuality or reciprocity lies in
process, not product; we see, for example, the alliance inversely projected
in his subversion of the pretensions of social scientific discourse, as in the
chapter on "The Character of Generalisations in Social Science." Then, he
disputes false methodological alliances; where most contemporary
initiatives which attempt to combine the study of social and of
formal-discursive moments rely upon a simple, and reductive,
"functionalist" or "reflectivist" model, MacIntyre attacks function as a
construct of serious inquiry. The hegemony of "function" as explanation is
tied inextricably to manipulation as hegemonous social practice; the naive
sociologist of literature can only describe cultural practice as power
practice, he can only write a history of moral and political disorder.2

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 1194 REVIEWS

But, primarily, the mut

"narrative unity" as eth
description of narrative
literature. But Maclntyr
exercise, definition and c
his definition of practice3
as ethical inquiry itself,
Moral sensitivity is enjoi
constraint, not simply a
historians have perceived
analysis; Maclntyre wou
continuous perception of
"internal goods" of litera
Still, I must note a curio
of Maclntyre's moral t
Maclntyre inserts a long
(194f.), Maclntyre does n
of Austen) texts from th
"literary," which embody
took account of these gen
his theories of decay and
It is ingeniously edifying
of moral language and
practice. He claims Enli
dominant social progra
discourse, marked by "an
historical consciousness,"
projected the division be
moral and political disor
I would juxtapose Richar
of "literary" and "serious
critical of intellectualist
"playful" as a counter-
premises and hypothes
essentially troublesome a
academic reality; the lack
academically innovative i
thus Collingwood's Autob
Culture and Value are in useful disharmony with the standard
investigational prose of their context. MacIntyre's linguistic decay, then,
could be related in part to the lack of influence of "playful" discourse on
academic discursive dispositions. Certainly MacIntyre would find nothing
difficult about seeing Austen as subversively therapeutic, for it is the
subtlety of her subversion that counts; the explanatory force of her
narrative constructs acts always in a delayed reaction.

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 M L N 1195

There is, in sum,

chapters of After
"preachiness" relate
the dialectical gain
"novel" or "poetry
hybrid discipline w
adequate subversio
solipsist (see Chapt
cathartic: it requir
functionalism of
badly-motivated ac

The Johns Hopkins University NANCY S. STRUEVER

NOTES

1 While Skinner's Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge

University Press, 1980), is an excellent survey of the "content" of form
theoretical treatises which will be most useful to undergraduate an
students, his claim to study "political languages" has no reference to
tics," since there is no formal analysis of lexicon or syntax, nor to "p
although pragmatic analysis seemed to be the programme promis
"Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas," History and
(1969), 3-53.
2 This seemingly unconscious preoccupation with disorder is charact
example, of both L. Martines, Power and Imagination; The City State in
Italy (New York: Knopf, 1979), and S. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
3 The definition of "practice" is the best definition in the book: "By a
am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially
cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form
are realised in the course of trying to achieve those standards of
which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of ac
the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conc
the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended" (175).
4 Lanham, Motives of Eloquence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19

Hans Kiing, Does God Exist?

New York: Doubleday Company, 1980. 839 pages

What follows should be called "Program Notes" on Hans Kting's

on the theme, "Does God Exist?" I started reading it hopin
something I had not heard before. But the answer to the themat
is, I think, that God exists because Hans King says he does. Thi
good enough. Of course, I had not expected him to answer
though he has suffered at the hands of Rome. He has refused t

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