Justice As Virtue

Chapter Five

Justice as ‘virtue’

Introduction

Thus far in this thesis I have been concerned with views on the possibility of social justice from liberal philosophical viewpoints. Hayek denied this possibility on the ground that any conception of social justice would necessarily depend on some notion of the common good towards the attainment of which human actions were somehow naturally ordered. The notion of a common good was, according to Hayek, an error flowing from the failure of its proponents to recognize the subjective nature of value and its consequence that good is a matter of individual choice and, in a free pluralist society, likely to be heterogeneous. Since the individual has to make such choices in a degree of ignorance, he or she, Hayek holds, is prone to error even in relation to his or her own good. The risk of error is, on his view, far greater therefore in predicting the good of others. Direction of human action towards some common good, he argues, would thus involve submission to the judgment and command of some fallible authority, and this is the path to totalitarianism, the antithesis of political liberalism.

Although he shared the belief that this individual understanding of the nature of the good and of human action was fundamental to liberalism, Rawls’ version of liberalism differed considerably from Hayek’s. For Rawls, social justice defined the nature of justice in a free society whereas for Hayek social justice was the antithesis of justice in a free society. Both these theories have been criticised in previous chapters for their failure to acknowledge the non-voluntary social bonds between human beings and the consequences of those bonds for our understanding of the nature of the good and its relationship to justice. Since Hayek and Rawls respectively represent the two ends of the liberal spectrum of opinion on the possibility of social justice, I can justly claim to have sketched, as much as a thesis of this length permits, two representative liberal views on this question. The point has thus been reached in the thesis where a representative contrary view on the question must be considered.

Since Alasdair MacIntyre is widely recognised in the relevant literature[1] as a trenchant critic of ‘liberal modernity’ in general and of Rawls’ theory of justice in particular, his view has been chosen for examination as representative of contrary views on the possibility of social justice. According to MacIntyre, liberals misconceive the nature of justice because they misconceive the nature of the good. The good, he argues, is not individual in nature but common, and justice is the virtue which disposes us to reward each member of our community according to his or her contribution to the common good. Before turning to the detail of MacIntyre’s account of justice as a virtue, it is important to note that the distinguishing feature of his position is this belief that the good is common and that justice is derived from it, not the belief in some form of ‘communitarianism’. MacIntyre speaks of ‘contemporary communitarians’ as theorists ‘from whom I have strongly dissociated myself whenever I have had an opportunity to do so’ (MacIntyre, 1994, p. 302)[2] because of their ‘... distinctively Romantic vision of nations ... as actual or potential communities, whose unity could be expressed through the institutions of the state’, a vision ‘... which liberals have rightly resisted, understanding how it generates totalitarian and other evils’ (MacIntyre, 1994, p. 302-3). Where Hayek and Rawls saw their versions of liberalism as solutions to the problem of order in the modern nation-state, MacIntyre sees the nation-state itself as an impediment to the Aristotelian form of community he favours. MacIntyre’s claims can be summarised as follows: (1) that, since the good can be shown to be common to all, there can be only one true conception of it; (2) that, since justice is derived from this conception of the good, there can also be only one true conception of justice; and (3) that the structure of nation-states is such that they cannot be formed into communities based on this conception of the common good and justice. If MacIntyre is correct, in other words, modern liberal societies need not only new conceptions of morality but also new polities if they are to be cured of the ills of ‘modernity’.

In the next two chapters it will be argued that, while MacIntyre is correct in holding that the good is prior to justice, his own theories of the good and justice, being ultimately based on an ‘essentialist’ interpretation of the ‘natural law’, err in at least two ways. First, by defining human actions in terms of essences making them good or bad in virtually all circumstances, these theories consider human beings only in the abstract, not ‘as they are’ (Lonergan, 1985, p. 3), namely, historical people who shape their good by actions appropriate to the demands of new situations. Second, by denying the possibility of any source of the good but the ‘practices’ of the community governed by this interpretation of the ‘natural law’, these theories fail to recognize the presence of a good in the liberal tradition of free, rational agency, and thus of a basis for sharing a significant degree of common life with the other members of modern liberal societies. In order to sustain this argument, I need first to summarise MacIntyre’s case for his version of Aristotelianism, and then to present our criticisms of this case. The presentation of that case begins with a summary of MacIntyre’s account of the development of the virtues. The case continues by showing how, on this account, the coherence stripped from practical reason by ethical systems such as Rawls’ can be restored, and it concludes with a summary of his understanding of justice in general and social justice in particular. In the second section of this chapter MacInytre’s case is critically examined in the light of his dispute with Charles Taylor about the possibility of transcendent goods in an Aristotelian ethic. In the following chapter that dispute is adjudicated in favour of Taylor in the light of an appraisal of the underlying rival interpretations of the natural law: the traditional Thomism favoured by MacIntyre and the ‘proportionalist’ interpretation embraced by many modern theologians.

MacIntyre’s case for a neo-Aristotelian view of justice

MacIntyre’s three stage account of the virtues

For MacIntyre, the virtues have not only a philosophical but also a sociological basis. He acknowledges that the traditional accounts of the virtues - the Aristotelian and Thomist accounts - have suffered in modern empiricist intellectual climates from their dependence on metaphysical suppositions, metaphysical biology in Aristotle’s case(MacIntyre, 1988, p. 196) and metaphysical natural theology in the case of Thomism (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 165). Moreover, he recognises that, since there have been many different accounts of the virtues produced over the centuries, there must be some doubt of the possibility of a unified account of them (MacIntyre, 1985, p. 181).

Referring to the history of the concept he has given in earlier chapters of After Virtue, he writes:

Yet although I have dwelt upon the prima facie case for holding that the differences and incompatibilities between different accounts at least suggest that there is no single, central, core conception of the virtues which might claim allegiance, I ought also to point out that each of the five moral accounts which I have just sketched so summarily does embody just such a claim (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 186).

MacIntyre makes a similar claim for allegiance to his own account but argues that his claim can only be substantiated by a sociologically based account of how a proper conception of the virtues develops. He sees that development as having three stages, each later stage supposing its earlier stage(s) but no earlier stage predicting the later stage(s) (MacIntyre, 1981, pp.186-7). In the first stage of its development, virtue is conceived as an excellence required by what MacIntyre calls a ‘practice’. In the second stage of this development, virtue is conceived as the foundation for what MacIntyre characterises as ‘the narrative order of a single human life’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 187). In the third stage of its development, the concept of virtue is understood as being derived from, and dependent upon, a particular ‘moral tradition’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 187). A brief account of these stages of development of the concept is necessary if we are to understand MacIntyre's conception of the virtues.

Stage 1: the social basis of the virtues in ‘practices’

For MacIntyre the foundation of the core concept of virtue is a social ‘practice’. In this technical sense a ‘practice’ connotes a cooperative activity ordered towards some good and requiring certain excellences for the achievement of that good. MacIntyre defines a ‘practice’ thus:

By a ‘practice’ I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods integral to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended. (MacIntyre, 1981, p.187)

This definition is rather dense and requires some ‘unpacking’.

The first feature to be clarified is what is to count as a ‘practice’ in MacIntyre’s sense. Although he admits that it is not possible to draw a precise line between activities which are to be classified as ‘practices’ and activities which are not, MacIntyre argues that there are clear examples of each. Thus, activities or skills which form a part but not the whole of a ‘practice’ are not themselves ‘practices’; ‘throwing a football with skill’ is not a ‘practice’ ‘but the game of football is’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 187). The sciences, the humanities and the arts as well as the making and sustaining of human communities are ‘practices’: ‘Thus’, MacIntyre concludes (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 188), ‘the range of practices is wide: arts, sciences, games, politics in the Aristotelian sense, the making and sustaining of family life, all fall under the concept’.

A second feature of a ‘practice’ is the constitutive role played in it by its internal goods. By ‘internal goods’, MacIntyre means the excellences, and the enjoyment of their exercise, which, because they are proper to the relevant ‘practice’, ‘... can only be identified and recognised by the experience of participating in the practice in question’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 188-9). External goods are those goods which may be achieved by participating in a ‘practice’ but which are not among the intrinsic excellences of the relevant ‘practice’ e.g. the rewards of money or prestige which might flow from such participation. Unless one is pursuing the internal goods of a ‘practice’, MacIntyre is arguing, one’s participation in it is only the appearance of engagement in it because one is in fact motivated by ‘external goods’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 188). Thus, one may engage in politics according to its rules of excellence but in fact be motivated by such extrinsic goods as prestige, or power. Part of what it means to be engaged in a ‘practice’ is to be committed to, and to experience the enjoyment of, its internal goods.

The manner in which such internal goods are to be attained is a third feature of a ‘practice’. Success in mastering the excellences of a ‘practice’ and experiencing their enjoyment can, according to MacIntyre, be achieved only by the exercise of three specific virtues: ‘justice, courage and honesty’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 191). The excellences of a ‘practice’ are mastered only by submitting our judgments and performances to the scrutiny of the community of practitioners whom we acknowledge by our engagement in the ‘practice’ as the relevant authorities. Justice is required to acknowledge the need to submit our performances to the authority of that community. Because submission of our performances to the scrutiny of its members entails the risk of criticism, courage is required to take that risk. Of course, the risk might be avoided if we are prepared to submit a deceptive performance of some kind, but then we would be aware that we had not really mastered the relevant excellences at all. Thus, honesty too is required for genuine engagement in a ‘practice’. At this stage of the development of the core concept of a virtue, in other words, the ‘excellences’ of a ‘practice’ may not all be moral, but every ‘practice’ will require at least these three moral virtues.

The essentially communal nature of a ‘practice’ highlighted in the previous feature is also evident in another feature. While the external goods such as fame and money acquired through a practice will, according to MacIntyre, be the possession of the individual, the internal goods such as the development of a new batting technique in cricket or of a new technique in painting remain the possession of the relevant community (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 191). There is a necessary identity, in other words, between the genuine good of an individual engaging in a ‘practice’ and the good of the relevant community of ‘practitioners’. To define the good in private or individual terms is, on MacIntyre’s view, to ignore this essential feature of ‘practices’. It is, however, one thing to bind the good of the individual to that of the relevant community within a ‘practice’, but quite another to do so for the multiplicity of activities which constitute the individual’s life as a whole. MacIntyre acknowledges this point in another feature of his concept of a ‘practice’.

It is also in the nature of ‘practices’, MacIntyre argues, that no ‘practice’ constitutes the whole of life. Thus, a good painter may be a poor father: the excellences which he brings to painting or acquires and sustains through painting may not extend to other areas of life. MacIntyre recognises, in other words, that it is one thing to show that at least some virtues are required to engage in the essentially social activities that he has called ‘practices’, but quite another to show that the whole of life has a unity similar to ‘practices’, a unity which would thus require these virtues if it were to be lived successfully. But, he argues, it is the individual’s experience of the goods intrinsic to particular ‘practices’ that leads him or her to seek the good that will give coherence to the actions which together constitute his or her life as a unified narrative. Only a single, overriding conception of the good can bring to the whole of life the coherence brought to particular ‘practices’ by their internal goods. It is to the demonstration and elucidation of this proposition that MacIntyre turns next.

Stage 2: life as a unified narrative

MacIntyre argues that the liberal individualist[3] equation of morality with the qualities of individual actions ‘atomises’[4] human actions. By this he means that the isolation of individual actions from one another within a person’s life detaches them from the very sources of their intelligibility: the narratives[5]of which they form parts. Human actions even of the simplest kind, according to MacIntyre, can only be understood if the causal intentions and the social and temporal context in which they took place are also understood. A question about what a man is doing may, he argues, be answered by an observer in a number of different ways. The man might be said to be ‘digging’, or ‘gardening’ or ‘trying to please his wife’ (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 206). Which, if any, of these answers is correct depends on what the man’s primary intention is among all these possibilities. Moreover, MacIntyre argues, if the primary intention is, for example, ‘to please his wife’, an understanding of the man’s action would require an understanding not only of the general context designated by the term ‘marriage’ but also the particular context represented by this marriage. Was the man ‘trying to please his wife’ by getting the garden into the condition she preferred, or was he trying to please her by getting some exercise? If human actions are distinguishable from animal actions, MacIntyre argues, by the fact that we can ask for an account of them, then an adequate account of this man’s action is not possible without an account of its causal intention and its social context. Indeed, an adequate account of an agent’s action, MacIntyre contends, will require a knowledge of his long-term as well as his short-term intentions. Thus, an agent engaged in the intentional action of ‘writing a sentence’ may also have the long term intention of securing ‘tenure’, an intention in which, we can report, the agent either succeeded or failed (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 207). An adequate account of human actions is in reality, according to MacIntyre, an historical narrative. MacIntyre sums up his account of the relationship between ‘the intentional, the social and the historical’ aspects of human actions in precise terms:

We identify a particular action by invoking two kinds of context, implicitly if not explicitly. We place the agent’s intentions, I have suggested, in causal and temporal order with reference to their role in his or her history; and we also place them with reference to their role in the history of the setting or settings to which they belong. In doing this, in determining what causal efficacy the agent’s intentions had in one or more directions, and how his short-term intentions succeeded or failed to be constitutive of long-term intentions, we ourselves write a further part of these histories. Narrative history of a certain kind turns out to be the basic and essential genre for the characterization of human actions (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 208).

It is the ‘narrative’ conception of human action, according to MacIntyre, which makes human actions intelligible (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 214). Actions, even verbal utterances, detached from their appropriate contexts become unintelligible. Certain behaviours are deemed psychotic because such detachment is one of their characteristics. Indeed, the despair expressed by certain Sartrian characters, according to MacIntyre (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 214), is a protest that their life narratives have lost their intelligibility.