tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post1666395872604725092..comments2024-03-28T07:08:58.221-04:00Comments on Todd Seavey: Book Selection of the Month: "After Virtue" by Alasdair MacIntyreTodd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-9520032310459476612008-06-03T09:24:00.000-04:002008-06-03T09:24:00.000-04:00[...] Not to be confused with the authoritarian fo...[...] Not to be confused with the authoritarian former president of Liberia recently put on trial, this Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher sometimes considered a communitarian who, five years after Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (which was one of my Book Selections last year), addressed similar themes of modern moral fragmentation and the search for shared standards of the Good, in the 1989 tome Sources of the Self (which I read at the suggestion of Richard Ryan, to whom I in turn recommended last month’s Book Selection, Final Crisis, which some may see as a less substantial work, but Richard shares my excitement about it). Taylor also wrote last year’s A Secular Age (a skeptical review of which is noted by Taylor’s fellow McGill professor Jacob Levy here — Jacob was present the first time I ever heard of Taylor, nearly two decades ago, from a very skeptical Tom Palmer, a libertarian who sees Taylor as hellbent on forcing us all to abandon our individual lives in favor of Athenian-style collective participation). [...]Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-4982779871759248922008-01-15T00:12:00.000-05:002008-01-15T00:12:00.000-05:00[...] One year ago (!), before this blog was even ...[...] One year ago (!), before this blog was even fully functional, my January 2007 Book Selection of the Month was Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, and for all his brilliance, he still unfairly dismissed utilitarianism as a solution to the problem of foundational ethics in that book on the grounds that basic utilitarianism tells us happiness is good but does not provide rich, detailed advice on how to achieve it (for which, quite rightly, he suggests we may need guidance from tradition and communities). This objection is (not coincidentally, I would argue) very similar to a criticism often targeted at libertarianism: that it presents us with the blank slate of freedom but does not tell us what things to do with our freedom. [...]Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-16416028181673692442007-10-13T18:39:00.000-04:002007-10-13T18:39:00.000-04:00[...] Like the Amish or some of the paleoconservat...[...] Like the Amish or some of the paleoconservatives, Dreher understands that a consistent conservatism might have to reject modernity as a whole, both capitalism and big government, in order to restore local, traditional ties. Dreher concludes the book by praising Alasdair MacIntyre (as did I in an earlier Book Selection entry), the philosopher who thinks the best hope for morally renewing society is to withdraw from the mainstream and once more build tiny communities where uncontested virtues such as friendship, thoughtfulness, loyalty to family, reliability, honesty, and basic competence matter again. I admire taking these things so seriously as to think they may worth quitting the rat race, turning off the TV, abandoning political parties, and spending time in quiet contemplation of things that really matter. And yet… [...]Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-64980708193658602192007-04-01T23:24:00.000-04:002007-04-01T23:24:00.000-04:00[...] As for me, I was just pleased, especially so...[...] As for me, I was just pleased, especially so recently after the epochal mid-term elections, which may well spell the end for conservatism as we have known it for the past few decades, to see that people are still willing to take a step back from the urgency of the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the latest politician misstep to talk about bigger, less partisan moral questions and to do so civilly even when confronted with views ostensibly diametrically opposed to their own. It’s almost enough to give one hope that Alasdair MacIntyre is wrong in his book After Virtue (the ToddSeavey.com Book Selection of the Month for January 2007), when he argues that coherent moral debate is impossible in our era because people tend to start from incommensurable fundamental premises. We managed to have the Village Voice sex columnist and an editor from Pat Buchanan’s magazine sit in the same audience for over an hour without hurting each other, at least. [...]Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.com