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Alasdair MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" and Tradition-Transcendental Standards ofJustificationAuthor(s): Jennifer A. HerdtReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 524-546Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1206573 .

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Alasdair Maclntyre's "Rationalityof Traditions" and Tradition-Transcendental Standards ofJustificationJenniferA. Herdt / New College of the University fSouthFlorida

One of the most attractive features of Alasdair MacIntyre's thought hasbeen his argument that it is possible to accept the historicity of humanexperience, to live within the limits of our particular contexts and limitedperspectives, while nonetheless holding on-through claims about therationality of traditions-to the objectivity of rationality and morality.Historicism and nonfoundationalism without relativism are what MacInt-yre offers, and many contemporary moral philosophers have been takers.But at various points in his argument, particularly in the course of ward-ing off relativism, MacIntyre appears to undermine his own critical ac-count of liberalism and to contradict his claims about the tradition depen-dence of practical rationality.Thus, contradictions seem to enter in at oneof the points where MacIntyre's thought has been most influential-hishistoricist response to relativism. As I will argue in what follows, thesecontradictions can be resolved if a third alternative is recognized along-side tradition-dependent and tradition-independent standards-the pos-sibility of "tradition-transcendental" standards of practical rationality.While I do not think that MacIntyre regards his own position as offeringsuch a third alternative, there is one crucial point in WhoseJustice?WhichRationality?at which he articulates such a position, and there are furtherhints of this in his 1990 Marquette lecture, FirstPrinciples,Final Ends andContemporaryhilosophicalssues. It is, I will argue, his best hope for findinga noncontradictory way to maintain his historicist account of moral tradi-tions while refuting relativism.Many of MacIntyre's critics-some of whom are at the same time hisadmirers-have noted moments of self-contradiction within his project of

? 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/98/7804-0002$02.00524

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"simultaneously rejecting relativism and insisting on rationality's traditiondependence. Jon P Gunneman, for instance, pointing out that MacIntyresketches a larger narrative framing all competing traditions, commentsthat "there is no systematic account given of how this 'meta-narrative' isintegrated with his particular tradition, nor of how the encompassing ofall other narrative traditions within it avoids some of the cross-traditionaljudgments he claims are impossible."' L. Gregory Jones notes that "Mac-Intyre's formal claim about the narrative quality of human life quahumanlife is at odds with his claim about tradition/community. That is, he makesa formal claim that (at least in its explicit formulation) is not specific toany tradition; yet he wants to claim that epistemology is tradition-specific.... Thus it is not clear that he can know in principle that hu-man life qua human life is narrative in form."2Similar criticisms havebeen made by Max Stackhouse, Jeffrey Stout, and Peter J. Mehl, amongothers.3And yet, it seems that the implications of the inconsistencies withinMacIntyre's thought have not been fully digested. Many of those whopoint out inconsistencies in MacIntyre's thought do so only in passing, asif to imply that these are minor details that simply need tidying up.Among those who conclude that the presence of inconsistencies means thatsome part or another of MacIntyre's thought must be amended, recom-mended degrees and directions of emendation vary widely.Jones thinksthat MacIntyre must acknowledge that even his claims about the narra-tive quality of human life presuppose a particular normative tradition.4Stout thinks MacIntyre must admit that rationality does not presupposea highly coherent and well-integrated tradition.5 I will argue that the bestway to resolve these contradictions is to move beyond the dichotomy be-tween tradition-dependent and tradition-independent norms. Norms ofpractical rationality can be things that emerge historically at a particulartime and place without being tradition dependent in the sense of beingdependent for their validity on a particular tradition. Moreover, MacIn-tyre's own argument gives us reasons to believe that some of these arenorms that are built into the structure of traditions as such, which are

'Jon P.Gunneman, "Habermas and MacIntyre on Moral Learning," Annual of theSocietyof ChristianEthics(1994): 93.2 Gregory Jones, "Alasdair MacIntyre on Narrative, Community, and the Moral Life,"ModernTheology (1987): 58.3 See Max Stackhouse, "AlasdairMacIntyre: Overview and Evaluation" ReligiousStudiesReview 18 (1992): 204; Jeffrey Stout, "Homeward Bound: MacIntyre on Liberal Society andthe History of Ethics,"Journal of Religion 69 (1989): 221; Peter J. Mehl, "In the Twilight ofModernity: MacIntyre and Mitchell on Moral Traditions and Their Assessment,"JournalofReligiousEthics 19 (1991): 23.4 Jones, p. 59.5 Stout, "Homeward Bound," p. 232.

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The Journal of Religionconstitutive of them, which are conditions for their possibility. These arewhat I will call tradition-transcendental norms.

In what follows, I first discuss MacIntyre's attack on tradition-independent norms and his proposed substitute, the "rationality of tradi-tions." I go on to explore the historical origins of empathetic imagination,one of the elements involved in the rationality of traditions, arguing thatit is, ironically, a key liberalvirtue. I then discuss important senses in whichMacIntyre's rationality of traditions seems itself to be tradition indepen-dent rather than tradition dependent. At this point I consider the signifi-cant moment where MacIntyre articulates something that might be called"tradition-transcendental" norms in responding to relativism and reflecton the implications this has for the viability of MacIntyre's approach.IMacIntyre's critique of modern liberal democratic culture is well known,so I will recapitulate it only briefly. Worth noting at the outset is MacIn-tyre'sbroad usage of the term "liberal";he uses it roughly to encompassthe dominant expressions of Western thought and practices from the En-lightenment onward. I will follow his usage, at least initially, since myproject here is one of immanent criticism. MacIntyre's diagnosis in AfterVirtuewas that modern liberal societies are characterized by interminabledisagreements because they have lost any sense of a shared commongood, a telos against which rival moral claims may be evaluated.6 Enlight-enment thinkers sought tradition-independent standards ofjustification,and so they took refuge in universality and impersonality. But whatresulted were conceptions "far too thin and meager to supply what isneeded."' In the contemporary situation, analytic moral philosophy,writes MacIntyre, "aspires to provide rational principles to which appealmay be made by contending parties with conflicting interests."8The prob-lem is that philosophers provide different rational principles, and thereis once again no agreed-upon way to decide among them. So in decidingquestions of distributive justice, one will appeal to rights, while otherswill appeal to contract, to desert, or to utility. Modern politics, as a result,has no choice but to be a form of "civil war carried on by other means,"means by which violent conflict is suppressed, rather than resolved.9 It is

6 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue,2d ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre DamePress, 1984). (In subsequent references to this work, the title will be indicated as AV)7 MacIntyre, WhoseJustice? WhichRationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of NotreDame Press, 1988), p. 334. (In subsequent references to this work, the title will be indicatedas WJ.)8 MacIntyre, AV,p. 246.SIbid., pp. 253-54.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"apparently only the market, a structure that appears to tolerate all convic-tions but only by converting them into preferences, that preserves peaceonce the project of locating universal, tradition-independent norms hasbeen deemed a failure.

MacIntyre is careful to note that there can be "no sound a priori argu-ment to demonstrate" that it is impossible to provide "a neutral tradition-independent ground from which a verdict may be passed upon the rivalclaims of conflicting traditions in respect of practical rationality and ofjustice."'0 But he takes liberalism's ongoing failure to provide such aground to be a very strong a posteriori reason for asserting that there isno such neutral ground or place for appeals to practical-rationality-as-such (as opposed to the practical rationality of a specific tradition). He isright to be careful, for the claim that there is no tradition-independentground from which verdicts can be passed on conflicting traditions wouldbe a performative self-contradiction. This contradiction emerges whenthe status of the statement of the claim itself is considered. Eitherthe statement puts itself forward as just such a tradition-independentground, which in being stated cancels itself, or, alternatively, the state-ment has validity only within a given tradition, in which case the state-ment means, if anything determinate, something like "within this particu-lar tradition, there are no tradition-independent grounds of judgment."Such a statement would clearly be pointless (self-defeating).But MacIntyre's claim is the more qualified empirical claim that at-tempts to find neutral grounds or to elucidate practical-rationality-as-such have thus far failed and can be expected to continue to fail. Sucha statement, unlike the claim of impossibility, is not self-refuting. Yetsome of MacIntyre's proposals seem to contradict even this more modestclaim. He seems to offer, despite his disavowals, a tradition-independentform of practical rationality to be used in passing verdicts on rival claimsof conflicting traditions. It would seem either that his theory of rationalconflict-resolution is correct, thus disproving his empirical claim abouttradition-dependence, or this theory fails, in which case he has notsucceeded in showing a way to escape the road from historicism to rela-tivism.In order to draw out this apparent self-contradiction in MacIntyre'sthought, it is necessary to look closely at what he has to say about the"rationality of traditions."" It is the forms of rationality embedded within

10 MacIntyre, WJ,p. 346." Ibid., p. 349. MacIntyre's account of the rationality of traditions and its response torelativism is developed most fully in WhoseJustice? WhichRationality?and most of my refer-ences will therefore be to that work. There are very close parallels with discussions in Mac-Intyre's ThreeRival Versionsof MoralEnquiry(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre DamePress, 1990) (abbreviated as TRV) and at certain points also to his FirstPrinciples,FinalEnds527


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The Journal of Religiontraditions themselves, he claims, not ostensibly tradition-independentnorms, that make possible both rational advance within a tradition andrational assessment of debates between traditions. The rationality of tra-ditions consists in progress that a tradition-constituted enquiry "makesthrough a number of well-defined types of stage.""2Enquiry begins froma condition of historical contingency, with certain beliefs, institutions, andpractices in a state of constant flux. Stage one is characterized by unques-tioning acceptance of authoritative texts, beliefs, and persons, which, withmore systematic reflection, gives way to a second stage, characterized byawareness of internal incoherences among traditional authorities and/orinadequacies in responding to new situations. In the third stage, a tradi-tion reformulates beliefs and revaluates authorities in a variety of ways toresolve incoherences and respond to inadequacies, though some core ofbelief survives that holds together the identity of the tradition. Once instage three, members of the community can contrast current with formerbeliefs and judge the former beliefs to have been false. The concept oftruth is formed derivatively, in contrast with that of falsity,where the lat-ter is understood as lack of correspondence between mind as activity (notjudgments) and its objects. "Characteristically,"MacIntyre suggests, there"comes a time in the history of tradition-constituted enquiry when thoseengaged in them may find occasion or need to frame a theory of theirown activities of enquiry."'3It is unclear whether or not this constitutes afourth, theoretical stage; MacIntyre does not say so. Even if it does, itseems more contingent than the other stages-it "characteristically"arises; members "may"find occasion to theorize. In any case, if they do,suggests MacIntyre, we have every reason to expect the theories devel-oped to differ from one another, since some will focus on the variety ofuses of "true,"while others will try to show that all uses of "true" sharesome common mark. Furthermore, sometimes epistemological crisesarise within traditions, crises that require imaginative new theories andconcepts, not just reflection on old ideas. Some epistemological crises arenot resolved at all, some are resolved from within, and some are resolvedby a turn to a rival tradition.MacIntyre thus seems to expect significant differences from one tradi-tion of enquiry to another but also equally significant similarities. Tradi-

and Contemporary hilosophical ssues (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1990)(abbreviated as FP), and these will be pointed out parenthetically where they are not fullydiscussed. An earlier version of this discussion is contained in MacIntyre's 1984 presidentialaddress to the American Philosophical Association, reprinted as "Relativism, Power, andPhilosophy,"in Relativism:Interpretationnd Confrontation, d. Michael Krausz (Notre Dame,Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 182-204.12 MacIntyre, WJ,p. 354; see also TRV,pp. 116 ff.13 MacIntyre, WJ,p. 359.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"tions will vary in their particular authorities, canonical texts, and prac-tices, as well as the particular incoherences or novelties they are forcedto confront and the theories they develop. But they will have in commontheir movement through a series of well-defined stages, their possessionof beliefs and authorities, their understanding of the contrast betweenfalsehood and truth, and even the main outlines of the origin of this un-derstanding. MacIntyre further suggests that "to some degree, insofar asa tradition of rational enquiry is such, it will tend to recognize what itshares as such with other traditions, and in the development of such tra-ditions common characteristic, if not universal, patterns will appear."'4Despite these significant similarities, the relativist challenge seems stillto be on the table, for "each tradition will, so it may seem, pursue its ownspecific historical path, and all that we shall be confronted with in theend is a set of independent rival histories."'5 The relativist challengemoves from MacIntyre'sclaim that there is no way to engage in practicalrationality except from within a tradition to the conclusion that some-thing can be "rational relative to the standards of some particular tradi-tion, but not rational as such."'6 Traditions develop along parallel pathsthat, relativists claim, never intersect. According to MacIntyre, the key todeflecting the relativist challenge lies in looking carefully at what happenswhen a tradition resolves a full-blown epistemological crisis by encoun-tering a rival tradition. It is in such a circumstance, MacIntyre argues,that "rational debate between and rational choice among rival traditionsis possible."'7To be in a position to choose among rival traditions, a person who feelsan initial sense of belonging within a particular tradition must engage"in the argumentative debates and conflicts of that tradition of enquirywith one or more of its rivals." This task requires "the acquisition of thelanguage-in-use of whatever particular rival tradition is in question, as... a second first language, and that in turn requires a work of the imagi-nation whereby the individual is able to place him or herself imaginativelywithin the scheme of belief inhabited by those whose allegiance is to therival tradition, so as to perceive and conceive the natural and socialworlds as they perceive and conceive them."'8It is this act of the "empa-thetic conceptual imagination" that allows one to argue with those fromother traditions.'1 Specifically, it allows one to determine whether theymight possibly have a more illuminating account of one's own epistemo-

14Ibid.15Ibid., p. 361.16 Ibid., p. 352.17Ibid.'s Ibid., p. 395, and TRV,p. 114.19MacIntyre, WJ(n. 7 above), p. 395.

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The Journal of Religionlogical crises than one is able to give from within one's own tradition, aswell as themselves being able to avoid such crises.20 So, for instance, theThomistic tradition may be able to account for why modern liberal cul-ture is plagued by irresolvable disagreements (i.e., the loss of a sharedconcept of the human good), for why Thomism was overshadowed by theEnlightenment (doubts about first principles made it vulnerable to DavidHume), and may also be able to show that this overshadowing was unnec-essary and reversible (the Enlightenment requirements for the justifica-tion of first principles were misguided).Given MacIntyre's claim that there are no tradition-independent re-sources adequate to settling intertraditional debates, it seems worth ask-ing in which tradition this empathetic conceptual imagination originates.Despite his insistence that traditions establish their claim to truth bymeans of the adequacy and explanatory power of the histories they write,MacIntyre does not provide us with a historical account of this particu-larly valuable of resources.2 At one point, he does imply that empatheticimagination can be traced back to Saint Thomas Aquinas and, therefore,to the tradition that he champions. In this context, he maps a further setof stages characteristic of traditions in conflict and crisis:In controversybetween rival traditionsthe difficultyin passing from the firststage [of characterizing he claims of a rival traditionin its own terms] to thesecond [of askingif the rival traditionmayhave resourcesmore adequateto ex-plain the failingsof one's own tradition] s that it requiresa raregift of empathyas wellas of intellectual nsightfor the protagonistsof sucha traditionto be ableto understandthe theses, arguments,and concepts of their rival in such a waythattheyare able to viewthemselves rom such analienstandpointandto rechar-acterizetheirownbeliefs in an appropriatemanner from the alienperspectiveofthe rival tradition.Suchraregiftshad not been evidencedin the earlier confron-tations between the Augustinianand the Aristotelian raditions.22Aquinas, however, possessed them. There are two things to comment onhere. First, while MacIntyre at the conclusion of the book talks as thoughempathetic conceptual imagination is something that each of us has anintellectual responsibility to strive for, he treats it here as a rare gift, some-thing serendipitous, not something to be cultivated. Second, in the courseof the book, MacIntyre describes Aquinas's relationship to Augustinian-ism and Aristotelianism in such a way that Aquinas is seen to possess dualmembership, as it were. He writes from within two rival traditions, some-thing that would not seem to require such great empathetic gifts after

20 Ibid., p. 365, and, see also, TRV,pp. 125, 146.21 MacIntyre, WJ,p. 403.22 Ibid.,p. 167.530


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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"all.23In any case, it is clear that Aquinas does not reflect on the role ofempathetic imagination in this process and does not explicitly try to de-velop it as a resource for the assessment of traditions. One can go further:Aquinas could not even conceive of empathetic imagination as necessary,let alone advocate its use. He viewed his task as that of reconciling orsynthesizing views that he believed were only apparently contradictory.His guiding assumption is that Aristotle and St. Paul are both right, justas the four gospels are-one must simply fill out this claim with an appro-priately nuanced account. Despite an occasional glimmer of historical un-derstanding, he did not see his task as that of trying to understand a viewwithin its historical or cultural context. One is either right about the waythings are-in which case harmony is possible-or wrong; one does nothave a different set of standards ofjustification from that assumed by theview being interpreted.A concern for empathetic imagination presupposes a keen awarenessof differences in perspective or point of view, along with a sense that suchdifferences are morally important, a sense that we cannot simply decidehow to act without reference to such perspectives. I would suggest that itis a concern that (at least in the West) arises in the exhausted wake of thereligious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-a set of con-flicts, like most conflicts of the "noncerebral" variety, that are conspicu-ously absent from MacIntyre's account. It is related to the existence of aform of conflict for which force is no longer seen as the solution. In orderto be able not only to live with one's opponents in peace but to cooperatewith them in certain endeavors, one must strive to grasp their variedperspectives. It is also linked to the reverberations of the Age of Discov-ery, the attempt to come to terms with the existence of foreign culturesbeyond the seas, and to the rise of historical consciousness, which beganto encounter the past as itself a foreign country of sorts. It appearsin Enlightenment thought in various configurations and under variousnames, from sympathy and the sympathetic imagination, to imaginativeidentification, empathy, Einfiihlung, and Verstehen. f I am right, then,MacIntyre's "empathetic imagination" is a liberal concept (in the broadsense in which MacIntyre uses the term), associated with liberal purposesand concerns. Despite all of his criticism of liberalism, a key element of

23Ibid., p. 168. MacIntyre is careful to distinguish between these two phenomena (dualmembership and acquiring a second first language), saying that "to possess the concepts ofan alien culture in this secondary mode, informed by conceptual imagination, differs inimportant ways from possessing the concepts which are genuinely one's own. ... One willonly be able to deploy [a concept of an alien culture] in the way in which an actor speakinghis part may say things which he or she does not in his or her own person believe. Wepossess such concepts without being able to employ them in the first person, except asdramatic impersonators, speaking in a voice which is not our own" (ibid., p. 395).531


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The Journal of ReligionMacIntyre's narrative rationality rests heavily on what can be regarded asone of the cardinal virtues of liberalism.

The first important philosophical discussions of sympathy were thoseof Hume and Adam Smith. In Hume's thought, the development of sym-pathetic understanding is clearly linked with attempts to locate resourcesfor calming zeal and factional conflict, as well as to identify the limits ofthese resources.241 suspect, however, that MacIntyre's talk of empatheticimagination betrays a more substantial debt to the German hermeneu-tical tradition, more particularly to Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-GeorgGadamer and to the concepts of Einfiihlen and Verstehen.The Englishword "empathy" is a direct translation of the German word "Einfiihlung,"itself a word invented in order to talk about sympathy. It is a curious caseof conceptual borrowing and transformation. The German word "Mit-leid,"semantically exactly parallel to "sympathy,"no longer seemed anadequate translation for the way the term sympathy was being used inGreat Britain in the late eighteenth century, so "Einfiihlung"was inventedand used by historicists, romantics, and modern biblical critics.25Mean-while, within the English tradition, sympathy became identified with pas-sive pity and was associated with sentimentalism as sentimentalismstarted to get a bad name, and the romantic notion of the "sympatheticimagination" and then "imagination"in its own right picked up the activeaspects of sympathy but transformed these from a hard labor of under-standing into a mysterious moment of transport.26As a result of thesesemantic shifts, "sympathy"no longer seemed adequate to capture whatGermans meant by "Einfiihlung";hence, the invention of "empathy."Allof these neologisms and back-and-forth translations alert us to the fecun-dity of this area of reflection during the last two-and-a-half centuries.Throughout, this family of concepts was linked with a sensitivity to differ-ences of outlook and different conceptions of the good life but simultane-ously with confidence in the possibility of making sense of these outlooks

24 See my Religionand Faction n Hume'sMoralPhilosophy Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1997).25 In Johann Herder, for instance, we find the insistence that in order to attain historicalunderstanding, one must cultivate Einfiihlung-a sympathetic appreciation of the past. Incontrast to MacIntyre'sappeal to empathetic imagination, Herder thought that sympathetic

understanding invalidated judgments of the past, embracing the radical relativism fromwhich MacIntyre is seeking to distance himself. See Isaiah Berlin, Vicoand Herder (NewYork: Viking, 1976), pp. 206-12.26 Walter Jackson Bate, "The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century EnglishCriticism,"EnglishLiteraryHistory 12 (1945): 144-64: "Among the more common romanticdicta which had their roots in the preceding century was the insistence that the imagination,by an effort of sympathetic intuition, is able to penetrate the barrier which space puts be-tween it and its object, and, by actually entering into the object, so to speak, secure a mo-mentary but complete identification with it."

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"in a way that would allow for peaceful coexistence. These concepts areclearly linked, then, with what MacIntyre terms the liberal project.

Perceiving that the origin of empathetic imagination lies squarelywithin the tradition of liberalism transforms our understanding of whatliberalism is, as well as transforming our understanding of MacIntyre'sproject. Liberalism doesn't seem quite the villain that MacIntyre accusesit of being. After all, it has generated resources, such as empathetic imagi-nation, which help to make rational debate between divergent traditionspossible. But it is perhaps a good thing that liberalism no longer seemsquite so devoid of value, for MacIntyre himself now appears to be a lib-eral, drawing on conceptual resources developed within liberalism.There are, it is true, points at which MacIntyre seems to be claimingthat his account of the rationality of traditions stems entirely from Aqui-nas's account of dialectical enquiry.27But his appeal to empathetic imagi-nation goes beyond dialectical enquiry. Moreover, MacIntyre himself con-cedes that "unThomistic means" will be needed when two parties cannoteven agree about how to characterize their disagreement. In such a case,"we are debarred ... from following Aristotle and Aquinas in employingany of those dialectical strategies which rely upon some appeal to whatall the contending parties in a dispute have not yet put in question."28What is required is genealogy, a subversive narrative that reveals why aparty with whom one disagrees cannot actually do without somethingthat they claim to have discarded or rejected.29The rationality of tradi-tions is thus not the product of any one tradition, certainly not the Tho-mist tradition; it seems to be compounded of elements borrowed fromAquinas, from liberalism, and from postliberalism.While I have focused on the liberal virtue of empathetic imagination,Jean Porter in her analysis of MacIntyre focuses on tolerance and open-ness to pluralism, calling them "classicalliberal virtues" and pointing outthat they are presupposed by MacIntyre's theory of rationality andtruth.30 Porter points this out in order to clarify what she regards as amere terminological difficulty. She quite rightly indicates the wide rangeof meanings that "liberal"possesses and goes on to claim that while Mac-Intyre is not "a liberal in the sense that he himself identifies as central,namely, one who defends the possibility of arriving at tradition-neutralcriteria by which tojudge all claims to rationality and truth,"he is a liberalin the tradition of pragmatists whose moral reflection has been shaped

27 See MacIntyre, TRV (n. 11 above), pp. 117, 125, and FP, pp. 48-51.28 MacIntyre, FP (n. 11 above), p. 56.29 Ibid.,p. 59.30 Jean Porter, "Openness and Constraint: Moral Reflection as Tradition-Guided Inquiryin Alasdair MacIntyre's Recent Works,"Journalof Religion 73 (1993): 516.

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The Journal of Religionby the natural and social sciences.3' I am not persuaded that MacIntyrecan be so easily excused, however. At certain points in his discussion ofthe rationality of traditions, he seems guilty of being a liberal in just thesense in which he claims liberalism is most mistaken. This will, I hope,begin to emerge in what follows.III have argued that empathetic imagination is a liberal concept. In thissense, it is clearly tradition dependent-it had its origin within a particu-lar tradition. But this seems rather unimportant in light of the possibilityof employing it from within any tradition (at least any tradition in suffi-cient contact with other conflicting traditions). When we looked above atthe features of the "rationality of traditions" that allow rational choiceamong traditions (of which empathetic imagination is just one), we sawthat these features were presented as something available to the membersof various traditions, traditions that are otherwise in far-reaching dis-agreement with one another. The procedure seems to be something theuse of which does not depend on the prior settlement of such disagree-ments; one employs empathetic imagination, learns the rival language,and considers what account that language/tradition can give of one's ownepistemological crises. Like that which MacIntyre says Enlightenmentthinkers and subsequent liberals have been looking for, then, this seemsto be a way of resolving disagreement without appealing to a shared"thick" notion of the good.It may be useful here to invoke the distinction between origin and va-lidity; any concept that is articulated within a specific tradition or specificlanguage is tradition dependent in the weak sense of origin. But it doesnot follow that ideas have validity only within the tradition or languagein which they originated. Empathetic imagination cannot be tradition de-pendent in this stronger sense since MacIntyre proposes that it be usedto resolve conflicts that do not involve the liberal tradition as well as thosethat do. Moreover, in order legitimately to resolve any conflict betweentwo traditions, empathetic imagination must be a valid approach forboth, not just for the one from which it may have originated.

' Ibid., 523-24. Similar points are made by others: Ian Markham, in "Faith and Reason:Reflections on MacIntyre's 'Tradition-Constituted Enquiry,"'Religious Studies 27 (1991):267, argues that MacIntyre's commitment to tolerance and dialogue among traditionsis indebted to liberalism, although unlike Porter he does not seem to think MacIntyrewould thank him for pointing this out. Jeffrey Stout ("Homeward Bound" [n. 3 above],pp. 227, 229), while stopping short of identifying MacIntyre as himself a liberal, notes that"castigation-by-lumping is the main function performed by the label 'liberalism' in bothAfterVirtue nd WhoseJustice?"and points out that not all liberalism seeks a stand point aboveall tradition.534


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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"In arguing that the inescapability of traditions need not result in rela-tivist conclusions, in showing that through the rationality of traditions

it is possible to decide rationally among contending traditions, MacIn-tyre seems to have contradicted himself by offering a universally valid,tradition-independent solution. But perhaps he would defend himself bysaying that he has not offered any independent standardsof rational justi-fication. What he has done is simply to sketch in general terms how rivalclaims of competing traditions can be evaluated against one another. Thatis, he has described a formal procedure,not articulated substantive stan-dards or norms of justification. Empathetic imagination is one elementused in applying this procedure; one must also acquire a second firstlanguage, look at one's own epistemological crises from within that sec-ond first language, examine how the tradition of the acquired languagehas resolved its own epistemological crises, and so on. But the actual stan-dards would need to come from the particular traditions involved in theconflict.But if this procedure is something to which appeal may be made bycontending traditions in order to decide the issues over which they dis-agree, then it does provide a standard not limited to a particular tradi-tion, even if only at a general, procedural level. The irony of MacIntyre'stheory of rationality should also be obvious-for what could be more typ-ical of "liberalism" than a procedural or formal solution? According toMacIntyre, "the thinkers of the Enlightenment insisted upon a particulartype of view of truth and rationality, one in which truth is guaranteed byrational method and rational method appeals to principles undeniableby any fully reflective rational person."32Is MacIntyre'srationality of tra-ditions perhaps just a new Enlightenment method?

MacIntyre's procedure can be stated as a universal standard or prin-ciple of rationality: When a tradition B can provide a cogent and illumi-nating explanation of an epistemological crisis faced by rival tradition Aaccording to tradition A's own standards, and B does not face a similarcrisis, then rationality requires members of A to acknowledge the supe-rior rationality of B. I will call this principle Rt. There are difficultieshere: According to MacIntyre, members of A are to draw on conceptsandtheoriespeculiar to B in constructing an explanation ofA's epistemologicalcrisis, but they are to employ their own standardsof judging cogency andillumination.33 It is important to note, first, that although MacIntyre in-sists that traditions will have different such standards, he also indicatesthat they will always be standards of cogency and illumination. This im-plies a degree of universality, however minimal, among such standards.

32 MacIntyre, WJ(n. 7 above), p. 353.33 Ibid., p. 364.

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The Journal of ReligionSecond, what is to happen when the members of A transfer their alle-giance to B? Presumably at that point they must shift from their ownstandards of cogency and illumination to those of B. In what light canthis shift in standards of cogency be reasonable, however? Not simplybecause of the power of B's theories and concepts but because of Rt, thegeneral standard of the rationality of traditions, which dictates when ashift in more specific standards is required. Without this standard, whichtranscends the conflicting traditions, the shift of loyalty would be irra-tional.One feature of a formal approach is that it abstracts from particularsubstantial content. Such abstraction is one of MacIntyre's primary tar-gets within liberal forms of thinking: "Abstract he particular theses to bedebated and evaluated from their contexts within traditions of enquiryand then attempt to debate and evaluate them in terms of their rationaljustifiability to anyrationalperson,to individuals conceived of as abstractedfrom their particularities of character, history, and circumstance, and youwill thereby,"writes MacIntyre, "make the kind of rational dialogue whichcould move through argumentative evaluation to the rational acceptanceor rejection of a tradition of enquiry effectively impossible."34When thepublic virtue of emphathetic imagination is exercized, however, the thesesto be evaluated necessarily remain within their traditional context. Inaddition, the individual who exercizes it would begin from a particularhistorical and cultural location, striving to understand those in differenthistorical and cultural locations precisely by appreciating their situat-edness, rather than by abstracting those individuals from their contexts.It is importantly true that the application of standards and principles isnot a mechanical activity, and the skills to apply any sort of standard willbe present in some contexts and not in others. But like other proceduralapproaches, MacIntyre's theory of rational conflict resolution betweentraditions cannot be stated without abstracting from the particular episte-mological crises, concrete claims, and internal standards at issue. Whileof course this theory cannot solve any dispute without being applied to aparticular content, this does not detract from the real moment of ab-straction.As I just stated, Rt requires that a person begin from a particular his-torical and cultural location. Is this perhaps all that MacIntyre means bytradition dependence? He notes that "there is no standing ground, noplace for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluat-ing, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which isprovided by some particular tradition or other."35This might simply be

34 Ibid., pp. 398-99.35 Ibid., p. 350.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"the claim that one must begin where one is, from one's own social andhistorical context, one's own beliefs. If so, MacIntyre would surely beclear of the charge of contradicting his claims about tradition depen-dence. But this stricture certainly does not mean that one cannot budgefrom this starting point, cannot transcend one's initial beliefs. Thus, it istrue but trivial. MacIntyre himself seems to develop a mode of practicalrationality, exemplified by Rt, which is neutral among traditions and pro-vides a way of choosing among them. It might still be said that his stan-dard does not give one neutral "standing ground." But surely this wouldbe to take the metaphor of standing ground too literally. One picturessomeone standing out in deep space on a little platform, looking back atthe earth. In the only (and quite nonliteral) sense that matters, has Mac-Intyre not appealed to the existence of that platform by developing Rt,his standard for the rationality of traditions?It seems, then, that by offering what he claimed-on empiricalgrounds-could not be provided, that is, a tradition-independent modeof rational justification, MacIntyre has contradicted himself; he hasproved himself a liberal at just that point where he is most specific in hisindictments of liberalism. There are, it is true, features of MacIntyre'sproposal that make his claims of the tradition dependence of practicalrationality seem plausible: (1) empathetic imagination was conceptual-ized and developed within the tradition of liberalism; (2) when Rt is ap-plied, concrete, particular issues must be evaluated in context; and(3) the person doing the evaluating must begin within his or her owncontext. But MacIntyre's narrative rationality, in order to accomplish thetask he sets for it, must also be tradition independent in the followingsignificant ways: (1) the theory is not restricted to valid use within thetradition in which it arose; (2) it transcends and abstracts from concreteissues within a given tradition; and (3) it can be articulated apart fromany particular issues. In these respects, MacIntyre does offer us atradition-independent procedure for settling disputes between or amongtraditions. According to this theory, there are shared criteria for the supe-riority of a tradition. All are expected to agree that if one tradition suc-ceeds in accounting for the crises facing another tradition without itselfbeing faced by crises unsolvable from within, that tradition is superior.As Mehl points out, "achieving consistency and comprehensiveness seemgeneral marks of rationality, things to be achieved by all inquirers in anytradition."36These standards of justification are not limited to a particu-lar tradition.

MacIntyre'srationality of traditions thus seems to be both tradition de-36 Mehl (n. 3 above), p. 35.

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The Journal of Religionpendent and tradition independent, depending on which features are infocus. Is this a simple contradiction within MacIntyre's thought, or is itpossible to move beyond the impasse? The answer comes when we con-sider a significant but usually overlooked point at which MacIntyre hintsat an alternative beyond tradition dependence or tradition independencefor the narrative rationality he is proposing: "Notice that the grounds foran answer to relativism and perspectivism are to be found, not in anytheory of rationality as yet explicitly articulated and advanced within oneor more of the traditions with which we have been concerned, but ratherwith a theory embodied in and presupposed by their practices of enquiry,yet never fully spelled out.""37This is a striking statement, remarkable forits shift to a transcendental mode of argumentation. While MacIntyrebegins this discussion by reference to the particular traditions he hasbeen discussing in the book, he moves into thoroughly general terms,speaking of what is "presupposed by"traditions of enquiry, and thereforeof something that is, in a logical sense, situated before all such existingtraditions. Such a theory of rationality would be "tradition transcenden-tal." It would not be linked in its validity to any one particular tradition(even if particular elements, such as empathetic imagination, have beenconceptualized by particular traditions). While it is true that the theorywould have no independent existence in some never-never land, it wouldbe implicit in practices of enquiry generally, not dependent on a particu-lar tradition. The standing ground is indeed withintraditions, not outsideof them, but within them necessarily.This provides an answer to the ques-tion that tends most to make claims of tradition dependence compelling:How can these general standards of justification be "available" to tradi-tions that have neither developed nor borrowed them? They are availablein the sense that they are already presupposed by them.The admission that MacIntyre makes at this point reveals a certain kin-ship between his approach and that ofJiirgen Habermas. Gunneman hasoffered a helpful comparison of the two thinkers in his essay "Habermasand MacIntyre on Moral Learning," noting convergences in their ac-counts of moral learning and moral progress. He suggests that MacIn-tyre, despite his rejection of Habermas's neo-Kantian procedural moral-ity, "exemplifies Habermas's claim that as moderns we have learned thisprocedural justice as indispensable, not simply for getting along with oth-ers but as the only morally adequate way of entering into debate andachieving mutual understanding."38What is significant about the passageI have discussed in the preceding paragraph is that MacIntyre is notsimply exemplifying Habermas's approach but is actually describinghis

17 Maclntyre, WJ,p. 354.38Gunneman (n. 1 above), p. 100.538


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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"enterprise in terms very close to those of Habermas, in Habermas'smore transcendental moments. That is, he says that he is engaged in elu-cidating norms that are already and always implicit in practices of en-quiry.But is such a theory of rationality presupposed by, implicit in, everytradition of enquiry, so that you can never say that it is "unavailable"to aparticular tradition? Is it a condition of the possibility of traditions ofenquiry, something without which traditions of enquiry cannot exist?While it is clear that MacIntyre takes his theory of rationality to haveprovided a response to relativism that is quite general, he also suggeststhat the workings of this theory are only evident within traditions thathave gone through certain stages of development, have experienced epis-temological crises, and have recognized that they are not always vindi-cated in light of their own standards of rational justification.39 What re-mains ambiguous in both Habermas's and MacIntyre'stheories is whetherthe theories are contingently or necessarily true. Is it simply a fact thatMacIntyre's standards are implicit in traditions of enquiry, or are suchstandards logically required? Several of MacIntyre's interlocutors wouldencourage him at this point to embrace a purely contingent generalityin ethical standards. Mehl urges MacIntyre to follow Basil Mitchell inembracing a form of ethical naturalism; empirical human nature and itsneeds and capacities lend plausibility to the normative standpoint, and"we can ask ourselves if an ideal of humanness is satisfactory,does it sat-isfy, would it satisfy if persevered with, and in virtue of this we can havesome understanding of human needs and interests upon which we candefend a perspective on the good human life."40This is akin to Porter'spragmatist reading of MacIntyre, which suggests that we ask about the"liveability" of traditions, about their stability over the long run.41 Ac-cording to such interpreters, there are biological and social constraintson the development of traditions, but it is fortuitous when traditions hap-pen to contain common ground in ethical matters.On my reading of MacIntyre, in contrast, he is saying that the develop-ment of traditions must follow certain stages, stages that the theory of therationality of traditions describes, and that this sequence is not simply acontingent fact about human nature but is related to logical constraints.It is possible (though not desirable) to stand still or move backward ratherthan forward, but in any case, a tradition will be somewhere along thesame developmental path. Thus it is possible that authoritative texts, per-sons, and so on will never be questioned or undermined by new situations

39 MacIntyre, WJ,p. 364.40 Mehl, p. 48.41 Porter (n. 30 above), p. 534.

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The Journal of Religionor internal contradictions, or that the gap between old and new beliefswill never be theorized about. But if authority is questioned, this consti-tutes a new stage of development, and other changes can be expected tofall into predictable shape. There is a logic to the development of tradi-tions, a logic that stems from the gap between warranted assertibility,which applies only at a particular time and place, and truth, which istimeless.42Awareness of change in belief stimulates reflection aimed atdetermining whether these changes were reasonable or arbitrary. Tojudge simultaneously that past beliefs were inadequate and that oneshould nevertheless return to them would be either a logical or a moralfailure. MacIntyre's claims about the development of traditions are notsimply empirical or descriptive. There is only one possible path of devel-opment (speaking, of course, on the most general level), and normativelyspeaking, a tradition should move forward, rather than backward, alongit. The empirical truths about human nature and human society con-strain the logical truths that are able to appear, but that does not mean areduction of logical to empirical truth.In discussing first principles, MacIntyre writes that "such principleswill have had to vindicate themselves in the historical process of dialec-tical justification .... They are justified insofar as in the history of thistradition they have, by surviving the process of dialectical questioning,vindicated themselves as superior to their historical predecessors. Hencesuch first principles are not self-sufficient, self-justifying epistemologicalfirst principles."43This might seem to suggest that the validity of suchprinciples consists in their having survived a historical process of dialec-tical justification. But on my interpretation of MacIntyre's account, it ismore consistent to say that while the principles are vindicated n a histori-cal process, they cannot be validatedby a historical process. It is true thatindividual human beings will be justified in accepting these principlesonly if such principles are justified to them using concepts availablewithin their own historical context. But the stages of the rationality oftraditions embody standards of rationality that do not derive their valid-ity from a historical process, even if they appear and become available tohuman beings in historical processes. They are standards presupposed yconcrete practices of enquiry.This interpretation is given further support by MacIntyre's reflectionson first principles in his Marquette lecture, FirstPrinciples,Final EndsandContemporary hilosophicalIssues.44MacIntyre here argues that "we canknow without as yet knowing that we know,"that "our present knowledge

42 See MacIntyre, WJ (n. 7 above), p. 364, and TRV (n. 11 above), pp. 122, 200.43 See MacIntyre, WJ,p. 360.44 See n. 11 above.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"involves reference forward to that knowledge of the arche/principiumwhich will, if we achieve it, give us subsequent knowledge of the knowl-edge that we now have."45On this view, the conclusions of our reasonedenquiry are already present at the outset-"the conclusion which is to bethe end of our deductively or inductively ... reasoned enquiry is some-how already assumed in our starting point."46Still, a form of historicismis preserved in that we are not at the outset fully justified in asserting firstprinciples or conclusions; we come to "know that we know" only throughthe formation and testing of hypotheses and the processes of dialecticand induction, all of which are historical activities. Clearly this does notconform to an understanding of historicism according to which validityis determined by history and all standards of rationality are nothing morethan contingent historical products. Nevertheless, it merits the designa-tion "historicism" because it is only in and through history that humanbeings become fully conscious of and fully justified in holding even thoseprinciples or conclusions of enquiry that are presupposed by the practiceof enquiry at the outset.The notion of tradition-transcendental standards of practical rational-ity would allow MacIntyre to continue to insist that all of our conceptualresources come from within the historical and cultural matrix in whichwe are embedded. At the same time, he would be in a position to defeatthe relativist challenge and to maintain that rational debate and choiceamong rival traditions is possible, because of the general standards pre-supposed by traditions of enquiry. The notion of tradition-transcendentalstandards of practical rationality can therefore resolve a contradictionwithin MacIntyre's thought and allow him to maintain both his histori-cism, rightly understood, and his nonrelativism.Other commentators have responded in different ways to the contra-dictions they perceive between MacIntyre's theory of the rationality oftraditions and his claim about the inevitability of tradition dependence.First, some reject MacIntyre'stheory of the rationality of traditions, whileaccepting the inevitability of tradition dependence. This seems to be thedirection in which Jones is moving in his Christian reformulation of Mac-Intyre's position in After Virtue:"It is only through the narrative of thehistory of the Church that the salvation God offers can be understoodand the Church's relation to the secular order can be adequately con-ceived. But it is important to recognize that on this view, the narrativeof the tradition of Christianity serves to explicate the centrality of thecommunity, not the other way around."47If MacIntyre's theory of the ra-

45 See MacIntyre, FP (n. 11 above), pp. 13-14.46 Ibid.,p. 14.47Jones (n. 2 above), p. 66.

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The Journal of Religiontionality of traditions is false, then he has obviously not contradicted him-self by showing that tradition-independent practical rationality is pos-sible. But he has also not succeeded in providing an answer to relativism,as he set out to do. A second possibility would be to reject the inevitabilityof tradition dependence while accepting the validity of MacIntyre's the-ory of the rationality of traditions. Then MacIntyre has provided a rebut-tal to relativism. But in doing so, he has disproven tradition dependence.This seems at first glance to be the position taken by Mehl and Gunne-man and hinted at by Stackhouse.The rationality of traditions cannot stand unmodified, however, unlessMacIntyre's conception of "tradition" remains intact and sharp bound-aries between traditions can be identified. Thus, third, some commen-tators conclude that both MacIntyre's theory of how disputes amongtraditions may be rationally adjudicated and his claims about the tradi-tion dependence of practical rationality are flawed or false. The secondposition tends to collapse into the third when problems with the conceptof tradition are seen; each of the three thinkers named above as advocatesof the second position glimpse this at certain points in their discus-sion.48

I will pause to consider aspects of this third position more fully, sinceit contains insights relevant to the possibility of reconceiving MacIntyre's"rationality of traditions" in terms of tradition-transcendental norms.Many commentators have questioned MacIntyre's treatment of the issueof the incommensurability of traditions and the related problem of identi-fying boundaries between traditions.49MacIntyre tends to assume that itis possible, and desirable, to be a member of a single, clearly definedtradition. But are we not all members of many overlapping traditions?How are the borders of traditions to be identified? Is the Thomistic tradi-tion distinct from the Aristotelian tradition, or simply a continuation ofit? If Aristotle is "Plato's heir," is the Aristotelian tradition part of thePlatonic tradition? Is there a Christian tradition that encompasses a vari-ety of traditions, or it is wrongheaded to consider Christianity as a tradi-tion at all? Is liberalism distinct from the tradition of the Enlightenmentor continuous with it? As John Haldane notes, "certainly,geography andtime may separate communities but this empirical fact is, in itself, philo-sophically trivial. What has to be shown is that there are points of sepa-ration beyond these spatio-temporal ones which constitute incommen-

48See Gunneman (n. 1 above), pp. 94-96; Stackhouse (n. 3 above), pp. 204-5; and Mehl(n. 3 above), pp. 51-52.49For one example, see Porter ([n. 30 above], pp. 518-19), who strives to resolve the issuein a sympathetic way.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"surable differences. A line of reasoning from Wittgenstein and Davidsonsuggests this may not be possible."50

Donald Davidson's point is that it is impossible to say that tradition A isincommensurable with tradition B, because if it were, it would be impos-sible for those in tradition A to say anything at all about tradition B, im-possible even to identify it as a tradition; "nothing ... could count asevidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our lan-guage that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activitywas not speech behavior."'5MacIntyre accepts Davidson's point but doesnot feel that it precludes areas of incommensurability between tradi-tions. Davidson's point rests, he alleges, on an ahistorical view of lan-guage.52 MacIntyre is interested instead in "a language as it is used inand by a particular community living in a particular place and time withparticular shared beliefs, institutions, and practices," communities inwhich there is a strong link between vocabulary and beliefs.53 In suchcases, translation can be accomplished only with accompanying glossand explanation.Incommensurability comes in, argues MacIntyre, when what is takento be a true statement in A cannot be translated into B without an accom-panying explanation of why it is in actuality a false statement. Thus, atranslation can be made, and both A and B can agree that the same sub-ject is being discussed, but their beliefs about the subject may differ radi-cally. As an example, MacIntyre points to the translation of "daimon"into "demon," in the course of which it is given a negative connotationcorresponding to the beliefs of those doing the translation.54MacIntyreconcludes from this that translatability does not insure commensurability,in the sense that translatability does not entail the existence of sharedstandards of rational evaluation.55But as I have already argued at length,in outlining a procedure for rational conflict resolution, MacIntyre hashimself pointed to the existence of shared standards of rational evalua-tion. To be sure, these standards are quite general and abstract, but theynevertheless preclude incommensurability. This, in turn, means that one

50 John Haldane, "MacIntyre'sThomist Revival: What Next?" in AfterMaclntyre:CriticalPerspectives n the Workof Alasdair Maclntyre, ed. John Horton and Susan Mendus (NotreDame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 95.51 Donald Davidson, "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," in Relativism:Cognitiveand Moral, ed. Jack W. Meiland and Michael Krausz (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of NotreDame Press, 1982), p. 68.

52 MacIntyre, WJ(n. 7 above), p. 371.53 Ibid., p. 373.54 Ibid., p. 380.55 Ibid., p. 370.

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The Journal of Religioncannot locate sharp boundaries separating one tradition and its rationalstandards from another.

Given the fuzziness of "traditions,"some of MacIntyre'sclaims are sim-ply empty. Stout's astute observation here is that MacIntyre's own "rea-soned movement betwixt and between the various traditions with whichhe has affiliated himself is strong evidence against a theory according towhich rationality can be exercised at its best only within highly coherentand 'well-integrated' traditions."56Looking at the world, we do not seetraditions battling against one another, with some winning wholesale andothers conceding defeat and disappearing from view. In the writings ofAquinas, Augustinism does not win out over Aristotelianism, or viceversa. Rather, we find creative borrowing of concepts, transformation ofideas, enriching of vocabularies, as groups of people formerly not in con-versation become engaged in conversation and shared activity.Is the word "tradition" therefore useless and with it the notion oftradition-transcendental norms? I would argue that we can continue tospeak of "traditions of enquiry," if by these we mean simply groups ofpeople engaged in common conversation on a set of topics over an ex-tended period of time, groups that may overlap and have fuzzy edges andwhose set of topics is constantly evolving. What MacIntyre has provided isan account of the logic of large-scale patterns of rational enquiry overtime. His account is no more than a sketch, but one that suggests a seriesof stages through which traditions of enquiry develop and change andthat articulates the general features of what goes on when one such tradi-tion starts up a conversation with another. Like the psychology of moraldevelopment, this is not simple description but a normative account. It iscertainly possible for a tradition to revert back to unquestioning accep-tance of authoritative texts-that is, become fundamentalist-but thiswould mean that its development was "arrested."Later stages are betterthan earlier stages, more complex, more proven by ongoing enquiry.Thus something could fail to be rational according to the standards ofthe "rationality of traditions," standards that cannot simply be identifiedwith the standards of any particular historical tradition (using "tradi-tions" in the open-ended sense).Whereas the notion of tradition dependence requires strong claimsabout incommensurability between traditions, the notion of tradition

56 Stout, "Homeward Bound" (n. 3 above), p. 232. Stout does not question the depen-dence of rationality on historical context but its need always to be affiliated with a particular,coherent, well-defined tradition. But he might not disagree with the relativist challenge asformulated by MacIntyre, that an assertion or conclusion can be "rational relative to thestandards of some particular tradition, but not rational as such" (WJ, p. 352). For Stoutgrants that justification is relative, although truth is not, and rationality in the context ofMacIntyre's discussion has to do with justification, rather than truth.544


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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions"transcendentality does not. It remains intact when traditions are given alooser, more fluid, interpretation, because what it points to is an under-lying commensurability of standards despite the historical and culturalcontextuality of thought and language. Moreover, unlike most of the posi-tions of those who follow the third mode of responding to the contradic-tions in MacIntyre's thought, an appeal to tradition-transcendentalnorms does not simply point to the contingently built bridges among so-cial and cultural groups as a way of dismissing relativism. Nor does itappeal to something extratraditional to which we have access by somespecial mode of perception. It looks to something embedded within, pre-supposed by, all these diverse social and cultural groups insofar as theydevelop traditions of enquiry. In a certain sense, the bridges are alreadythere, though in another sense they, in many cases, remain to be built.What tradition-transcendental norms contribute is not a concrete resolu-tion to a particular debate but the confidence that such a resolution isindeed possible and that it need not involve an irrational conversion buta rational exchange.I have argued that tradition-transcendental standards would give Mac-Intyre a way out of certain contradictions within his thought, a waythat does justice both to his historicism and to his robust rejection ofrelativism. I have not of course established the reality of tradition-transcendental standards nor established that Rt is such a standard. Inorder to do so, one would, I suggest, need to make full use of reflexiveor self-referential argumentation, for what one is seeking is already pres-ent and needs only to be revealed as what it already is, a condition ofthe possibility of practical reasoning. As such a necessary condition, itcannot be denied without falling into self-contradiction. That such argu-ments can be used to show the self-destruction of the claim that there isno truth is of course well known.57Whether it is possible to go furtherwith this method of argumentation, using it not merely to precludecertain sorts of claims but to establish positive claims, is more controver-sial.58Also controversial is the extent to which it can be fruitful in the area

57 For a clear and forceful statement, see Jeffrey Stout, Ethicsafter Babel (Notre Dame,Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), p. 58.58 For two recent attempts to do so, see Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., Germain Grisez, and Olaf

Tollefsen, FreeChoice:A Self-ReferentialArgument(Notre Dame, ind.: University of NotreDame Press, 1976); and Vittorio H6sle, Die Krise der Gegenwartund die VertantwortungerPhilosophie Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990), esp. pp. 143-78. I find flaws in the application thatBoyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen make of self-referential argumentation, but they provide ahelpful discussion of the method and its promise. H6sle makes even stronger claims aboutits capacity to provide a replacement for traditional forms of foundationalism. I should takecare to note that drawing on self-referential argumentation in eithics need not involve theclaim that all of ethics may be deduced from whatever transcendental norms are revealedthrough reflexive argumentation.545


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The Journal of Religionof moral reflection, where particularity and contingency play so great arole.

While these controversies remain to be settled, the significance of themoment of tradition transcendentality in MacIntyre'sthought should notbe underestimated. Even to articulate a general claim of tradition depen-dence or historical dependence is to make what is, logically, a tradition-transcendental move. Similarly, the logic of the rationality of traditions ispresupposed by traditions of enquiry. That even as historicist a thinkeras MacIntyre makes a transcendental move in articulating the rationalityof traditions is compelling testimony to the inevitability of transcendentalconsiderations. We are already standing on not tradition-independentbut tradition-transcendental ground, and the impossibility of consistentlyarticulating a tradition-dependent position bears witness to this.

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