Alasdair MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" and Tradition-Transcendental Standards of Justification Author(s): Jennifer A.

Herdt Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 524-546 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1206573 . Accessed: 16/03/2013 05:46
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Alasdair Maclntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" and TraditionTranscendental Standards of Justification JenniferA. Herdt / New College of the Universityof
SouthFlorida

One of the most attractive features of Alasdair MacIntyre's thought has been his argument that it is possible to accept the historicity of human experience, to live within the limits of our particular contexts and limited perspectives, while nonetheless holding on-through claims about the rationality of traditions-to the objectivity of rationality and morality. Historicism and nonfoundationalism without relativism are what MacIntyre offers, and many contemporary moral philosophers have been takers. But at various points in his argument, particularly in the course of warding off relativism, MacIntyre appears to undermine his own critical account of liberalism and to contradict his claims about the tradition dependence of practical rationality. Thus, contradictions seem to enter in at one of the points where MacIntyre's thought has been most influential-his historicist response to relativism. As I will argue in what follows, these contradictions can be resolved if a third alternative is recognized alongside tradition-dependent and tradition-independent standards-the possibility of "tradition-transcendental" standards of practical rationality. While I do not think that MacIntyre regards his own position as offering such a third alternative, there is one crucial point in Whose Justice? Which at which he articulates a such and there are further Rationality? position, hints of this in his 1990 Marquette lecture, FirstPrinciples,Final Ends and Issues. It is, I will argue, his best hope for finding Contemporary Philosophical a noncontradictory way to maintain his historicist account of moral traditions while refuting relativism. Many of MacIntyre's critics-some of whom are at the same time his admirers-have noted moments of self-contradiction within his project of
? 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/98/7804-0002$02.00

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" simultaneously rejecting relativism and insisting on rationality's tradition dependence. Jon P Gunneman, for instance, pointing out that MacIntyre sketches a larger narrative framing all competing traditions, comments that "there is no systematic account given of how this 'meta-narrative' is integrated with his particular tradition, nor of how the encompassing of all other narrative traditions within it avoids some of the cross-traditional judgments he claims are impossible."' L. Gregory Jones notes that "MacIntyre's formal claim about the narrative quality of human life qua human life is at odds with his claim about tradition/community. That is, he makes a formal claim that (at least in its explicit formulation) is not specific to any tradition; yet he wants to claim that epistemology is traditionspecific.... Thus it is not clear that he can know in principle that human life qua human life is narrative in form."2 Similar criticisms have been made by Max Stackhouse, Jeffrey Stout, and Peter J. Mehl, among others.3 And yet, it seems that the implications of the inconsistencies within MacIntyre's thought have not been fully digested. Many of those who point out inconsistencies in MacIntyre's thought do so only in passing, as if to imply that these are minor details that simply need tidying up. Among those who conclude that the presence of inconsistencies means that some part or another of MacIntyre's thought must be amended, recommended degrees and directions of emendation vary widely. Jones thinks that MacIntyre must acknowledge that even his claims about the narrative quality of human life presuppose a particular normative tradition.4 Stout thinks MacIntyre must admit that rationality does not presuppose a highly coherent and well-integrated tradition.5 I will argue that the best way to resolve these contradictions is to move beyond the dichotomy between tradition-dependent and tradition-independent norms. Norms of practical rationality can be things that emerge historically at a particular time and place without being tradition dependent in the sense of being dependent for their validity on a particular tradition. Moreover, MacIntyre's own argument gives us reasons to believe that some of these are norms that are built into the structure of traditions as such, which are
'Jon P. Gunneman, "Habermas and MacIntyre on Moral Learning," Annual of the Society of ChristianEthics (1994): 93. "Alasdair MacIntyre on Narrative, Community, and the Moral Life," 2 Gregory Jones, ModernTheology4 (1987): 58. 3 See Max Stackhouse, "Alasdair MacIntyre: Overview and Evaluation" Religious Studies Review 18 (1992): 204; Jeffrey Stout, "Homeward Bound: MacIntyre on Liberal Society and the History of Ethics,"Journal of Religion 69 (1989): 221; Peter J. Mehl, "In the Twilight of Modernity: MacIntyre and Mitchell on Moral Traditions and Their Assessment,"Journal of ReligiousEthics 19 (1991): 23. 4 Jones, p. 59. 5 Stout, "Homeward Bound," p. 232.

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The Journal of Religion constitutive of them, which are conditions for their possibility. These are what I will call tradition-transcendental norms. In what follows, I first discuss MacIntyre's attack on traditionindependent norms and his proposed substitute, the "rationality of traditions." I go on to explore the historical origins of empathetic imagination, one of the elements involved in the rationality of traditions, arguing that it is, ironically, a key liberalvirtue. I then discuss important senses in which MacIntyre's rationality of traditions seems itself to be tradition independent rather than tradition dependent. At this point I consider the significant moment where MacIntyre articulates something that might be called "tradition-transcendental" norms in responding to relativism and reflect on the implications this has for the viability of MacIntyre's approach.
I

MacIntyre's critique of modern liberal democratic culture is well known, so I will recapitulate it only briefly. Worth noting at the outset is MacIntyre's broad usage of the term "liberal"; he uses it roughly to encompass the dominant expressions of Western thought and practices from the Enlightenment onward. I will follow his usage, at least initially, since my project here is one of immanent criticism. MacIntyre's diagnosis in After Virtuewas that modern liberal societies are characterized by interminable disagreements because they have lost any sense of a shared common good, a telos against which rival moral claims may be evaluated.6 Enlightenment thinkers sought tradition-independent standards ofjustification, and so they took refuge in universality and impersonality. But what resulted were conceptions "far too thin and meager to supply what is needed."' In the contemporary situation, analytic moral philosophy, writes MacIntyre, "aspires to provide rational principles to which appeal may be made by contending parties with conflicting interests."8The problem is that philosophers provide different rational principles, and there is once again no agreed-upon way to decide among them. So in deciding questions of distributive justice, one will appeal to rights, while others will 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 Dame Press, 1984). (In subsequent references to this work, the title will be indicated as AV) Justice? WhichRationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre 7 MacIntyre, Whose Dame Press, 1988), p. 334. (In subsequent references to this work, the title will be indicated as WJ.) 246. 8 MacIntyre, AV,p. SIbid., pp. 253-54.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" apparently only the market, a structure that appears to tolerate all convictions but only by converting them into preferences, that preserves peace once the project of locating universal, tradition-independent norms has been deemed a failure. MacIntyre is careful to note that there can be "no sound a priori argument to demonstrate" that it is impossible to provide "a neutral traditionindependent ground from which a verdict may be passed upon the rival claims of conflicting traditions in respect of practical rationality and of justice."'0 But he takes liberalism's ongoing failure to provide such a ground to be a very strong a posteriori reason for asserting that there is no such neutral ground or place for appeals to practical-rationality-assuch (as opposed to the practical rationality of a specific tradition). He is right to be careful, for the claim that there is no tradition-independent ground from which verdicts can be passed on conflicting traditions would be a performative self-contradiction. This contradiction emerges when the status of the statement of the claim itself is considered. Either the statement puts itself forward as just such a tradition-independent ground, which in being stated cancels itself, or, alternatively, the statement has validity only within a given tradition, in which case the statement means, if anything determinate, something like "within this particular 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 attempts to find neutral grounds or to elucidate practical-rationalityas-such have thus far failed and can be expected to continue to fail. Such a statement, unlike the claim of impossibility, is not self-refuting. Yet some of MacIntyre's proposals seem to contradict even this more modest claim. He seems to offer, despite his disavowals, a tradition-independent form of practical rationality to be used in passing verdicts on rival claims of conflicting traditions. It would seem either that his theory of rational conflict-resolution is correct, thus disproving his empirical claim about tradition-dependence, or this theory fails, in which case he has not succeeded in showing a way to escape the road from historicism to relativism. In order to draw out this apparent self-contradiction in MacIntyre's thought, 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 to relativism is developed most fully in Whose Justice? WhichRationality?and most of my references will therefore be to that work. There are very close parallels with discussions in MacIntyre's ThreeRival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) (abbreviated as TRV) and at certain points also to his FirstPrinciples,Final Ends

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The Journal of Religion traditions themselves, he claims, not ostensibly tradition-independent norms, that make possible both rational advance within a tradition and rational assessment of debates between traditions. The rationality of traditions consists in progress that a tradition-constituted enquiry "makes through a number of well-defined types of stage.""2 Enquiry begins from a condition of historical contingency, with certain beliefs, institutions, and practices in a state of constant flux. Stage one is characterized by unquestioning acceptance of authoritative texts, beliefs, and persons, which, with more systematic reflection, gives way to a second stage, characterized by awareness of internal incoherences among traditional authorities and/or inadequacies in responding to new situations. In the third stage, a tradition reformulates beliefs and revaluates authorities in a variety of ways to resolve incoherences and respond to inadequacies, though some core of belief survives that holds together the identity of the tradition. Once in stage three, members of the community can contrast current with former beliefs and judge the former beliefs to have been false. The concept of truth is formed derivatively, in contrast with that of falsity, where the latter is understood as lack of correspondence between mind as activity (not judgments) and its objects. "Characteristically,"MacIntyre suggests, there "comes a time in the history of tradition-constituted enquiry when those engaged in them may find occasion or need to frame a theory of their own activities of enquiry."'3It is unclear whether or not this constitutes a fourth, theoretical stage; MacIntyre does not say so. Even if it does, it seems 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 developed to differ from one another, since some will focus on the variety of uses of "true," while others will try to show that all uses of "true" share some common mark. Furthermore, sometimes epistemological crises arise within traditions, crises that require imaginative new theories and concepts, not just reflection on old ideas. Some epistemological crises are not resolved at all, some are resolved from within, and some are resolved by a turn to a rival tradition. MacIntyre thus seems to expect significant differences from one tradition of enquiry to another but also equally significant similarities. Tradiand Contemporary PhilosophicalIssues (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1990) (abbreviated as FP), and these will be pointed out parenthetically where they are not fully discussed. An earlier version of this discussion is contained in MacIntyre's 1984 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, reprinted as "Relativism, Power, and and Confrontation, ed. Michael Krausz (Notre Dame, Philosophy," in Relativism:Interpretation 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 practices, as well as the particular incoherences or novelties they are forced to confront and the theories they develop. But they will have in common their movement through a series of well-defined stages, their possession of beliefs and authorities, their understanding of the contrast between falsehood and truth, and even the main outlines of the origin of this understanding. MacIntyre further suggests that "to some degree, insofar as a tradition of rational enquiry is such, it will tend to recognize what it shares as such with other traditions, and in the development of such traditions common characteristic, if not universal, patterns will appear."'4 Despite these significant similarities, the relativist challenge seems still to be on the table, for "each tradition will, so it may seem, pursue its own specific historical path, and all that we shall be confronted with in the end is a set of independent rival histories."'5 The relativist challenge moves from MacIntyre's claim that there is no way to engage in practical rationality except from within a tradition to the conclusion that something can be "rational relative to the standards of some particular tradition, but not rational as such."'6 Traditions develop along parallel paths that, relativists claim, never intersect. According to MacIntyre, the key to deflecting the relativist challenge lies in looking carefully at what happens when a tradition resolves a full-blown epistemological crisis by encountering a rival tradition. It is in such a circumstance, MacIntyre argues, that "rational debate between and rational choice among rival traditions is possible."'7 To be in a position to choose among rival traditions, a person who feels an initial sense of belonging within a particular tradition must engage "in the argumentative debates and conflicts of that tradition of enquiry with one or more of its rivals." This task requires "the acquisition of the language-in-use of whatever particular rival tradition is in question, as ... a second first language, and that in turn requires a work of the imagination whereby the individual is able to place him or herself imaginatively within the scheme of belief inhabited by those whose allegiance is to the rival tradition, so as to perceive and conceive the natural and social worlds as they perceive and conceive them."'8 It is this act of the "empathetic conceptual imagination" that allows one to argue with those from other traditions.'1 Specifically, it allows one to determine whether they might possibly have a more illuminating account of one's own epistemo14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., p. 361.
16

17Ibid.

Ibid., p. 352.

p. 114. 's Ibid., p. 395, and 19MacIntyre, WJ (n. TRV, 7 above), p. 395.

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The Journal of Religion logical crises than one is able to give from within one's own tradition, as well as themselves being able to avoid such crises.20 So, for instance, the Thomistic tradition may be able to account for why modern liberal culture is plagued by irresolvable disagreements (i.e., the loss of a shared concept of the human good), for why Thomism was overshadowed by the Enlightenment (doubts about first principles made it vulnerable to David Hume), and may also be able to show that this overshadowing was unnecessary and reversible (the Enlightenment requirements for the justification of first principles were misguided). Given MacIntyre's claim that there are no tradition-independent resources adequate to settling intertraditional debates, it seems worth asking in which tradition this empathetic conceptual imagination originates. Despite his insistence that traditions establish their claim to truth by means of the adequacy and explanatory power of the histories they write, MacIntyre does not provide us with a historical account of this particularly valuable of resources.2 At one point, he does imply that empathetic imagination can be traced back to Saint Thomas Aquinas and, therefore, to the tradition that he champions. In this context, he maps a further set of stages characteristic of traditions in conflict and crisis: In controversybetween rival traditions the difficultyin passing from the first stage [of characterizingthe claims of a rival tradition in its own terms] to the second [of asking if the rival traditionmay have resourcesmore adequateto explain the failingsof one's own tradition]is that it requiresa rare gift of empathy as well as of intellectualinsight for the protagonistsof such a traditionto be able to understand the theses, arguments,and concepts of their rival in such a way that they are able to view themselvesfrom such an alien standpointand to recharacterizetheir own beliefs in an appropriatemanner from the alien perspectiveof the rivaltradition.Such rare gifts had not been evidencedin the earlier confrontationsbetween the Augustinianand the Aristoteliantraditions.22 Aquinas, however, possessed them. There are two things to comment on here. First, while MacIntyre at the conclusion of the book talks as though empathetic conceptual imagination is something that each of us has an intellectual responsibility to strive for, he treats it here as a rare gift, something serendipitous, not something to be cultivated. Second, in the course of the book, MacIntyre describes Aquinas's relationship to Augustinianism and Aristotelianism in such a way that Aquinas is seen to possess dual membership, as it were. He writes from within two rival traditions, something that would not seem to require such great empathetic gifts after
Ibid., p. 365, and, see also, TRV,pp. 125, 146. MacIntyre, WJ, p. 403.

20

21
22

Ibid., p. 167.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" all.23 In any case, it is clear that Aquinas does not reflect on the role of empathetic imagination in this process and does not explicitly try to develop 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 or synthesizing views that he believed were only apparently contradictory. His guiding assumption is that Aristotle and St. Paul are both right, just as the four gospels are-one must simply fill out this claim with an appropriately nuanced account. Despite an occasional glimmer of historical understanding, he did not see his task as that of trying to understand a view within its historical or cultural context. One is either right about the way things are-in which case harmony is possible-or wrong; one does not have a different set of standards of justification from that assumed by the view being interpreted. A concern for empathetic imagination presupposes a keen awareness of differences in perspective or point of view, along with a sense that such differences are morally important, a sense that we cannot simply decide how to act without reference to such perspectives. I would suggest that it is a concern that (at least in the West) arises in the exhausted wake of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-a set of conflicts, like most conflicts of the "noncerebral" variety, that are conspicuously absent from MacIntyre's account. It is related to the existence of a form of conflict for which force is no longer seen as the solution. In order to be able not only to live with one's opponents in peace but to cooperate with them in certain endeavors, one must strive to grasp their varied perspectives. It is also linked to the reverberations of the Age of Discovery, the attempt to come to terms with the existence of foreign cultures beyond the seas, and to the rise of historical consciousness, which began to encounter the past as itself a foreign country of sorts. It appears in Enlightenment thought in various configurations and under various names, from sympathy and the sympathetic imagination, to imaginative If I am right, then, identification, empathy, Einfiihlung, and Verstehen. is a liberal MacIntyre's "empathetic imagination" concept (in the broad sense in which MacIntyre uses the term), associated with liberal purposes and concerns. Despite all of his criticism of liberalism, a key element of
23 Ibid., p. 168. MacIntyre is careful to distinguish between these two phenomena (dual membership and acquiring a second first language), saying that "to possess the concepts of an alien culture in this secondary mode, informed by conceptual imagination, differs in important ways from possessing the concepts which are genuinely one's own. ... One will only be able to deploy [a concept of an alien culture] in the way in which an actor speaking his part may say things which he or she does not in his or her own person believe. We possess such concepts without being able to employ them in the first person, except as dramatic impersonators, speaking in a voice which is not our own" (ibid., p. 395).

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The Journal of Religion MacIntyre's narrative rationality rests heavily on what can be regarded as one of the cardinal virtues of liberalism. The first important philosophical discussions of sympathy were those of Hume and Adam Smith. In Hume's thought, the development of sympathetic understanding is clearly linked with attempts to locate resources for calming zeal and factional conflict, as well as to identify the limits of these resources.24 1 suspect, however, that MacIntyre's talk of empathetic imagination betrays a more substantial debt to the German hermeneutical tradition, more particularly to Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-Georg The English Gadamer and to the concepts of Einfiihlen and Verstehen. word "empathy" is a direct translation of the German word "Einfiihlung," itself a word invented in order to talk about sympathy. It is a curious case of conceptual borrowing and transformation. The German word "Mitleid," semantically exactly parallel to "sympathy," no longer seemed an adequate translation for the way the term sympathy was being used in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century, so "Einfiihlung"was invented and used by historicists, romantics, and modern biblical critics.25Meanwhile, within the English tradition, sympathy became identified with passive pity and was associated with sentimentalism as sentimentalism started to get a bad name, and the romantic notion of the "sympathetic imagination" and then "imagination" in its own right picked up the active aspects of sympathy but transformed these from a hard labor of understanding into a mysterious moment of transport.26 As a result of these semantic shifts, "sympathy" no longer seemed adequate to capture what Germans meant by "Einfiihlung";hence, the invention of "empathy."All of these neologisms and back-and-forth translations alert us to the fecundity of this area of reflection during the last two-and-a-half centuries. Throughout, this family of concepts was linked with a sensitivity to differences of outlook and different conceptions of the good life but simultaneously with confidence in the possibility of making sense of these outlooks

24 See my Religion and Factionin Hume's Moral Philosophy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 25 In Johann Herder, for instance, we find the insistence that in order to attain historical understanding, one must cultivate Einfiihlung-a sympathetic appreciation of the past. In contrast to MacIntyre's appeal to empathetic imagination, Herder thought that sympathetic understanding invalidated judgments of the past, embracing the radical relativism from which MacIntyre is seeking to distance himself. See Isaiah Berlin, Vicoand Herder (New York: Viking, 1976), pp. 206-12. 26 Walter Jackson Bate, "The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism," English LiteraryHistory 12 (1945): 144-64: "Among the more common romantic dicta 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 between it and its object, and, by actually entering into the object, so to speak, secure a momentary 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 are clearly linked, then, with what MacIntyre terms the liberal project. Perceiving that the origin of empathetic imagination lies squarely within the tradition of liberalism transforms our understanding of what liberalism is, as well as transforming our understanding of MacIntyre's project. Liberalism doesn't seem quite the villain that MacIntyre accuses it of being. After all, it has generated resources, such as empathetic imagination, which help to make rational debate between divergent traditions possible. But it is perhaps a good thing that liberalism no longer seems quite so devoid of value, for MacIntyre himself now appears to be a liberal, drawing on conceptual resources developed within liberalism. There are, it is true, points at which MacIntyre seems to be claiming that his account of the rationality of traditions stems entirely from Aquinas's account of dialectical enquiry.27But his appeal to empathetic imagination goes beyond dialectical enquiry. Moreover, MacIntyre himself concedes that "unThomistic means" will be needed when two parties cannot even agree about how to characterize their disagreement. In such a case, "we are debarred ... from following Aristotle and Aquinas in employing any of those dialectical strategies which rely upon some appeal to what all the contending parties in a dispute have not yet put in question."28 What is required is genealogy, a subversive narrative that reveals why a party with whom one disagrees cannot actually do without something that they claim to have discarded or rejected.29 The rationality of traditions is thus not the product of any one tradition, certainly not the Thomist tradition; it seems to be compounded of elements borrowed from Aquinas, 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 openness to pluralism, calling them "classical liberal virtues" and pointing out that they are presupposed by MacIntyre's theory of rationality and truth.30 Porter points this out in order to clarify what she regards as a mere terminological difficulty. She quite rightly indicates the wide range of meanings that "liberal" possesses and goes on to claim that while MacIntyre is not "a liberal in the sense that he himself identifies as central, namely, one who defends the possibility of arriving at tradition-neutral criteria by which to judge all claims to rationality and truth," he is a liberal in the tradition of pragmatists whose moral reflection has been shaped
See MacIntyre, TRV (n. 11 above), pp. 117, 125, and FP, pp. 48-51. MacIntyre, FP (n. 11 above), p. 56.

27 28

29 30

Ibid., p. 59.

Jean Porter, "Openness and Constraint: Moral Reflection as Tradition-Guided Inquiry in Alasdair MacIntyre's Recent Works,"Journalof Religion 73 (1993): 516.

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The Journal of Religion by the natural and social sciences.3' I am not persuaded that MacIntyre can be so easily excused, however. At certain points in his discussion of the rationality of traditions, he seems guilty of being a liberal in just the sense in which he claims liberalism is most mistaken. This will, I hope, begin to emerge in what follows.
II

I have argued that empathetic imagination is a liberal concept. In this sense, it is clearly tradition dependent-it had its origin within a particular tradition. But this seems rather unimportant in light of the possibility of employing it from within any tradition (at least any tradition in sufficient contact with other conflicting traditions). When we looked above at the features of the "rationality of traditions" that allow rational choice among traditions (of which empathetic imagination is just one), we saw that these features were presented as something available to the members of various traditions, traditions that are otherwise in far-reaching disagreement with one another. The procedure seems to be something the use of which does not depend on the prior settlement of such disagreements; one employs empathetic imagination, learns the rival language, and considers what account that language/tradition can give of one's own epistemological crises. Like that which MacIntyre says Enlightenment thinkers and subsequent liberals have been looking for, then, this seems to 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 validity; any concept that is articulated within a specific tradition or specific language is tradition dependent in the weak sense of origin. But it does not follow that ideas have validity only within the tradition or language in which they originated. Empathetic imagination cannot be tradition dependent in this stronger sense since MacIntyre proposes that it be used to resolve conflicts that do not involve the liberal tradition as well as those that do. Moreover, in order legitimately to resolve any conflict between two traditions, empathetic imagination must be a valid approach for both, 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 traditions is indebted to liberalism, although unlike Porter he does not seem to think MacIntyre would 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 both and Whose After Virtue Justice?"and points out that not all liberalism seeks a stand point above all tradition.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" In arguing that the inescapability of traditions need not result in relativist conclusions, in showing that through the rationality of traditions it is possible to decide rationally among contending traditions, MacIntyre seems to have contradicted himself by offering a universally valid, tradition-independent solution. But perhaps he would defend himself by saying that he has not offered any independent standardsof rational justification. What he has done is simply to sketch in general terms how rival claims of competing traditions can be evaluated against one another. That is, he has described a formal procedure,not articulated substantive standards or norms of justification. Empathetic imagination is one element used in applying this procedure; one must also acquire a second first language, look at one's own epistemological crises from within that second first language, examine how the tradition of the acquired language has resolved its own epistemological crises, and so on. But the actual standards would need to come from the particular traditions involved in the conflict. But if this procedure is something to which appeal may be made by contending traditions in order to decide the issues over which they disagree, then it does provide a standard not limited to a particular tradition, even if only at a general, procedural level. The irony of MacIntyre's theory of rationality should also be obvious-for what could be more typical of "liberalism" than a procedural or formal solution? According to MacIntyre, "the thinkers of the Enlightenment insisted upon a particular type of view of truth and rationality, one in which truth is guaranteed by rational method and rational method appeals to principles undeniable by any fully reflective rational person."32Is MacIntyre's rationality of traditions perhaps just a new Enlightenment method? MacIntyre's procedure can be stated as a universal standard or principle of rationality: When a tradition B can provide a cogent and illuminating explanation of an epistemological crisis faced by rival tradition A according to tradition A's own standards, and B does not face a similar crisis, then rationality requires members of A to acknowledge the superior rationality of B. I will call this principle Rt. There are difficulties here: According to MacIntyre, members of A are to draw on conceptsand theoriespeculiar to B in constructing an explanation ofA's epistemological crisis, but they are to employ their own standardsof judging cogency and illumination.33 It is important to note, first, that although MacIntyre insists that traditions will have different such standards, he also indicates that they will always be standards of cogency and illumination. This implies a degree of universality, however minimal, among such standards.
32 33

MacIntyre, WJ (n. 7 above), p. 353. Ibid., p. 364.

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The Journal of Religion Second, what is to happen when the members of A transfer their allegiance to B? Presumably at that point they must shift from their own standards of cogency and illumination to those of B. In what light can this shift in standards of cogency be reasonable, however? Not simply because of the power of B's theories and concepts but because of Rt, the general standard of the rationality of traditions, which dictates when a shift in more specific standards is required. Without this standard, which transcends the conflicting traditions, the shift of loyalty would be irrational. One feature of a formal approach is that it abstracts from particular substantial content. Such abstraction is one of MacIntyre's primary targets within liberal forms of thinking: "Abstractthe particular theses to be debated and evaluated from their contexts within traditions of enquiry and then attempt to debate and evaluate them in terms of their rational justifiability to any rationalperson, to individuals conceived of as abstracted from their particularities of character, history, and circumstance, and you will thereby,"writes MacIntyre, "make the kind of rational dialogue which could move through argumentative evaluation to the rational acceptance or rejection of a tradition of enquiry effectively impossible."34When the public virtue of emphathetic imagination is exercized, however, the theses to be evaluated necessarily remain within their traditional context. In addition, the individual who exercizes it would begin from a particular historical and cultural location, striving to understand those in different historical and cultural locations precisely by appreciating their situatedness, rather than by abstracting those individuals from their contexts. It is importantly true that the application of standards and principles is not a mechanical activity, and the skills to apply any sort of standard will be present in some contexts and not in others. But like other procedural approaches, MacIntyre's theory of rational conflict resolution between traditions cannot be stated without abstracting from the particular epistemological crises, concrete claims, and internal standards at issue. While of course this theory cannot solve any dispute without being applied to a particular content, this does not detract from the real moment of abstraction. As I just stated, Rt requires that a person begin from a particular historical and cultural location. Is this perhaps all that MacIntyre means by tradition dependence? He notes that "there is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which is This might simply be provided by some particular tradition or other."35
34 35

Ibid., pp. 398-99. 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 and historical context, one's own beliefs. If so, MacIntyre would surely be clear of the charge of contradicting his claims about tradition dependence. But this stricture certainly does not mean that one cannot budge from this starting point, cannot transcend one's initial beliefs. Thus, it is true but trivial. MacIntyre himself seems to develop a mode of practical rationality, exemplified by Rt, which is neutral among traditions and provides a way of choosing among them. It might still be said that his standard does not give one neutral "standing ground." But surely this would be to take the metaphor of standing ground too literally. One pictures someone standing out in deep space on a little platform, looking back at the earth. In the only (and quite nonliteral) sense that matters, has MacIntyre 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 empirical grounds-could not be provided, that is, a tradition-independent mode of rational justification, MacIntyre has contradicted himself; he has proved himself a liberal at just that point where he is most specific in his indictments of liberalism. There are, it is true, features of MacIntyre's proposal that make his claims of the tradition dependence of practical rationality seem plausible: (1) empathetic imagination was conceptualized and developed within the tradition of liberalism; (2) when Rt is applied, concrete, particular issues must be evaluated in context; and (3) the person doing the evaluating must begin within his or her own context. But MacIntyre's narrative rationality, in order to accomplish the task he sets for it, must also be tradition independent in the following significant ways: (1) the theory is not restricted to valid use within the tradition in which it arose; (2) it transcends and abstracts from concrete issues within a given tradition; and (3) it can be articulated apart from any particular issues. In these respects, MacIntyre does offer us a tradition-independent procedure for settling disputes between or among traditions. According to this theory, there are shared criteria for the superiority of a tradition. All are expected to agree that if one tradition succeeds in accounting for the crises facing another tradition without itself being faced by crises unsolvable from within, that tradition is superior. As Mehl points out, "achieving consistency and comprehensiveness seem general marks of rationality, things to be achieved by all inquirers in any tradition."36These standards of justification are not limited to a particular tradition. MacIntyre's rationality of traditions thus seems to be both tradition de-

36

Mehl (n. 3 above), p. 35.

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The Journal of Religion pendent and tradition independent, depending on which features are in focus. Is this a simple contradiction within MacIntyre's thought, or is it possible to move beyond the impasse? The answer comes when we consider a significant but usually overlooked point at which MacIntyre hints at an alternative beyond tradition dependence or tradition independence for the narrative rationality he is proposing: "Notice that the grounds for an answer to relativism and perspectivism are to be found, not in any theory of rationality as yet explicitly articulated and advanced within one or more of the traditions with which we have been concerned, but rather with a theory embodied in and presupposed by their practices of enquiry, This is a striking statement, remarkable for yet never fully spelled out.""37 its shift to a transcendental mode of argumentation. While MacIntyre begins this discussion by reference to the particular traditions he has been discussing in the book, he moves into thoroughly general terms, speaking of what is "presupposed by" traditions of enquiry, and therefore of something that is, in a logical sense, situated before all such existing traditions. Such a theory of rationality would be "tradition transcendental." It would not be linked in its validity to any one particular tradition (even if particular elements, such as empathetic imagination, have been conceptualized by particular traditions). While it is true that the theory would have no independent existence in some never-never land, it would be implicit in practices of enquiry generally, not dependent on a particular tradition. The standing ground is indeed within traditions, not outside of them, but within them necessarily. This provides an answer to the question that tends most to make claims of tradition dependence compelling: How can these general standards of justification be "available" to traditions that have neither developed nor borrowed them? They are available in the sense that they are already presupposed by them. The admission that MacIntyre makes at this point reveals a certain kinship between his approach and that ofJiirgen Habermas. Gunneman has offered a helpful comparison of the two thinkers in his essay "Habermas and MacIntyre on Moral Learning," noting convergences in their accounts of moral learning and moral progress. He suggests that MacIntyre, despite his rejection of Habermas's neo-Kantian procedural morality, "exemplifies Habermas's claim that as moderns we have learned this procedural justice as indispensable, not simply for getting along with others but as the only morally adequate way of entering into debate and achieving mutual understanding."38What is significant about the passage I have discussed in the preceding paragraph is that MacIntyre is not simply exemplifying Habermas's approach but is actually describinghis
38 Gunneman
17

Maclntyre, WJ, p. 354. (n. 1 above), p. 100.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" enterprise in terms very close to those of Habermas, in Habermas's more transcendental moments. That is, he says that he is engaged in elucidating norms that are already and always implicit in practices of enquiry. But is such a theory of rationality presupposed by, implicit in, every tradition of enquiry, so that you can never say that it is "unavailable" to a particular tradition? Is it a condition of the possibility of traditions of enquiry, something without which traditions of enquiry cannot exist? While it is clear that MacIntyre takes his theory of rationality to have provided a response to relativism that is quite general, he also suggests that the workings of this theory are only evident within traditions that have gone through certain stages of development, have experienced epistemological crises, and have recognized that they are not always vindicated in light of their own standards of rational justification.39 What remains ambiguous in both Habermas's and MacIntyre's theories is whether the theories are contingently or necessarily true. Is it simply a fact that MacIntyre's standards are implicit in traditions of enquiry, or are such standards logically required? Several of MacIntyre's interlocutors would encourage him at this point to embrace a purely contingent generality in ethical standards. Mehl urges MacIntyre to follow Basil Mitchell in embracing a form of ethical naturalism; empirical human nature and its needs and capacities lend plausibility to the normative standpoint, and "we can ask ourselves if an ideal of humanness is satisfactory, does it satisfy, would it satisfy if persevered with, and in virtue of this we can have some understanding of human needs and interests upon which we can defend a perspective on the good human life."40 This is akin to Porter's pragmatist reading of MacIntyre, which suggests that we ask about the "liveability" of traditions, about their stability over the long run.41 According to such interpreters, there are biological and social constraints on the development of traditions, but it is fortuitous when traditions happen to contain common ground in ethical matters. On my reading of MacIntyre, in contrast, he is saying that the development of traditions mustfollow certain stages, stages that the theory of the rationality of traditions describes, and that this sequence is not simply a contingent fact about human nature but is related to logical constraints. It is possible (though not desirable) to stand still or move backward rather than forward, but in any case, a tradition will be somewhere along the same developmental path. Thus it is possible that authoritative texts, persons, and so on will never be questioned or undermined by new situations
39 MacIntyre,

40 41

WJ, p. 364. Mehl, p. 48. Porter (n. 30 above), p. 534.

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The Journal of Religion or internal contradictions, or that the gap between old and new beliefs will never be theorized about. But if authority is questioned, this constitutes a new stage of development, and other changes can be expected to fall into predictable shape. There is a logic to the development of traditions, a logic that stems from the gap between warranted assertibility, which applies only at a particular time and place, and truth, which is timeless.42 Awareness of change in belief stimulates reflection aimed at determining whether these changes were reasonable or arbitrary. To judge simultaneously that past beliefs were inadequate and that one should nevertheless return to them would be either a logical or a moral failure. MacIntyre's claims about the development of traditions are not simply empirical or descriptive. There is only one possible path of development (speaking, of course, on the most general level), and normatively speaking, a tradition should move forward, rather than backward, along it. The empirical truths about human nature and human society constrain the logical truths that are able to appear, but that does not mean a reduction of logical to empirical truth. In discussing first principles, MacIntyre writes that "such principles will have had to vindicate themselves in the historical process of dialectical justification .... They are justified insofar as in the history of this tradition they have, by surviving the process of dialectical questioning, vindicated themselves as superior to their historical predecessors. Hence such first principles are not self-sufficient, self-justifying epistemological first principles."43This might seem to suggest that the validity of such principles consists in their having survived a historical process of dialectical justification. But on my interpretation of MacIntyre's account, it is more consistent to say that while the principles are vindicatedin a historical process, they cannot be validatedby a historical process. It is true that individual human beings will be justified in accepting these principles only if such principles are justified to them using concepts available within their own historical context. But the stages of the rationality of traditions embody standards of rationality that do not derive their validity from a historical process, even if they appear and become available to human beings in historical processes. They are standards presupposed by concrete practices of enquiry. This interpretation is given further support by MacIntyre's reflections on first principles in his Marquette lecture, FirstPrinciples,Final Ends and Contemporary PhilosophicalIssues.44MacIntyre here argues that "we can know without as yet knowing that we know,"that "our present knowledge
42

43 See
44

See MacIntyre, WJ (n. 7 above), p. 364, and TRV (n. 11 above), pp. 122, 200. MacIntyre, WJ, p. 360. See n. 11 above.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" involves reference forward to that knowledge of the arche/principium which will, if we achieve it, give us subsequent knowledge of the knowledge that we now have."45On this view, the conclusions of our reasoned enquiry are already present at the outset-"the conclusion which is to be the end of our deductively or inductively ... reasoned enquiry is somehow already assumed in our starting point."46Still, a form of historicism is preserved in that we are not at the outset fully justified in asserting first principles or conclusions; we come to "know that we know" only through the formation and testing of hypotheses and the processes of dialectic and induction, all of which are historical activities. Clearly this does not conform to an understanding of historicism according to which validity is determined by history and all standards of rationality are nothing more than contingent historical products. Nevertheless, it merits the designation "historicism" because it is only in and through history that human beings become fully conscious of and fully justified in holding even those principles or conclusions of enquiry that are presupposed by the practice of enquiry at the outset. The notion of tradition-transcendental standards of practical rationality would allow MacIntyre to continue to insist that all of our conceptual resources come from within the historical and cultural matrix in which we are embedded. At the same time, he would be in a position to defeat the relativist challenge and to maintain that rational debate and choice among rival traditions is possible, because of the general standards presupposed by traditions of enquiry. The notion of tradition-transcendental standards of practical rationality can therefore resolve a contradiction within MacIntyre's thought and allow him to maintain both his historicism, rightly understood, and his nonrelativism. Other commentators have responded in different ways to the contradictions they perceive between MacIntyre's theory of the rationality of traditions and his claim about the inevitability of tradition dependence. First, some reject MacIntyre's theory of the rationality of traditions, while accepting the inevitability of tradition dependence. This seems to be the direction in which Jones is moving in his Christian reformulation of MacIntyre's position in After Virtue:"It is only through the narrative of the history of the Church that the salvation God offers can be understood and the Church's relation to the secular order can be adequately conceived. But it is important to recognize that on this view, the narrative of the tradition of Christianity serves to explicate the centrality of the community, not the other way around."47If MacIntyre's theory of the raSee MacIntyre, FP (n. 11 above), pp. 13-14. Ibid., p. 14. 47Jones (n. 2 above), p. 66.
45
46

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The Journal of Religion tionality of traditions is false, then he has obviously not contradicted himself by showing that tradition-independent practical rationality is possible. 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 inevitability of tradition dependence while accepting the validity of MacIntyre's theory of the rationality of traditions. Then MacIntyre has provided a rebuttal to relativism. But in doing so, he has disproven tradition dependence. This seems at first glance to be the position taken by Mehl and Gunneman and hinted at by Stackhouse. The rationality of traditions cannot stand unmodified, however, unless MacIntyre's conception of "tradition" remains intact and sharp boundaries between traditions can be identified. Thus, third, some commentators conclude that both MacIntyre's theory of how disputes among traditions may be rationally adjudicated and his claims about the tradition dependence of practical rationality are flawed or false. The second position tends to collapse into the third when problems with the concept of tradition are seen; each of the three thinkers named above as advocates of the second position glimpse this at certain points in their discussion.48

I will pause to consider aspects of this third position more fully, since it 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 issue of the incommensurability of traditions and the related problem of identifying boundaries between traditions.49 MacIntyre tends to assume that it is possible, and desirable, to be a member of a single, clearly defined tradition. But are we not all members of many overlapping traditions? How are the borders of traditions to be identified? Is the Thomistic tradition distinct from the Aristotelian tradition, or simply a continuation of it? If Aristotle is "Plato's heir," is the Aristotelian tradition part of the Platonic tradition? Is there a Christian tradition that encompasses a variety of traditions, or it is wrongheaded to consider Christianity as a tradition at all? Is liberalism distinct from the tradition of the Enlightenment or continuous with it? As John Haldane notes, "certainly, geography and time may separate communities but this empirical fact is, in itself, philosophically trivial. What has to be shown is that there are points of separation beyond these spatio-temporal ones which constitute incommen48 See 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 issue in a sympathetic way.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" surable differences. A line of reasoning from Wittgenstein and Davidson suggests this may not be possible."50 Donald Davidson's point is that it is impossible to say that tradition A is incommensurable with tradition B, because if it were, it would be impossible for those in tradition A to say anything at all about tradition B, impossible even to identify it as a tradition; "nothing ... could count as evidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our language that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activity was not speech behavior."'5MacIntyre accepts Davidson's point but does not feel that it precludes areas of incommensurability between traditions. Davidson's point rests, he alleges, on an ahistorical view of language.52 MacIntyre is interested instead in "a language as it is used in and by a particular community living in a particular place and time with particular shared beliefs, institutions, and practices," communities in which there is a strong link between vocabulary and beliefs.53 In such cases, translation can be accomplished only with accompanying gloss and explanation. Incommensurability comes in, argues MacIntyre, when what is taken to be a true statement in A cannot be translated into B without an accompanying explanation of why it is in actuality a false statement. Thus, a translation can be made, and both A and B can agree that the same subject is being discussed, but their beliefs about the subject may differ radically. As an example, MacIntyre points to the translation of "daimon" into "demon," in the course of which it is given a negative connotation corresponding to the beliefs of those doing the translation.54 MacIntyre concludes from this that translatability does not insure commensurability, in the sense that translatability does not entail the existence of shared standards of rational evaluation.55 But as I have already argued at length, in outlining a procedure for rational conflict resolution, MacIntyre has himself pointed to the existence of shared standards of rational evaluation. To be sure, these standards are quite general and abstract, but they nevertheless preclude incommensurability. This, in turn, means that one

50 John Haldane, "MacIntyre's Thomist Revival: What Next?" in After Maclntyre:Critical on the Workof Alasdair Maclntyre, ed. John Horton and Susan Mendus (Notre Perspectives Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 95. 51 Donald Davidson, "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," in Relativism:Cognitive and Moral, ed. Jack W. Meiland and Michael Krausz (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame 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 Religion cannot locate sharp boundaries separating one tradition and its rational standards from another. Given the fuzziness of "traditions," some of MacIntyre's claims are simply empty. Stout's astute observation here is that MacIntyre's own "reasoned movement betwixt and between the various traditions with which he has affiliated himself is strong evidence against a theory according to which rationality can be exercised at its best only within highly coherent and 'well-integrated' traditions."56Looking at the world, we do not see traditions battling against one another, with some winning wholesale and others conceding defeat and disappearing from view. In the writings of Aquinas, Augustinism does not win out over Aristotelianism, or vice versa. Rather, we find creative borrowing of concepts, transformation of ideas, enriching of vocabularies, as groups of people formerly not in conversation become engaged in conversation and shared activity. Is the word "tradition" therefore useless and with it the notion of tradition-transcendental norms? I would argue that we can continue to speak of "traditions of enquiry," if by these we mean simply groups of people engaged in common conversation on a set of topics over an extended period of time, groups that may overlap and have fuzzy edges and whose set of topics is constantly evolving. What MacIntyre has provided is an account of the logic of large-scale patterns of rational enquiry over time. His account is no more than a sketch, but one that suggests a series of stages through which traditions of enquiry develop and change and that articulates the general features of what goes on when one such tradition starts up a conversation with another. Like the psychology of moral development, this is not simple description but a normative account. It is certainly possible for a tradition to revert back to unquestioning acceptance of authoritative texts-that is, become fundamentalist-but this would mean that its development was "arrested." Later stages are better than earlier stages, more complex, more proven by ongoing enquiry. Thus something could fail to be rational according to the standards of the "rationality of traditions," standards that cannot simply be identified with the standards of any particular historical tradition (using "traditions" in the open-ended sense). Whereas the notion of tradition dependence requires strong claims about incommensurability between traditions, the notion of tradition
56 Stout, "Homeward Bound" (n. 3 above), p. 232. Stout does not question the dependence 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 as formulated by MacIntyre, that an assertion or conclusion can be "rational relative to the standards of some particular tradition, but not rational as such" (WJ, p. 352). For Stout grants that justification is relative, although truth is not, and rationality in the context of MacIntyre's discussion has to do with justification, rather than truth.

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MacIntyre's "Rationality of Traditions" transcendentality does not. It remains intact when traditions are given a looser, more fluid, interpretation, because what it points to is an underlying commensurability of standards despite the historical and cultural contextuality of thought and language. Moreover, unlike most of the positions of those who follow the third mode of responding to the contradictions in MacIntyre's thought, an appeal to tradition-transcendental norms does not simply point to the contingently built bridges among social and cultural groups as a way of dismissing relativism. Nor does it appeal to something extratraditional to which we have access by some special mode of perception. It looks to something embedded within, presupposed by, all these diverse social and cultural groups insofar as they develop traditions of enquiry. In a certain sense, the bridges are already there, though in another sense they, in many cases, remain to be built. What tradition-transcendental norms contribute is not a concrete resolution to a particular debate but the confidence that such a resolution is indeed possible and that it need not involve an irrational conversion but a rational exchange. I have argued that tradition-transcendental standards would give MacIntyre a way out of certain contradictions within his thought, a way that does justice both to his historicism and to his robust rejection of relativism. I have not of course established the reality of traditiontranscendental standards nor established that Rt is such a standard. In order to do so, one would, I suggest, need to make full use of reflexive or self-referential argumentation, for what one is seeking is already present and needs only to be revealed as what it already is, a condition of the possibility of practical reasoning. As such a necessary condition, it cannot be denied without falling into self-contradiction. That such arguments can be used to show the self-destruction of the claim that there is no truth is of course well known.57 Whether it is possible to go further with this method of argumentation, using it not merely to preclude certain sorts of claims but to establish positive claims, is more controversial.58Also controversial is the extent to which it can be fruitful in the area

57 For a clear and forceful statement, see Jeffrey Stout, Ethics after 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, Free Choice:A Self-Referential Argument (Notre Dame, ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976); and Vittorio H6sle, Die Krise der Gegenwartund die Vertantwortung der Philosophie(Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990), esp. pp. 143-78. I find flaws in the application that Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen make of self-referential argumentation, but they provide a helpful discussion of the method and its promise. H6sle makes even stronger claims about its capacity to provide a replacement for traditional forms of foundationalism. I should take care to note that drawing on self-referential argumentation in eithics need not involve the claim that all of ethics may be deduced from whatever transcendental norms are revealed through reflexive argumentation.

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The Journal of Religion of moral reflection, where particularity and contingency play so great a role. While these controversies remain to be settled, the significance of the moment of tradition transcendentality in MacIntyre's thought should not be underestimated. Even to articulate a general claim of tradition dependence or historical dependence is to make what is, logically, a traditiontranscendental move. Similarly, the logic of the rationality of traditions is presupposed by traditions of enquiry. That even as historicist a thinker as MacIntyre makes a transcendental move in articulating the rationality of traditions is compelling testimony to the inevitability of transcendental considerations. We are already standing on not tradition-independent but tradition-transcendental ground, and the impossibility of consistently articulating a tradition-dependent position bears witness to this.

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