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Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Paul Carus Lectures)

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For years the knock on MacIntyre was that his devastating critique of modernity left nothing standing, with the unintended result that the central question of _After Virtue_ ("Nietzsche or Aristotle?") ultimately cut against Aristotle.

_Dependent Rational Animals_ presents a positive account of practical rationality against the background of an understanding of human nature on which we are first of all animals -- and thus always vulnerable -- and often (some of us always) disabled. This leads MacIntyre to distinguish what he calls the "virtues of acknowledged dependence" from the more widely recognized "virtues of independent practical reasoners".

This book, an expanded series of lectures, is quite easy to read, especially when it focuses on such lively questions as whether dolphins and chimpanzees have beliefs and intentions, or why we have obligations to those thoroughly dependent human beings who will never develop into autonomous agents.

I've long thought _After Virtue_ was the best introduction to MacIntyre, but I now suspect _Dependent Rational Animals_ may be the way to go. That way, one can begin with his positive account, and locate the critique in relation to it.

Many virtue theorists seem to think it enough to say that "qua humans" we should flourish, and that figuring out how to flourish "just is" what practical reasoning is, and hence that virtue is intrinsic to being human in about the same way that having roots is intrinsic to being a tree, and that those of us who fail to "see" that are somehow irrational in wanting some further argument. They skip blithely over the obvious fact that much reasoning that seems quite practical and wildly successful seems rather less than virtuous. MacIntyre indulges in no such self-satisfied question-begging. Whatever else is to be said for MacIntyre's "Dependent Rational Animals," he displays the virtue of engaging directly and forthrightly the hard questions that unsympathetic or unconvinced souls would pose for his position.

The way he argues that we need the virtues is quite startling in originality. Generally, ethicists take as their standard the autonomous, self-sufficient reasoner--where "reason" means something like "able to give a logically defensible verbal justification," usually in terms of some sort of universal rule. MacIntyre sees this as a mistake. The question, he thinks, is how any of us ever come to be independent practical reasoners and what it means to be such. We must, he thinks, understand that "reasons to act" have little to do with our linguistic ability or capacity to display verbally a syllogism that concludes with the action in question. Rather, "reasons to act" are more concrete, pragmatic, and instrumental.
Thus, we can say that intelligent animals act with reasons, despite having no language, if their actions are clearly aimed at ends, especially if it is clear that they choose their instrumental acts on the basis of perceptions of the current environment.

*Human practical resoning* begins in this aspect of our animal nature--our ability to learn in practice what we need to do in order to accomplish the things we need to accomplish if we are to flourish. Note that the issue here is learning in practice, and identifying correctly through our practice what we find to be needful for our flourishing. Reason, then, is grounded in the practice of flourishing.

And rather than look at "autonomous" adults, MacIntyre points out the obvious fact, usually overlooked by ethical theorists, that we are actually always dependent on each other in myriad ways. Our mutual dependency dictates that we need communities of giving and receiving various things--including education, formal and otherwise--not only to flourish but to be able to know, and reason, about flourishing. Without the virtues, the conditions for practical reasoning *at all* cannot exist.

The argument, then, is that our animality and dependency dictate what constitutes both flourishing and practical reason about flourishing, and that we can demonstrate that the virtues are necessary for being independent practical reasoners who flourish.

Rather, that's the strategy of the argument. The argument itself is, of course, much more involved. In its entirety, does it work? I'm not sure. I don''t know that everyone would agree with his axiomatic/unargued starting point, that to flourish requires us to be independent rational thinkers, even in the sense of "rational" he's spelled out here. We of democratic mien see thing that way, of course--but so far as I know, MacIntyre doesn't provide an argument for the overriding necessity of independence.

A couple of things are troubling--his apparent reliance on D.W. Winnicott's psychoanalytic account of child development, for instance. I'm not sure whether it really matters--so long as one accepts the notion that persons cannot develop into independent rational thinkers without the support of others, MacIntyre's affinity for Winnicott can be seen as a personal quirk, I think.

But that does lead to one perplexity: a lot of what MacIntyre says about the necessities of human life--matters of our dependence--is empirical, in a fairly straightforward sense, more than philosophical. Does this matter? It seems so to me. At least some of his argument turns on empirical claims about conditions for human flourishing for which he provides no argument or evidence.

Finally, MacIntyre sees current society as more or less beyond the pale ethically--according to him, neither our families nor our nation states promote virtue or independent practical rationality of the sort he has spelled out. One could conclude, of course, that we live in vicious ands heathen times, so to speak--and perhaps we do. Or one could wonder whether MacIntyre's empirical claims, and the philosophical argument he bases upon them, may not have more to do with his tastes than with the conditions of human flourishing. Is it really so obvious that in our culture we fail to flourish? Taken from the perspective of human history, our developed nation states have a few things going for them that resemble flourishing: the highest levels of material welfare, more equitably spread (in spite of the great distance we have to go in achieving equality); the most widespread education and highest rates of literacy; the lowest rates of infant mortality; the longest life spans; the greatest emphasis on human rights, including for women and minoeriites; the easiest access by non-elites to the arts; the cheapest books (relative to per capita income); the most efficient (if not yet ideal) institutions for international consultation and cooperation, and . . .

I like MacIntyre''s version of how life ought to be. I recommend reading the book. But I suggest that one not fail to note that his empirical claims are less than obviously true, while some empirical facts about our flourishing seem to have escaped his notice--or at least been given less weight than many folks would give them.

One other thing: This book is badly written. Never mind the needlessly poor sentence structure in which he so often indulges (and he obviously knows better, since he often writes clearly). But the structure of the argument and its exposition is generally less than transparent. (The reviewer who thought first that MacIntyre had gone soft reflects this fact.) For instance, on page 107, he tells us there are two ways that a certain thing is important, then spends twelve pages discussing the first--without ever getting around to identifying the second, so far as I can discern. That sort of sloppiness is not unusual in the book. Do you think maybe one of the minor virtues, one of the small obligations owed by people who write books for which they ask our money, is that they not be lazy about how they express themselves?

Anyone who likes good philosophical writing will enjoy "Dependent Rational Animals." In it, Alasdair MacIntyre argues for a concept of human flourishing that acknowledges the virtues of acknowledged social dependence as well as those of independent practical reasoning (the normal focus of virtue theory). Parts of the book are underargued -- particularly the section on politics -- but the writing is lucid, and the philosophy is wise and compassionate. Best of all, the book opens our eyes to the obvious but often overlooked truth that any account of human good is seriously partial and deficient if it neglects the reality of dependence -- a state occupied by everyone at some point in his or her life, and by some persons for their entire lives. Mind opening. Highly recommended.

I take back my previous review, in which I speculated that MacIntyre had "gone soft." On second and third reading, this is just a wonderful book - a welcome return to ambitious Aristotelian naturalism in ethics. So much better than "After Virtue".

Dependent Rational Animals is MacIntyre refusing to give up on the task of integrating Aristoteleanism and redistributionist social justice by making up a new virtue that he says is a combination of justice and generosity and is an acknowledge of our interdependence. Whereas Aristotle focused on human excellence, MacIntyre inverts this perspective to focus on human failing and our dependence on other people. This the source of the term Dependent in the title.

The other two terms, Rational and Animals, come from the other characteristics of human life that MacIntyre thinks support his ethical system. A good portion of the book is spent reviewing linguistics and animal research. It is important to MacIntyre for us not to have a conception of human nature that is separate from animal nature. He stresses that our understanding of animal language and of what language represents about rational thought implies that humans are simply on a continuum of animal psychology. For MacIntyre, our thoughts are beyond but of a definite kind with animals:

"It is because any exercise of the power to reflect on our reasons for action presupposes that we already have such reasons about which we can reflect, prior to our reflection. And for us human beings it is because we do have reasons for action prior to any reflection, the kinds of reason that we share with dolphins and chimpanzees, that we have an initial matter for reflection, a starting point for that transition to rationality which a mastery of some of the complexities of language use can provide. Did we not share such reasons with dolphins and chimpanzees we would not have arrived at that starting point and a denial that we have such reasons would render the transition to specifically human rationality unintelligible." (p.56)

This animality underlying our thinking not only rebuts the narratives that certain schools of ethics tell about their reasoning from first principles, it also stresses that our rationality is focused on concepts of flourishing that we can recognize in animals and that it develops in a human community rather than appearing fully formed in our minds.

This type of rationality belongs to what MacIntyre calls an independent practical reasoner, which is his term for a functioning adult that has met the prerequisites necessary for human flourishing. The independent practical reasoner lives by virtues instilled by his community and upbringing but has the power to reflect on his actions, critique his beliefs, and grow ethically vis-a-vis the virtues.

The core of MacIntyre's argument is short (he's wordy) and the book ends with reflections on the scope of community in which the virtues, especially his socialist just generosity virtue, can function--nation-states are too large and families too small--and on friendship and on Nietzsche.

For me, this is a rather ingenious but ultimately failed attempt to reconcile socialism and virtue ethics. Although the focus on human dependence across the lifespan and in sickness highlights the many ways in which we can fail to achieve excellence, it doesn't provide an adequate rationale for reciprocity and falls prey to some of the unrealistic ideological rigidity typical of Marxism. For example, the recognition that sickness may strike us all and that the practice and teaching of virtue is a protection against vice is essentially a game theoretical rationale for virtue, acknowledging the continued utilitarian bias in MacIntyre's thinking. And his disparagement of self-sacrifice as a moral defect on the basis that it implies a trade-off between self and other when people should be taking only for their most minimal needs is a recipe for community economic collapse.

MacIntyre's writing is not tight. It wasn't in After Virtue, either, but here is less logical and does not progress effectively. He is engaged really in writing about the virtues rather than arguing for virtue ethics and writes with assumptions, blanket statements, and undefined terms. He introduces one chapter, for example, by simply asserting that we are in a debt to our parents that we must repay by helping to raise other youth.

MacIntyre has other problems as well. His account of childhood development is excessively psychoanalytic, referring to mastering "conflicts" in order to achieve independence from the parent and focusing on good mothering. In fact, does research show that parenting has that much influence on personality development? No.

At times, MacIntyre's reflexive liberalism even undermines itself. For example, he denounces sentimentality but later claims that meeting someone who has been horribly disfigured by disease can lead us to realize the ways in which we fail to perceive other people's good qualities because of "facial appearances of certain types of other" (p.137). This is sentimentality at its height, and it implies a body-mind dualism that MacIntyre spent chapters trying to take apart.

An interesting and generally accessible work by the well known philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre is known well for his denunciation of the moral bankruptcy of the modern world and his embrace of an Aristotleian/Thomistic account of virtue ethics. This book is an effort to provide a positive account of a desirable life and sketch out a form of political philosophy. MacIntyre begins this book with a fairly straightforward discussion of how at least some non-human animals and humans are not qualitatively different in cognitive capacity but rather on a continuum. If anything, I'd state the case even more strongly than MacIntyre; recent clever experiments establish that rodents, for example, can generalize causal inferences. While MacIntyre is not completely explicit, the discussion of animal-human intelligence is an effort to ground a teleological account of human 'flourishing' in which the purpose of humans is to be, well, human. In MacIntyre's account and by analogy with his discussion of animal behavior, the distinctive telos of humans is to become independent practical reasoners embedded deeply and meaningfully in a web of necessary social interactions. MacIntyre emphasizes our interdependence, both in becoming independent practical reasoners and at other times when we are inevitably impaired. MacIntyre argues as well that this account is distinctly different from most modern moral philosophy, which he views as having a destructively individualistic orientation.

There are several problems with MacIntyre's analysis. I doubt that his method really establishes a convincing human telos. No one would argue about the importance of human rational capacities and sociability, but does his analysis lead to his version of the telos? If there is anything really distinctive about humans as a species, its our remarkable social flexibility. Hunter-gather families and clans, oligarchic city-states, primitive monarchies with priest-kings, and many others. All these involve practical reasoning and social interdependence. Along the same lines, how does MacIntyre's effort at naturalistic analysis establish that the cooperative values that he prefers? Why can't human interdependence and needs be satisfied by exploitation and coercion? These are just as characteristic of human life as the values he prefers. This is true for social non-human primates, canids, and hyenas as well. MacIntyre's goal appears to a form of primitive egalitarianism but why not Aristotle's version of the telos which legitimized slavery and the subordination of women? Not only is MacIntyre vague about how to define the goods or ends of human existence, he is also imprecise about the virtues, which he regards as crucial. Is a virtue an instrument to an end, as most of his comments suggest, or is it an end in itself as some of his discussion of just generosity seems to imply? Failure to clearly define how he reaches his conclusions regarding the proper ends of human life and lack of clear definition of virtue gives much of the discussion a hand-waving quality. I suspect that MacIntyre has a covert agenda; his frequent citation of Aquinas and the appearance towards the end of the book of the term natural law leads me to think he really thinks there is a theistic backstop for his position.

I'm not sure as well about his statement that moral philosophy fails to acknowledge human dependency. My impression is that the individualistic orientation of much moral philosophy has more to do with the rejection of external authority as a source of morality than blindness towards human dependency. Indeed, much political philosophy, which is an aspect of moral philosophy, often begins with an explicit recognition of human weakness and interdependence. This occurs as far back as the account of the Prometheus creation myth in Plato's Protagoras. MacIntyre attempts to deal with some alternative traditions but these are mainly straw man arguments as he compares his position with a fairly weak account of preference utilitarianism and with Nietzsche's amoralism.

MacIntyre's effort to apply his views to a positive political philosophy are likewise not successful. His reasoning leads him to disparage the modern liberal state as being unable to provide the type of primitive egalitrarianism he wants (this is certainly true) and and too much based on exploitative power relationships and competing economic interests to be morally adequate. He finds the family both too weak and potentially too confining to be adequate. Hence, the need for smaller and more moral communities. But is the modern liberal state as bad as MacIntyre would like us to believe? Given his emphasis on the importance of human dependence and mutual care, the fact is that liberal societies have done more to alleviate the problems of human dependency than other societies in human history and the ability to mobilize the resources of entire states is crucial in this endeavour. There is even evidence (see Herrmann et al., Science 319, 2008) that liberal democratic states encourage the type of altruistic behaviors that MacIntyre sees as the basis for a moral society. As MacIntyre acknowledges briefly, the type of communal groupings he prefers are at risk for the same types of exploitative relations that he assigns to the state. Indeed, the types of close social communal networks he would like to see are most likely to arise in smaller groups with strong familial, ethnic, or ideological bonds. These are often the types of groupings most prone to destructive behaviors and tend to resist the idea of universal human values. Moreover, in order to get the types of communities that MacIntyre desires, the initial locus of reform will have to be the state. His reluctance to deal with structure of the state is self-defeating. On the basis of poor justification, MacIntyre would like to exchange our admittedly imperfect state, which has some real virtues, for a vague utopianism.

Alasdair Macintire, well known for several renowned philosophical books, for example "After virtue". He is an authority on the issue of virtues and Aristotelian philosophy, where virtue plays an inmportant role. What is striking about this book however, is that recent research done on dolphins, chimpanzees and other intelligent nonhuman animals, has been taken notice of by the author. This includes self consciousness and rationality. He, in an excellent way, made these insights philsophically relevant In his previous works he has never made much about animal existence. Now for the first time he meaningfully incorporated new scientific insights on intelligent and rational animals in his thinking on virtues. This indeed a gain in thinking on animal (and human) existence. He does not hesitate to put his views forward. For those who are interested in philosophy and animal issues,this book will be an great asset.

In the second half of the book he also addresses the issue of dependence on and the need for virtues in human social life. Amonst many other things , he explains why neither the state nor the family would be primarily normative, why virtues guide us, but are not rigid rules. While he regards emotions as as important, his wisdom namely "Sentiment , unguided by reason , becomes sentimentalism and sentimantality is a sign of moral failure" (p124)is most relevant today;This surely applies to our making sense of both human and nonhuman animal exsistence.

In a time where the killing and possible extinction of whales dolphins,chimpanzess orang utangs by human ignorance, arrogance and error as well as and certain environmental problems, and where people are looking for moral answers, this book indeed tells us why humans need virtues. The book itself fulfill in a contemporary need.

This book is more moving than it is carefully argued. There's lots of unsupported assertion, and the detailed account of our need for the virtues is full of holes. But the approach is an attractive one. And this is a book of philosophical ethics that betrays a real concern for our frailties. Unlike a lot of dry philosophy, you get the sense that ethics really matters.