On the priority of the good over the right: Habermas vs. MacIntyre

Nicholas K Meriwether, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine and compare the ethical theories of Jurgen Habermas and Alasdair MacIntyre with the intention of resolving their disagreement regarding whether a vision of the good must decide how we define justice, or whether a procedural definition of justice can be elucidated such that questions regarding the good life can be eliminated, or at least suspended, from consideration. The question which guided my research, whether the good or the right has priority, was settled provisionally in favor of the priority of the good. The central reasons for this are as follows: (a) Habermas is unable to provide sufficient grounds for his stipulation that discourse only involve "norms of action" as opposed to substantive or evaluative questions of the good life; (b) since the presuppositions of discourse involve commitment to what can only be considered substantive goods, a vision of the good must take normative precedence over formal procedures; and (c) Habermas's research is located within a particular tradition of inquiry. As MacIntyre demonstrates, location within a tradition of inquiry reduces one's view of justice to contingency. One's view of justice must then be vindicated in conjunction with a metaphysical commitment which formal-pragmatic practical discourse cannot accommodate. Despite the presence of theoretical commonalities regarding the social constitution of the self, the rejection of classical foundationalism, the centrality of reason and of language to moral theory, and the ultimately discursive validation of definitions of truth and justice, it remains unclear, and somewhat unlikely, that a synthesis of their positions is possible. This is due in large part to wide divergence in their respective interpretations of intellectual history, specifically, whether the Enlightenment Project of prescinding epistemological and normative inquiry from contingent traditions represents an intellectual advance or a mistake. Thus, while both thinkers are committed to the idea that moral and epistemological questions are ultimately resolvable on the basis of reasons, there does not at this time appear to be the kinds of reasons available which would appeal to both in such a way that their disagreement over the priority of the good vs. the right can be rationally decided.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

McBride, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Theology|Philosophy

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