Thank you for your explanation of MacIntyre’s book. I just downloaded it to Kindle (in part because someone said it was an easy read. Ha! It’s isn’t that heady? But I do think you have to take your time to absorb this book. And that is the reason for my coming to your channel. Usually when I come across a book that is somewhat difficult to understand I like to hear an explanation of it. Your explanation of it makes me want to take a class with you! Good job professor! 👍🏼
I've been trying hard to parse out Alasdair Macintyre's thinking on ethics. I do think returning back to some sort of Aristotelian notion of nature can help to fill in the metaphysical vacuum left in the wake of modern ethics. Would you ever consider doing more videos in MacIntyre or After Virtue?
This seems very rooted in Western philosophic tradition. Does the moral sphere in the East or 'southern hemisphere ' world differ greatly from ours? Did China experience its own Enlightenment age with similar consequences?
I do not know nearly enough about these things! I can give this much of an answer: I think Confucius and Mencius are much closer to Aristotle than Aristotle is to Sartre.
Thank you for your video. Listening to After Virtue and watching your videos to help digest it all. I’m still confused on how we can understand what the Function of a Human might be without an “ought”. How can any function be derived a fact from within itself? Your watch can’t say what its function is, only you as something outside of the system of the watch can. It might say that its function is to last as long as possible, or have a particular sound when ticking. Its desired functions could overlap with yours, but they could also not. At that point, who’s to say which is right?
These are two separate questions, right? "I’m still confused on how we can understand what the Function of a Human might be without an 'ought'." I don't know either. I think it's probably best to take the idea of function to include an _ought_ .
Now there are (at least) two relevant differences between the watch's function and the function of a human being. One difference is that we are _not_ the watch, but we _are_ humans. The other is that we have rational minds, and the watch doesn't. If the watch can't identify its own function but we can, is it because of the first difference or because of the second?
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy Might also be helpful to keep in mind the scholastic distinction of substantial and accidental form. The watch would have an accidental form, the same with books, images, etc. They are disparate collections of matter we impose meaning on. The sentence written on a paper "cats are not dogs" has no inherent meaning but rather has derivative meaning from a human mind that imposes said meaning on it. The watch's function isn't inherent to it, its form as a time teller is merely accidental - - something that can only exist first in the human mind and imposed onto it.
Ty for this spicy speech with strong opinions. Let's put overemphasized "old white men", ie. analytic/pragmatic philosophers, aside. Looking at the wide field of moral/ethical statements ("functional", hints for a successful life, commandments) (truth, beliefs, theory of mind..) Hume's / Moore's fallacies can actually co-exist with sound surface arguments about 'useful' moral statements, at least in the context of ethical narratives. Could you defend your beliefs with controversial 'real' moral statements? All women should wear a veil? The supreme court decisions in 2022 were 100% morally justified...
But how can we decide what the function of a human is without falling into the naturalistic fallacy? And won't the answer to,' 'what is the proper human function?' be circular regardless of whatever reason we give? It's been a while since I read After Virtue, but I think MacIntyre stresses the importance of institutions and roles in society to assign proper function? I think I'm a contextualist these days, but need more time to investigate that position.
I can see no naturalistic fallacy in MacIntyre. He argues carefully that an _ought_ can follow from an _is_ . No fallacy in getting "He ought to know the material he is teaching" from "He is a teacher." Also, he is very clear that the moral aim is not the same as the way a person is. _Man as he is_ is not the same as _man as he should be_ .
Institutions help reinforce proper function but we could decide what proper function is based on our unique abilities. Reason predicts outcomes therefore we can use it to do harm or benefit. We have capacity to know God's attitudes therefore we ought to allow God to impart them and follow them. We can predict what actions bring life, it is better to bring life than death.
I said what it _means_ . But maybe I didn't say what the PF of a human actually is. It's not the same as the PF of a teacup. I don't think MacIntyre even says what it is in _this_ book. Read his other books. Or watch my videos on Aristotle’s _Nichomachean Ethics_ .
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy I think that what MacIntyre is saying here is, no we can't. Without a common basis of morality we are left to decide what is moral in a messy case by case basis. Being humans we further complicate things by attaching silly mind loops and games to fictitious scenarios. The real world outcome of this is that humans spend generations wasting their time to solve the same problems that religion already solved, but in a way that takes God out of the decision process.
"Without a common basis of morality we are left to decide what is moral in a messy case by case basis." Yes, but in _After Virtue_ MacIntyre is interested in the following common basis: the proper function of the human being. It's not a religious book. Later, as I understand it, he became a Catholic Christian! There's no rule that you can't do a proper functionalist ethics and a religious ethics at the same time. Augustine and Aquinas sure did!
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy"Yes, but in After Virtue MacIntyre is interested in the following common basis: the proper function of the human being. It's not a religious book" What you're saying right here is a great example of the very problem MacIntyre is describing. We are speaking of the function of the human beings, but not in the same context. This is like saying "I'm speaking of life, not about the sun or oxygen". This is why I say that by throwing God out of "human function" you are left with a case by case mess. Whether one believes in God or not, at the very least the application of "God" gives us a common framework to build values off of. Otherwise we have to litigate everything from the rights of animals, to the reasonability of a clean environment, to what is morally permissible in business, what is permissible in intimacy and human relations.....all the way to the very meaning of life. When God is thrown out there are no answers, only opinions. "God" acts as the certification stamp on the document of life that defines what the moral life should be and gives it legitimacy. Without God we are left to ask the same questions over and over again with no real answer and with a downward force to the lowest level of morality. Without speaking from a common context morality becomes democratized and gets its definition and context from popular action. The mob and its common action decide decency. Today that would be social media litigating what constitutes right behavior....this has it's own downward problems with anonymity and public morality being shaped by faceless individuals that might otherwise be ignored in the town square if one were to meet them face to face. I believe this is what MacIntyre was scratching the surface of and one could say as you pointed out that even he in his personal life eventually found a need to involve God.
Had I world enough and time, maybe I could scour this comment of yours and find something to disagree with, but there's not much point. I do believe I agree with rather a lot of it. The proper function of the human being is best known from our designer's Word, and has rather a lot to do with Him.
"When I say 'very brief' I do not mean that the video itself will be very brief". The most academic of academic disclaimers.
Thank you for your explanation of MacIntyre’s book. I just downloaded it to Kindle (in part because someone said it was an easy read. Ha! It’s isn’t that heady? But I do think you have to take your time to absorb this book. And that is the reason for my coming to your channel. Usually when I come across a book that is somewhat difficult to understand I like to hear an explanation of it. Your explanation of it makes me want to take a class with you! Good job professor! 👍🏼
Thanks!
In her Sovereignty of the Good Iris Murdoch laid a grounding for modern ethics without any resort to a transcendent law giver.
So did Kant! The question is whether a theory in ethics uses a concept of moral law without including a moral lawgiver.
I've been trying hard to parse out Alasdair Macintyre's thinking on ethics. I do think returning back to some sort of Aristotelian notion of nature can help to fill in the metaphysical vacuum left in the wake of modern ethics.
Would you ever consider doing more videos in MacIntyre or After Virtue?
In theory, yes, I'd love to!
In _practice_ , who knows? There's so much exciting philosophy to talk about!
You might be interested in the Modern Stoicism movement. Many videos on this on TH-cam.
I'm a big fan of MacIntyre.
Hello, Nam Hi!
This seems very rooted in Western philosophic tradition. Does the moral sphere in the East or 'southern hemisphere ' world differ greatly from ours? Did China experience its own Enlightenment age with similar consequences?
I do not know nearly enough about these things! I can give this much of an answer: I think Confucius and Mencius are much closer to Aristotle than Aristotle is to Sartre.
Thank you for your video. Listening to After Virtue and watching your videos to help digest it all.
I’m still confused on how we can understand what the Function of a Human might be without an “ought”.
How can any function be derived a fact from within itself? Your watch can’t say what its function is, only you as something outside of the system of the watch can. It might say that its function is to last as long as possible, or have a particular sound when ticking. Its desired functions could overlap with yours, but they could also not. At that point, who’s to say which is right?
These are two separate questions, right?
"I’m still confused on how we can understand what the Function of a Human might be without an 'ought'."
I don't know either. I think it's probably best to take the idea of function to include an _ought_ .
Now there are (at least) two relevant differences between the watch's function and the function of a human being.
One difference is that we are _not_ the watch, but we _are_ humans.
The other is that we have rational minds, and the watch doesn't.
If the watch can't identify its own function but we can, is it because of the first difference or because of the second?
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy Might also be helpful to keep in mind the scholastic distinction of substantial and accidental form. The watch would have an accidental form, the same with books, images, etc. They are disparate collections of matter we impose meaning on. The sentence written on a paper "cats are not dogs" has no inherent meaning but rather has derivative meaning from a human mind that imposes said meaning on it. The watch's function isn't inherent to it, its form as a time teller is merely accidental - - something that can only exist first in the human mind and imposed onto it.
Ty for this spicy speech with strong opinions. Let's put overemphasized "old white men", ie. analytic/pragmatic philosophers, aside. Looking at the wide field of moral/ethical statements ("functional", hints for a successful life, commandments) (truth, beliefs, theory of mind..) Hume's / Moore's fallacies can actually co-exist with sound surface arguments about 'useful' moral statements, at least in the context of ethical narratives. Could you defend your beliefs with controversial 'real' moral statements? All women should wear a veil? The supreme court decisions in 2022 were 100% morally justified...
I don't follow. Is part of this the idea that moral statements are not _real_ statements?
But how can we decide what the function of a human is without falling into the naturalistic fallacy? And won't the answer to,' 'what is the proper human function?' be circular regardless of whatever reason we give? It's been a while since I read After Virtue, but I think MacIntyre stresses the importance of institutions and roles in society to assign proper function? I think I'm a contextualist these days, but need more time to investigate that position.
I can see no naturalistic fallacy in MacIntyre. He argues carefully that an _ought_ can follow from an _is_ . No fallacy in getting "He ought to know the material he is teaching" from "He is a teacher."
Also, he is very clear that the moral aim is not the same as the way a person is. _Man as he is_ is not the same as _man as he should be_ .
There's no circular reasoning either. Think about proper biological function, i.e. human health. How do we learn about that?
Institutions help reinforce proper function but we could decide what proper function is based on our unique abilities. Reason predicts outcomes therefore we can use it to do harm or benefit. We have capacity to know God's attitudes therefore we ought to allow God to impart them and follow them. We can predict what actions bring life, it is better to bring life than death.
36:30 pep talk for incels! 😂
This video = How to speak for 33 minutes about how moral philosophy lacks the concept of human proper function without saying what that means.
I said what it _means_ . But maybe I didn't say what the PF of a human actually is. It's not the same as the PF of a teacup. I don't think MacIntyre even says what it is in _this_ book. Read his other books. Or watch my videos on Aristotle’s _Nichomachean Ethics_ .
In short, humans need God. Without God any discussion of morals is disjointed and out of context.
Can we talk about the proper function of the human being without talking about God?
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy I think that what MacIntyre is saying here is, no we can't. Without a common basis of morality we are left to decide what is moral in a messy case by case basis. Being humans we further complicate things by attaching silly mind loops and games to fictitious scenarios. The real world outcome of this is that humans spend generations wasting their time to solve the same problems that religion already solved, but in a way that takes God out of the decision process.
"Without a common basis of morality we are left to decide what is moral in a messy case by case basis."
Yes, but in _After Virtue_ MacIntyre is interested in the following common basis: the proper function of the human being. It's not a religious book.
Later, as I understand it, he became a Catholic Christian! There's no rule that you can't do a proper functionalist ethics and a religious ethics at the same time. Augustine and Aquinas sure did!
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy"Yes, but in After Virtue MacIntyre is interested in the following common basis: the proper function of the human being. It's not a religious book"
What you're saying right here is a great example of the very problem MacIntyre is describing. We are speaking of the function of the human beings, but not in the same context. This is like saying "I'm speaking of life, not about the sun or oxygen". This is why I say that by throwing God out of "human function" you are left with a case by case mess. Whether one believes in God or not, at the very least the application of "God" gives us a common framework to build values off of. Otherwise we have to litigate everything from the rights of animals, to the reasonability of a clean environment, to what is morally permissible in business, what is permissible in intimacy and human relations.....all the way to the very meaning of life. When God is thrown out there are no answers, only opinions. "God" acts as the certification stamp on the document of life that defines what the moral life should be and gives it legitimacy. Without God we are left to ask the same questions over and over again with no real answer and with a downward force to the lowest level of morality. Without speaking from a common context morality becomes democratized and gets its definition and context from popular action. The mob and its common action decide decency. Today that would be social media litigating what constitutes right behavior....this has it's own downward problems with anonymity and public morality being shaped by faceless individuals that might otherwise be ignored in the town square if one were to meet them face to face. I believe this is what MacIntyre was scratching the surface of and one could say as you pointed out that even he in his personal life eventually found a need to involve God.
Had I world enough and time, maybe I could scour this comment of yours and find something to disagree with, but there's not much point. I do believe I agree with rather a lot of it. The proper function of the human being is best known from our designer's Word, and has rather a lot to do with Him.