MacIntyre

MacIntyre



MacIntyre

Introduction

Of the three sets of virtues MacIntyre describes in Dependent Rational Animals, the first two are apropos of the intent of this paper. The first set of theses contends that from the time of early childhood activities and thereafter, man comports himself toward reality in a similar way as other intelligent animals. While man may indeed transcend the limitations of these animals, he never emancipates himself from those characteristics he shares with them. Human identity is primarily animal identity. The second set of theses concerns the “virtues of independent rational agency” and the need for accompanying “virtues of acknowledged dependence.” Together, these sets of virtues are necessary for the actualization of distinctive potentialities specific to man. (Murphy 2003)

MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals

Over the course of the past two decades, MacIntyre's work has been occupied with the retrieval and application of virtue ethics. Essential to virtue ethics is the recognition of a telosor goal toward which man strives, the potentiality of which is grounded in nature: “humans are goal-directed in virtue of their recognition of goods specific to their nature to be achieved.” (Seung 1993)These goods have their raison d'être in this telos, and the attainment of these goods propels a creature toward it. Indeed, the achievement of that telos is a good in itself. Each species has its own telos and its own goods that aid it in the pursuit of fulfillment—the species' purposiveness and advantage, to import Midgley's terminology.

MacIntyre looks to compare man with another intelligent, social animal: the dolphin. If it is true that goods can be ascribed to dolphins, it seems reasonable to ascribe to them reasons for pursuing these goods. And MacIntyre is confident that dolphins fulfill the criteria for having reasons ascribed to them: a set of goods toward which they aim to achieve, a set of judgments about which actions are most appropriate and efficient to achieve, and a set of counterfactual conditions that enables one to connect the dolphins' goal-directedness to their judgments. (Bielskis 2005 )Even more compelling are the perceptual and communicative capacities possessed by dolphins whereby they establish individual and communal awareness of the relevant facts surrounding their environment, their goods and their goals. MacIntyre presumes to be justified, in light of the extensive studies and data collected on dolphins, to ascribe to them thoughts and beliefs.

The matter of another comparison between man and intelligent animals is what MacIntyre dubs “pre-linguistic distinction-making.” While human language enables man to characterize, reflect and classify his perceptual experiences, it is always preceded by more basic pre-lingual distinctions between truth and falsity embodied in beliefs stemming from perceptions of change. While the gradual acquisition of language over the course of a lifetime affords the luxury of reflecting upon and characterizing this prelinguistic distinction-making, there remains an essential continuity between prelinguistic and linguistic capacities. The former provides the basis for the latter, and the latter conceptualizes and communicates the former(Knight 2007). MacIntyre feels that these observations lend credence to describing certain intelligent animals, such as dolphins ...