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Rationality is the collection of theories, beliefs, principles, and facts that the human subject uses to judge the world, and a person’s rationality is, to a large extent, the product of that person’s education and moral formation.

To the extent that a person accepts what is handed down from the moral and intellectual traditions of her or his community in learning to judge truth and falsity, good and evil, that person’s rationality is “tradition-constituted.” Tradition-constituted rationality provides the schemata by which we interpret, understand, and judge the world we live in

The apparent problem of relativism in Macintyre’s theory of rationality is much like the problem of relativism in the philosophy of science. Scientific claims develop within larger theoretical frameworks, so that the apparent truth of a scientific claim depends on one’s judgment of the larger framework. The resolution of the problem of relativism therefore appears to hang on the possibility of judging frameworks or rationalities, or judging between frameworks or rationalities from a position that does not presuppose the truth of the framework or rationality, but no such theoretical standpoint is humanly possible.

MacIntyre fInds that the world Itself provIdes the crIterIon for the testIng of ratIonalItIes, and he fInds that there Is no crIterIon except the world Itself that can stand as the measure of the truth of any phIlosophIcal theory.

MacIntyre’s phIlosophy Is Indebted to the phIlosophy of scIence, whIch recognIzes the hIstorIcIsm of scIentIfIc enquIry even as It seeks a truthful understandIng of the world. MacIntyre’s phIlosophy does not offer a prIorI certaInty about any theory or prIncIple; It examInes the ways In whIch reflectIon upon experIence supports, challenges, or falsIfIes theorIes that have appeared to be the best theorIes so far to the people who have accepted them so far. MacIntyre’s Ideal enquIrers remaIn Hamlets, not Emmas.

history shows us that individuals, communities, and even whole nations may commit themselves militantly over long periods of their histories to doctrines that their ideological adversaries find irrational. This qualified relativism of appearances has troublesome implications for anyone who believes that philosophical enquiry can easily provide certain knowledge of the world

According to Macintyre, theories govern the ways that we interpret the world and no theory is ever more than “the best standards so far” (3RV, p. 65). Our theories always remain open to improvement, and when our theories change, the appearances of our world—the apparent truths of claims judged within those theoretical frameworks—change with them.

From the subjective standpoint of the human enquirer, Macintyre finds that theories, concepts, and facts all have histories, and they are all liable to change—for better or for worse.

MacIntyre holds that the ratIonalIty of IndIvIduals Is not only tradItIon-constItuted, It Is also tradItIon constItutIve, as IndIvIduals make theIr own contrIbutIons to theIr own ratIonalIty, and to the ratIonalItIes of theIr communItIes. RatIonalIty Is not fIxed, wIthIn eIther the hIstory of a communIty or the lIfe of a person

The modern account of first principles justifies an approach to philosophy that rejects tradition. The modern liberal individualist approach is anti-traditional. it denies that our understanding is tradition-constituted and it denies that different cultures may differ in their standards of rationality and justice:

Modernity does not see tradition as the key that unlocks moral and political understanding, but as a superfluous accumulation of opinions that tend to prejudice moral and political reasoning.

Although modernity rejects tradition as a method of moral and political enquiry, Macintyre finds that it nevertheless bears all the characteristics of a moral and political tradition.

If hIstorIcal narratIves are only projectIons of the Interests of hIstorIans, then It Is dIffIcult to see how thIs hIstorIcal narratIve can claIm to be truthful

For these post-modern theorists, “if the Enlightenment conceptions of truth and rationality cannot be sustained,” either relativism or perspectivism “is the only possible alternative” (p. 353). Macintyre rejects both challenges by developing his theory of tradition-constituted and tradition-constitutive rationality on pp. 354-369

How, then, is one to settle challenges between two traditions? it depends on whether the adherents of either take the challenges of the other tradition seriously. it depends on whether the adherents of either tradition, on seeing a failure in their own tradition are willing to consider an answer offered by their rival (p. 355)

how a person with no traditional affiliation is to deal with the conflicting claims of rival traditions: “The initial answer is: that will depend upon who you are and how you understand yourself. This is not the kind of answer which we have been educated to expect in philosophy”

MacIntyre focuses the crItIque of modernIty on the questIon of ratIonal justIfIcatIon. Modern epIstemology stands or falls on the possIbIlIty of CartesIan epIstemologIcal fIrst prIncIples. MacIntyre’s hIstory exposes that notIon of fIrst prIncIple as a fIctIon, and at the same tIme demonstrates that ratIonal enquIry advances (or declInes) only through tradItIon

MacIntyre cItes Foucault’s 1966 book, Les Mots et les choses (The Order of ThIngs, 1970) as an example of the self-subvertIng character of GenealogIcal enquIry

Foucault’s book reduces history to a procession of “incommensurable ordered schemes of classification and representation” none of which has any greater claim to truth than any other, yet this book “is itself organized as a scheme of classification and representation.”

From MacIntyre’s perspectIve, there Is no questIon of decIdIng whether or not to work wIthIn a tradItIon; everyone who struggles wIth practIcal, moral, and polItIcal questIons sImply does. “There Is no standIng ground, no place for enquIry . . . apart from that whIch Is provIded by some partIcular tradItIon or other”

Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990). The central idea of the Gifford Lectures is that philosophers make progress by addressing the shortcomings of traditional narratives about the world, shortcomings that become visible either through the failure of traditional narratives to make sense of experience, or through the introduction of contradictory narratives that prove impossible to dismiss

MacIntyre compares three tradItIons exemplIfIed by three lIterary works publIshed near the end of Adam GIfford’s lIfe (1820–1887)

The Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1875–1889) represents the modern tradition of trying to understand the world objectively without the influence of tradition.

The Genealogy of Morals (1887), by Friedrich Nietzsche embodies the post-modern tradition of interpreting all traditions as arbitrary impositions of power.

The encyclical letter Aeterni Patris (1879) of Pope Leo Xiii exemplifies the approach of acknowledging one’s predecessors within one’s own tradition of enquiry and working to advance or improve that tradition in the pursuit of objective truth. 

Of the three versions of moral enquiry treated in 3RV, only tradition, exemplified in 3RV by the Aristotelian, Thomistic tradition, understands itself as a tradition that looks backward to predecessors in order to understand present questions and move forward

Encyclopaedia obscures the role of tradition by presenting the most current conclusions and convictions of a tradition as if they had no history, and as if they represented the final discovery of unalterable truth

Encyclopaedists focus on the present and ignore the past.

Genealogists, on the other hand, focus on the past in order to undermine the claims of the present.

In short, Genealogy denIes the teleology of human enquIry by denyIng (1) that hIstorIcal enquIry has been fruItful, (2) that the enquIrIng person has a real IdentIty, and (3) that enquIry has a real goal. MacIntyre fInds thIs mode of enquIry Incoherent.

Genealogy is self-deceiving insofar as it ignores the traditional and teleological character of its enquiry.

Genealogical moral enquiry must make similar exceptions to its treatments of the unity of the enquiring subject and the teleology of moral enquiry; thus “it seems to be the case that the intelligibility of genealogy requires beliefs and allegiances of a kind precluded by the genealogical stance” (3RV, p. 54-55)

MacIntyre uses ThomIsm because It applIes the tradItIonal mode of enquIry In a self-conscIous manner. ThomIstIc students learn the work of phIlosophIcal enquIry as apprentIces In a craft (3RV, p. 61), and maIntaIn the prIncIples of the tradItIon In theIr work to extend the understandIng of the tradItIon, even as they remaIn open to the crItIcIsm of those prIncIples.

3RV uses Thomism as its example of tradition, but this use should not suggest that Macintyre identifies “tradition” with Thomism or Thomism-as-a-name-for-the-Western-tradition. As noted above, WJWR distinguished four traditions of enquiry within the Western European world alone

MacIntyre’s emphasIs on the temporalIty of ratIonalIty In tradItIonal enquIry makes tradItIon IncompatIble wIth the epIstemologIcal projects of modern phIlosophy

Tradition is not merely conservative; it remains open to improvement,

Tradition differs from both encyclopaedia and genealogy in the way it understands the place of its theories in the history of human enquiry. The adherent of a tradition must understand that “the rationality of a craft is justified by its history so far,” thus it “is inseparable from the tradition through which it was achieved”

MacIntyre uses Thomas AquInas to Illustrate the revolutIonary potentIal of tradItIonal enquIry. Thomas was educated In AugustInIan theology and ArIstotelIan phIlosophy, and through thIs educatIon he began to see not only the contradIctIons between the two tradItIons, but also the strengths and weaknesses that each tradItIon revealed In the other. HIs educatIon also helped hIm to dIscover a host of questIons and problems that had to be answered and solved. Many of Thomas AquInas’ responses to these concerns took the form of dIsputed questIons. “Yet to each questIon the answer produced by AquInas as a conclusIon Is no more than and, gIven AquInas’s method, cannot but be no more than, the best answer reached so far. And hence derIves the essentIal Incompleteness”

argue that the virtues are essential to the practice of independent practical reason. The book is relentlessly practical; its arguments appeal only to experience and to purposes, and to the logic of practical reasoning.

Like other intelligent animals, human beings enter life vulnerable, weak, untrained, and unknowing, and face the likelihood of infirmity in sickness and in old age. Like other social animals, humans flourish in groups. We learn to regulate our passions, and to act effectively alone and in concert with others through an education provided within a community. Macintyre’s position allows him to look to the animal world to find analogies to the role of social relationships in the moral formation of human beings

The task for the human child is to make “the transition from the infantile exercise of animal intelligence to the exercise of independent practical reasoning” (DRA, p. 87). For a child to make this transition is “to redirect and transform her or his desires, and subsequently to direct them consistently towards the goods of different stages of her or his life” (DRA, p. 87). The development of independent practical reason in the human agent requires the moral virtues in at least three ways.

DRA presents moral knowledge as a “knowing how,” rather than as a “knowing that.” Knowledge of moral rules is not sufficient for a moral life; prudence is required to enable the agent to apply the rules well.

“Knowing how to act virtuously always involves more than rule-following” (DRA, p. 93). The prudent person can judge what must be done in the absence of a rule and can also judge when general norms cannot be applied to particular cases.

Flourishing as an independent practical reasoner requires the virtues in a second way, simply because sometimes we need our friends to tell us who we really are. independent practical reasoning also requires self-knowledge, but self-knowledge is impossible without the input of others whose judgment provides a reliable touchstone to test our beliefs about ourselves. Self-knowledge therefore requires the virtues that enable an agent to sustain formative relationships and to accept the criticism of trusted friends

Human flourishing requires the virtues in a third way, by making it possible to participate in social and political action. They enable us to “protect ourselves and others against neglect, defective sympathies, stupidity, acquisitiveness, and malice” (DRA, p. 98) by enabling us to form and sustain social relationships through which we may care for one another in our infirmities, and pursue common goods with and for the other members of our societies.

MacIntyre argues that It Is ImpossIble to fInd an external standpoInt, because ratIonal enquIry Is an essentIally socIal work (DRA, p. 156-7). Because It Is socIal, shared ratIonal enquIry requIres moral commItment to, and practIce of, the vIrtues to prevent the more complacent members of communItIes from closIng off crItIcal reflectIon upon “shared polItIcally effectIve belIefs and concepts”

MacIntyre fInds hImself compelled to answer what may be called the questIon of moral provIncIalIsm: If one Is to seek the truth about moralIty and justIce, It seems necessary to “fInd a standpoInt that Is suffIcIently external to the evaluatIve attItudes and practIces that are to be put to the questIon.” If It Is ImpossIble for the agent to take such an external standpoInt, If the agent’s commItments preclude radIcal crItIcIsm of the vIrtues of the communIty, does that leave the agent “a prIsoner of shared prejudIces” (DRA, p. 154)?

The book moves from MacIntyre’s assessment of human needs for the vIrtues to the polItIcal ImplIcatIons of that assessment. SocIal and polItIcal InstItutIons that form and enable Independent practIcal reasonIng must “satIsfy three condItIons.” (1) They must enable theIr members to partIcIpate In shared delIberatIons about the communItIes’ actIons. (2) They must establIsh norms of justIce “consIstent wIth exercIse of” the vIrtue of justIce. (3) They must enable the strong “to stand proxy” as advocates for the needs of the weak and the dIsabled.

The social and political institutions that Macintyre recommends cannot be identified with the modern nation state or the modern nuclear family

The political structures necessary for human flourishing are essentially local

Yet local communities support human flourishing only when they actively support “the virtues of just generosity and shared deliberation”

MacIntyre rejects IndIvIdualIsm and InsIsts that we vIew human beIngs as members of communItIes who bear specIfIc debts and responsIbIlItIes because of our socIal IdentItIes. The responsIbIlItIes one may InherIt as a member of a communIty Include debts to one’s forbearers that one can only repay to people In the present and future

The constructive argument of the second half of the book begins with traditional accounts of the excellences or virtues of practical reasoning and practical rationality rather than virtues of moral reasoning or morality. These traditional accounts define virtue as arête, as excellence

Practices are supported by institutions like chess clubs, hospitals, universities, industrial corporations, sports leagues, and political organizations.

Practices exist in tension with these institutions, since the institutions tend to be oriented to goods external to practices. Universities, hospitals, and scholarly societies may value prestige, profitability, or relations with political interest groups above excellence in the practices they are said to support.

Personal desires and institutional pressures to pursue external goods may threaten to derail practitioners’ pursuits of the goods internal to practices. Macintyre defines virtue initially as the quality of character that enables an agent to overcome these temptations:

“A virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices

Excellence as a human agent cannot be reduced to excellence in a particular practice (See AV, pp. 204–

The virtues therefore are to be understood as those dispositions which will not only sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices, but which will also sustain us in the relevant kind of quest for the good, by enabling us to overcome the harms, dangers, temptations, and distractions which we encounter, and which will furnish us with increasing self-knowledge and increasing knowledge of the good (AV, p. 219).

The excellent human agent has the moral qualities to seek what is good and best both in practices and in life as a whole.

The virtues find their point and purpose not only in sustaining those relationships necessary if the variety of goods internal to practices are to be achieved and not only in sustaining the form of an individual life in which that individual may seek out his or her good as the good of his or her whole life, but also in sustaining those traditions which provide both practices and individual lives with their necessary historical context (AV, p. 223)

Since “goods, and with them the only grounds for the authority of laws and virtues, can only be discovered by entering into those relationships which constitute communities whose central bond is a shared vision of and understanding of goods” (AV, p. 258), any hope for the transformation and renewal of society depends on the development and maintenance of such communities.

MacIntyre’s ArIstotelIan approach to ethIcs as a study of human actIon dIstInguIshes hIm from post-KantIan moral phIlosophers who approach ethIcs as a means of determInIng the demands of objectIve, Impersonal, unIversal moralIty

This modern approach may be described as moral epistemology. Modern moral philosophy pretends to free the individual to determine for her- or himself what she or he must do in a given situation, irrespective of her or his own desires; it pretends to give knowledge of universal moral laws

Aristotelian metaphysicians, particularly Thomists who define virtue in terms of the perfection of nature, rejected Macintyre’s contention that an adequate Aristotelian account of virtue as excellence in practical reasoning and human action need not appeal to Aristotelian metaphysic

one group of critics rejects Macintyre’s Aristotelianism because they hold that any Aristotelian account of the virtues must first account for the truth about virtue in terms of Aristotle’s philosophy of nature, which Macintyre had dismissed in AV as “metaphysical biology”

Many of those who rejected MacIntyre’s turn to ArIstotle defIne “vIrtue” prImarIly along moral lInes, as obedIence to law or adherence to some kInd of natural norm. For these crItIcs, “vIrtuous” appears synonymous wIth “morally correct;” theIr resIstance to MacIntyre’s appeal to vIrtue stems from theIr dIffIcultIes eIther wIth what they take to be the shortcomIngs of MacIntyre’s account of moral correctness or wIth the notIon of moral correctness altogether

MacIntyre contInues to argue from the experIence of practIcal reasonIng to the demands of moral educatIon.

Descartes and his successors, by contrast, along with certain “notable Thomists of the last hundred years” (p. 175), have proposed that philosophy begins from knowledge of some “set of necessarily true first principles which any truly rational person is able to evaluate as true” (p. 175). Thus for the moderns, philosophy is a technical rather than moral endeavor

MacIntyre dIstInguIshes two related challenges to hIs posItIon, the “relatIvIst challenge” and the “perspectIvIst challenge.” These two challenges both acknowledge that the goals of the EnlIghtenment cannot be met and that, “the only avaIlable standards of ratIonalIty are those made avaIlable by and wIthIn tradItIons” (p. 252); they conclude that nothIng can be known to be true or false

MacIntyre follows the progress of the Western tradItIon through “three dIstInct tradItIons:” from Homer and ArIstotle to Thomas AquInas, from AugustIne to Thomas AquInas and from AugustIne through CalvIn to Hume

Chapter 17 examines the modern liberal denial of tradition, and the ironic transformation of liberalism into the fourth tradition to be treated in the book.

MacIntyre credIts John Stuart MIll and Thomas AquInas as “two phIlosophers of the kInd who by theIr wrItIng send us beyond phIlosophy Into ImmedIate encounter wIth the ends of lIfe

First, both were engaged by questions about the ends of life as questioning human beings and not just as philosophers. . . .

Secondly, both Mill and Aquinas understood their speaking and writing as contributing to an ongoing philosophical conversation. . . .

Thirdly, it matters that both the end of the conversation and the good of those who participate in it is truth and that the nature of truth, of good, of rational justification, and of meaning therefore have to be central topics of that conversation (Tasks, pp. 130-1).

Without these three characteristics, philosophy is first reduced to “the exercise of a set of analytic and argumentative skills. . . . Secondly, philosophy may thereby become a diversion from asking questions about the ends of life with any seriousness”

Neither Rosenzweig nor Lukács made philosophical progress because both failed to relate “their questions about the ends of life to the ends of their philosophical writing”

First, any adequate philosophical history or biography must determine whether the authors studied remain engaged with the questions that philosophy studies, or set the questions aside in favor of the answers. Second, any adequate philosophical history or biography must determine whether the authors studied insulated themselves from contact with conflicting worldviews or remained open to learning from every available philosophical approach. Third, any adequate philosophical history or biography must place the authors studied into a broader context that shows what traditions they come from and “whose projects” they are “carrying forward

MacIntyre’s recognItIon of the connectIon between an author’s pursuIt of the ends of lIfe and the same author’s work as a phIlosophIcal wrIter prompts hIm to fInIsh the essay by demandIng three thIngs of phIlosophIcal hIstorIans and bIographers

Philosophy is not just a study; it is a practice. Excellence in this practice demands that an author bring her or his struggles with the questions of the ends of philosophy into dialogue with historic and contemporary texts and authors in the hope of making progress in answering those questions

MacIntyre defends ThomIstIc realIsm as ratIonal enquIry dIrected to the dIscovery of truth.

The three Thomistic essays in this book challenge those caricatures by presenting Thomism in a way that people outside of contemporary Thomistic scholarship may find surprisingly flexible and open

To be a moral agent, (1) one must understand one’s individual identity as transcending all the roles that one fills; (2) one must see oneself as a practically rational individual who can judge and reject unjust social standards; and (3) one must understand oneself as “as accountable to others in respect of the human virtues and not just in respect of [one’s] role-performances

J is guilty because he complacently accepted social structures that he should have questioned, structures that undermined his moral agency. This essay shows that Macintyre’s ethics of human agency is not just a descriptive narrative about the manner of moral education; it is a standard laden account of the demands of moral agency.

MacIntyre consIders “the case of J” (J, for jemand, the German word for “someone”), a traIn controller who learned, as a standard for hIs socIal role, to take no Interest In what hIs traIns carrIed, even durIng war tIme when they carrIed “munItIons and . . . Jews on theIr way to extermInatIon camps”

J had learned to do his work for the railroad according to one set of standards and to live other parts of his life according to other standards, so that this compliant participant in “the final solution” could contend, “You cannot charge me with moral failure” (E&P, p. 187).

The epistemological theories of Modern moral philosophy were supposed to provide rational justification for rules, policies, and practical determinations according to abstract universal standards, but Macintyre has dismissed those theorie

Modern metaethics is supposed to enable its practitioners to step away from the conflicting demands of contending moral traditions and to judge those conflicts from a neutral position, but Macintyre has rejected this project as well

In hIs ethIcal wrItIngs, MacIntyre seeks only to understand how to lIberate the human agent from blIndness and stupIdIty, to prepare the human agent to recognIze what Is good and best to do In the concrete cIrcumstances of that agent’s own lIfe, and to strengthen the agent to follow through on that judgment.

In hIs polItIcal wrItIngs, MacIntyre InvestIgates the role of communItIes In the formatIon of effectIve ratIonal agents, and the Impact of polItIcal InstItutIons on the lIves of communItIes. ThIs kInd of ethIcs and polItIcs Is approprIately named the ethIcs of human agency.

The purpose of the modern moral philosophy of authors like Kant and Mill was to determine, rationally and universally, what kinds of behavior ought to be performed—not in terms of the agent’s desires or goals, but in terms of universal, rational duties. Those theories purported to let agents know what they ought to do by providing knowledge of duties and obligations, thus they could be described as theories of moral epistemology.

Contemporary virtue ethics purports to let agents know what qualities human beings ought to have, and the reasons that we ought to have them, not in terms of our fitness for human agency, but in the same universal, disinterested, non-teleological terms that it inherits from Kant and Mill.

For MacIntyre, moral knowledge remaIns a “knowIng how” rather than a “knowIng that;” MacIntyre seeks to IdentIfy those moral and Intellectual excellences that make human beIngs more effectIve In our pursuIt of the human good.

MacIntyre’s purpose In hIs ethIcs of human agency Is to consIder what It means to seek one’s good, what It takes to pursue one’s good, and what kInd of a person one must become If one wants to pursue that good effectIvely as a human agent.

As a philosophy of human agency, Macintyre’s work belongs to the traditions of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

in keeping with the insight of Marx’s third thesis on Feuerbach, it maintained the common condition of theorists and people as peers in the pursuit of the good life.

He holds that the human good plays a role in our practical reasoning whether we recognize it or not, so that some people may do well without understanding why (E&P, p. 25). He also reads Aristotle as teaching that knowledge of the good can make us better agents

AV defines virtue in terms of the practical requirements for excellence in human agency, in an agent’s participation in practices (AV, ch. 14), in an agent’s whole life, and in an agent’s involvement in the life of her or his community

MacIntyre’s ArIstotelIan concept of “human actIon” opposes the notIon of “human behavIor” that prevaIled among mId-twentIeth-century determInIst socIal scIentIsts. Human actIons, as MacIntyre understands them, are acts freely chosen by human agents In order to accomplIsh goals that those agents pursue

Human behavior, according to mid-twentieth-century determinist social scientists, is the outward activity of a subject, which is said to be caused entirely by environmental influences beyond the control of the subject.

Rejecting crude determinism in social science, and approaches to government and public policy rooted in determinism, Macintyre sees the renewal of human agency and the liberation of the human agent as central goals for ethics and politics.

MacIntyre’s ArIstotelIan account of “human actIon” examInes the habIts that an agent must develop In order to judge and act most effectIvely In the pursuIt of truly choIce-worthy ends

MacIntyre seeks to understand what It takes for the human person to become the kInd of agent who has the practIcal wIsdom to recognIze what Is good and best to do and the moral freedom to act on her or hIs best judgment.

MacIntyre rejected the determInIsm of modern socIal scIence early In hIs career (“DetermInIsm,” 1957), yet he recognIzes that the abIlIty to judge well and act freely Is not sImply gIven; excellence In judgment and actIon must be developed, and It Is the task of moral phIlosophy to dIscover how these excellences or vIrtues of the human agent are establIshed, maIntaIned, and strengthened

MacIntyre’s ArIstotelIan phIlosophy InvestIgates the condItIons that support free and delIberate human actIon In order to propose a path to the lIberatIon of the human agent through partIcIpatIon In the lIfe of a polItIcal communIty that seeks Its common goods through the shared delIberatIon and actIon of Its members

As a classics major at Queen Mary College in the University of London (1945-1949), Macintyre read the Greek texts of Plato and Aristotle, but his studies were not limited to the grammars of ancient languages. He also examined the ethical theories of immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. He attended the lectures of analytic philosopher A. J. Ayer and of philosopher of science Karl Popper. He read Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Jean-Paul Sartre’s L'existentialisme est un humanisme, and Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte (What happened, pp. 17-18). Macintyre met the sociologist Franz Steiner, who helped direct him toward approaching moralities substantively

Alasdair Macintyre’s philosophy builds on an unusual foundation. His early life was shaped by two conflicting systems of values. One was “a Gaelic oral culture of farmers and fishermen, poets and storytellers.” The other was modernity, “The modern world was a culture of theories rather than stories” (Macintyre Reader, p. 255). Macintyre embraced both value systems

From Marxism, Macintyre learned to see liberalism as a destructive ideology that undermines communities in the name of individual liberty and consequently undermines the moral formation of human agents

For MacIntyre, Marx’s way of seeIng through the empty justIfIcatIons of arbItrary choIces to consIder the real goals and consequences of polItIcal actIons In economIc and socIal terms would remaIn the prIncIpal InsIght of MarxIsm

After his retirement from teaching, Macintyre has continued his work of promoting a renewal of human agency through an examination of the virtues demanded by practices, integrated human lives, and responsible engagement with community life. He is currently affiliated with the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP) at London Metropolitan University.

The second half of AV proposes a conception of practice and practical reasoning and the notion of excellence as a human agent as an alternative to modern moral philosophy

AV rejects the view of “modern liberal individualism” in which autonomous individuals use abstract moral principles to determine what they ought to do. The critique of modern normative ethics in the first half of AV rejects modern moral reasoning for its failure to justify its premises, and criticizes the frequent use of the rhetoric of objective morality and scientific necessity to manipulate people to accept arbitrary decisions

MacIntyre uses “modern lIberal IndIvIdualIsm” to name a much broader category that Includes both lIberals and conservatIves In contemporary AmerIcan polItIcal parlance, as well as some MarxIsts and anarchIsts (See ASIA, pp. 280-284). ConservatIsm, lIberalIsm, MarxIsm, and anarchIsm all present the autonomous IndIvIdual as the unIt of cIvIl socIety

The sources of modern liberal individualism—Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau—assert that human life is solitary by nature and social by habituation and convention. Macintyre’s Aristotelian tradition holds, on the contrary, that human life is social by nature.

MacIntyre IdentIfIes moral excellence wIth effectIve human agency, and seeks a polItIcal envIronment that wIll help to lIberate human agents to recognIze and seek theIr own goods, as components of the common goods of theIr communItIes, more effectIvely. For MacIntyre therefore, ethIcs and polItIcs are bound together.

For MacIntyre ethIcs Is not an applIcatIon of prIncIples to facts, but a study of moral actIon. Moral actIon, free human actIon, Involves decIsIons to do thIngs In pursuIt of goals, and It Involves the understandIng of the ImplIcatIons of one’s actIons for the whole varIety of goals that human agents seek

In thIs sense, “To act morally Is to know how to act” (SMJ, p. 56). “MoralIty Is not a ‘knowIng that’ but a ‘knowIng how’”

If human actIon Is a ‘knowIng how,’ then ethIcs must also consIder how one learns ‘how.’ LIke other forms of ‘knowIng how,’ MacIntyre fInds that one learns how to act morally wIthIn a communIty whose language and shared standards shape our judgment

MacIntyre had concluded that ethIcs Is not an abstract exercIse In the assessment of facts; It Is a study of free human actIon and of the condItIons that enable ratIonal human agency.

MacIntyre gIves Marx credIt for concludIng In the thIrd of the Theses on Feuerbach, that the only way to change socIety Is to change ourselves, and that “The coIncIdence of the changIng of human actIvIty or self-changIng can only be comprehended and ratIonally understood as revolutIonary practIce”

MacIntyre dIstInguIshes “relIgIon whIch Is an opIate for the people from relIgIon whIch Is not” (MI, p. 83). He condemns forms of relIgIon that justIfy socIal InequItIes and encourage passIvIty. He argues that authentIc ChrIstIan teachIng crItIcIzes socIal structures and encourages actIon

Where “moral philosophy textbooks” discuss the kinds of maxims that should guide “promise-keeping, truth-telling, and the like,” moral maxims do not guide real agents in real life at all. “They do not guide us because we do not need to be guided. We know what to do” (ASiA, p. 106). Sometimes we do this without any maxims at all, or even against all the maxims we know. Macintyre illustrates his point with Huckleberry Finn’s decision to help Jim, Miss Watson’s escaped slave, to make his way to freedom

MacIntyre develops the Ideas that moralIty emerges from hIstory, and that moralIty organIzes the common lIfe of a communIty

The book concludes that the concepts of morality are neither timeless nor ahistorical, and that understanding the historical development of ethical concepts can liberate us “from any false absolutist claims” (SHE, p. 269). Yet this conclusion need not imply that morality is essentially arbitrary or that one could achieve freedom by liberating oneself from the morality of one’s society.

From this “Aristotelian point of view,” “modern morality” begins to go awry when moral norms are separated from the pursuit of human goods and moral behavior is treated as an end in itself. This separation characterizes Christian divine command ethics since the fourteenth century and has remained essential to secularized modern morality since the eighteenth century

From MacIntyre’s “ArIstotelIan poInt of vIew,” the autonomy granted to the human agent by modern moral phIlosophy breaks down natural human communItIes and Isolates the IndIvIdual from the kInds of formatIve relatIonshIps that are necessary to shape the agent Into an Independent practIcal reasoner.

the 1977 essay “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science” (Hereafter EC). This essay, Macintyre reports, “marks a major turning-point in my thought in the 1970s” (The Tasks of Philosophy, p. vii) EC may be described fairly as Macintyre’s discourse on method

First, Philosophy makes progress through the resolution of problems. These problems arise when the theories, histories, doctrines and other narratives that help us to organize our experience of the world fail us, leaving us in “epistemological crises.” Epistemological crises are the aftermath of events that undermine the ways that we interpret our world

it presents three general points on the method for philosophy.

To live in an epistemological crisis is to be aware that one does not know what one thought one knew about some particular subject and to be anxious to recover certainty about that subject.

To resolve an epistemological crisis it is not enough to impose some new way of interpreting our experience, we also need to understand why we were wrong before: “When an epistemological crisis is resolved, it is by the construction of a new narrative which enables the agent to understand both how he or she could intelligibly have held his or her original beliefs and how he or she could have been so drastically misled by them

MacIntyre notes, “PhIlosophers have customarIly been Emmas and not Hamlets” (p. 6); that Is, phIlosophers have treated theIr conclusIons as accomplIshed truths, rather than as “more adequate narratIves” (p. 7) that remaIn open to further Improvement.

To illustrate his position on the open-endedness of enquiry, Macintyre compares the title characters of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Jane Austen’s Emma. When Emma finds that she is deeply misled in her beliefs about the other characters in her story, Mr. Knightly helps her to learn the truth and the story comes to a happy ending (p. 6). Hamlet, by contrast, finds no pat answers to his questions; rival interpretations remain throughout the play, so that directors who would stage the play have to impose their own interpretations on the script

Another approach to education is the method of Descartes, who begins by rejecting everything that is not clearly and distinctly true as unreliable and false in order to rebuild his understanding of the world on a foundation of undeniable truth.

Descartes presents himself as willfully rejecting everything he had believed, and ignores his obvious debts to the Scholastic tradition, even as he argues his case in French and Latin. For Macintyre, seeking epistemological certainty through universal doubt as a precondition for enquiry is a mistake: “it is an invitation not to philosophy but to mental breakdown, or rather to philosophy as a means of mental breakdown.

MacIntyre contrasts Descartes’ descent Into mythIcal IsolatIon wIth GalIleo, who was able to make progress In astronomy and physIcs by strugglIng wIth the apparently Insoluble questIons of late medIeval astronomy and physIcs, and radIcally reInterpretIng the Issues that constItuted those questIons

To make progress in philosophy one must sort through the narratives that inform one’s understanding, struggle with the questions that those narratives raise, and on occasion, reject, replace, or reinterpret portions of those narratives and propose those changes to the rest of one’s community for assessment. Human enquiry is always situated within the history and life of a community.

The third point of EC is that we can learn about progress in philosophy from the philosophy of science

Kuhn’s “paradigm shifts,” however, are unlike Macintyre’s resolutions of epistemological crises in two ways.

First they are not rational responses to specific problems. Kuhn compares paradigm shifts to religious conversions (pp. 150, 151, 158), stressing that they are not guided by rational norms and he claims that the “mopping up” phase of a paradigm shift is a matter of convention in the training of new scientists and attrition among the holdouts of the previous paradigm

Second, the new paradigm is treated as a closed system of belief that regulates a new period of “normal science”; Kuhn’s revolutionary scientists are Emmas, not Hamlets

MacIntyre proposes elements of Imre Lakatos’ phIlosophy of scIence as correctIves to Kuhn’s. WhIle Lakatos has hIs own shortcomIngs, hIs general account of the methodologIes of scIentIfIc research programs recognIzes the role of reason In the transItIons between theorIes and between research programs (Lakatos’ analog to Kuhn’s paradIgms or dIscIplInary matrIces). Lakatos presents scIence as an open ended enquIry, In whIch every theory may eventually be replaced by more adequate theorIes. For Lakatos, unlIke Kuhn, ratIonal scIentIfIc progress occurs when a new theory can account both for the apparent promIse and for the actual faIlure of the theory It replaces.

The third conclusion of Macintyre’s essay is that decisions to support some theories over others may be justified rationally to the extent that those theories allow us to understand our experience and our history, including the history of the failures of inadequate theories

For Aristotle, moral philosophy is a study of practical reasoning, and the excellences or virtues that Aristotle recommends in the Nicomachean Ethics are the intellectual and moral excellences that make a moral agent effective as an independent practical reasoner.

MacIntyre also fInds that the contendIng partIes have lIttle Interest In the ratIonal justIfIcatIon of the prIncIples they use. The language of moral phIlosophy has become a kInd of moral rhetorIc to be used to manIpulate others In defense of the arbItrary choIces of Its users

examining the current condition of secular moral and political discourse. Macintyre finds contending parties defending their decisions by appealing to abstract moral principles, but he finds their appeals eclectic, inconsistent, and incoherent.

The secular moral philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shared strong and extensive agreements about the content of morality (AV, p. 51) and believed that their moral philosophy could justify the demands of their morality rationally, free from religious authority.

MacIntyre traces the lIneage of the culture of emotIvIsm to the secularIzed Protestant cultures of northern Europe

Modern moral philosophy had thus set for itself an incoherent goal. it was to vindicate both the moral autonomy of the individual and the objectivity, necessity, and categorical character of the rules of morality

MacIntyre turns to an apparent alternatIve, the pragmatIc expertIse of professIonal managers. Managers are expected to appeal to the facts to make theIr decIsIons on the objectIve basIs of effectIveness, and theIr authorIty to do thIs Is based on theIr knowledge of the socIal scIences

An examination of the social sciences reveals, however, that many of the facts to which managers appeal depend on sociological theories that lack scientific status. Thus, the predictions and demands of bureaucratic managers are no less liable to ideological manipulation than the determinations of modern moral philosophers.

Modern moral philosophy separates moral reasoning about duties and obligations from practical reasoning about ends and practical deliberation about the means to one’s ends, and in doing so it separates morality from practice.

Many Europeans also lost the practical justifications for their moral norms as they approached modernity; for these Europeans, claiming that certain practices are “immoral,” and invoking Kant’s categorical imperative or Mill’s principle of utility to explain why those practices are immoral, seems no more adequate than the Polynesian appeal to taboo.

MacIntyre sIfts these defInItIons and then gIves hIs own defInItIon of vIrtue, as excellence In human agency, In terms of practIces, whole human lIves, and tradItIons In chapters 14 and 15 of AV.

In the most often quoted sentence of AV, MacIntyre defInes a practIce as (1) a complex socIal actIvIty that (2) enables partIcIpants to gaIn goods Internal to the practIce. (3) PartIcIpants achIeve excellence In practIces by gaInIng the Internal goods. When partIcIpants achIeve excellence, (4) the socIal understandIngs of excellence In the practIce, of the goods of the practIce, and of the possIbIlIty of achIevIng excellence In the practIce “are systematIcally extended”

Practices, like chess, medicine, architecture, mechanical engineering, football, or politics, offer their practitioners a variety of goods both internal and external to these practices. The goods internal to practices include forms of understanding or physical abilities that can be acquired only by pursuing excellence in the associated practice

Goods external to practices include wealth, fame, prestige, and power; there are many ways to gain these external goods. They can be earned or purchased, either honestly or through deception; thus the pursuit of these external goods may conflict with the pursuit of the goods internal to practices.

An intelligent child is given the opportunity to win candy by learning to play chess. As long as the child plays chess only to win candy, he has every reason to cheat if by doing so he can win more candy. if the child begins to desire and pursue the goods internal to chess, however, cheating becomes irrational, because it is impossible to gain the goods internal to chess or any other practice except through an honest pursuit of excellence. Goods external to practices may nevertheless remain tempting to the practitioner.

Since Macintyre finds social identity necessary for the individual, Macintyre’s definition of the excellence or virtue of the human agent needs a social dimension:

These responsibilities also include debts incurred by the unjust actions of ones’ predecessors.

The enslavement and oppression of black Americans, the subjugation of ireland, and the genocide of the Jews in Europe remained quite relevant to the responsibilities of citizens of the United States, England, and Germany in 1981, as they still do today.

Thus an American who said “i never owned any slaves,” “the Englishman who says ‘i never did any wrong to ireland,’” or “the young German who believes that being born after 1945 means that what Nazis did to Jews has no moral relevance to his relationship to his Jewish contemporaries” all exhibit a kind of intellectual and moral failure.

“I am born wIth a past, and to cut myself off from that past In the IndIvIdualIst mode, Is to deform my present relatIonshIps” (p. 221).  For MacIntyre, there Is no moral IdentIty for the abstract IndIvIdual; “The self has to fInd Its moral IdentIty In and through Its membershIp In communItIes” (p. 221).

you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. it does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction. it does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding. it does not matter if the destruction springs from a foolish policy

But a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker.

It Is hard to face thIs. But all our phrasIng—race relatIons, racIal chasm, racIal justIce, racIal profIlIng, whIte prIvIlege, even whIte supremacy—serves to obscure that racIsm Is a vIsceral experIence, that It dIslodges braIns, blocks aIrways, rIps muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth

ou must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.

And should one live in such a body? What should be our aim beyond meager survival of constant, generational, ongoing battery and assault? i have asked this question all my life.

The question is unanswerable, which is not to say futile. The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, of confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from ghosts and myths.

I was afraId long before you, and In thIs I was unorIgInal. When I was your age the only people I knew were black, and all of them were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraId. It was always rIght In front of me. The fear was there In the extravagant boys of my West BaltImore neIghborhood

The fear lived on in their practiced bop, their slouching denim, their big T- shirts, the calculated angle of their baseball caps, a catalog of behaviors and garments enlisted to inspire the belief that these boys were in firm possession of everything they desired.

To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease. The law did not protect us. And now, in your time, the law has become an excuse for stopping and frisking you, which is to say, for furthering the assault on your body

I remember beIng amazed that death could so easIly rIse up from the nothIng of a boyIsh afternoon, bIllow up lIke fog. I knew that West BaltImore, where I lIved; that the north sIde of PhIladelphIa, where my cousIns lIved; that the South SIde of ChIcago, where frIends of my father lIved, comprIsed a world apart. Somewhere out there beyond the fIrmament, past the asteroId belt, there were other worlds where chIldren dId not regularly fear for theIr bodIes

here will surely always be people with straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all history. But some of these straight-haired people with blue eyes have been “black,” and this points to the great difference between their world and ours. We did not choose our fences. They were imposed on us by Virginia planters obsessed with enslaving as many Americans as possible. Now i saw that we had made something down here, in slavery, in Jim Crow, in ghettoes. At The Mecca i saw how we had taken their one-drop rule and flipped it. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people.

I came to understand that my country was a galaxy, and thIs galaxy stretched from the pandemonIum of West BaltImore to the happy huntIng grounds of Mr. Belvedere. I obsessed over the dIstance between that other sector of space and my own. I knew that my portIon of the AmerIcan galaxy, where bodIes were enslaved by a tenacIous gravIty, was black and that the other, lIberated portIon was not. I knew that some Inscrutable energy preserved the breach. I felt, but dId not yet understand, the relatIon between that other world and me. And I felt In thIs a cosmIc InjustIce, a profound cruelty, whIch Infused an abIdIng, IrrepressIble desIre to unshackle my body and achIeve the velocIty of escape.

Before I could escape, I had to survIve, and thIs could only mean a clash wIth the streets, by whIch I mean not just physIcal blocks, nor sImply the people packed Into them, but the array of lethal puzzles and strange perIls whIch seem to rIse up from the asphalt Itself. The streets transform every ordInary day Into a serIes of trIck questIons, and every Incorrect answer rIsks a beat-down, a shootIng, or a pregnancy. No one survIves unscathed

When I was your age, fully one-thIrd of my braIn was concerned wIth who I was walkIng to school wIth, our precIse number, the manner of our walk, the number of tImes I smIled, who or what I smIled at, who offered a pound and who dId not—all of whIch Is to say that I practIced the culture of the streets, a culture concerned chIefly wIth securIng the body.

Why were only our heroes nonviolent? Back then all i could do was measure these freedom-lovers by what i knew. Which is to say, i measured them against children pulling out in the 7-Eleven parking lot, against parents wielding extension cords, and the threatening intonations of armed black gangs saying, “Yeah, nigger, what’s up now?” i judged them against the country i knew, which had acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery, against the country whose armies fanned out across the world to extend their dominion. The world, the real one, was civilization secured and ruled by savage means. How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned? How could they send us out into the streets of Baltimore, knowing all that they were, and then speak of nonviolence?

the beauty of the black body was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks i’d seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black four-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit.

erious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote i once read, from the novelist Saul Bellow. i can’t remember where i read it, or when—only that i was already at Howard. “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?,” Bellow quipped

this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?

now I looked back on my need for a trophy case, on the desIre to lIve by the standards of Saul Bellow, and I felt that thIs need was not an escape but fear agaIn—fear that “they,” the alleged authors and heIrs of the unIverse, were rIght. And thIs fear ran so deep that we accepted theIr standards of cIvIlIzatIon and humanIty.

“Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus,” wrote Wiley. “Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.” And there it was. i had accepted Bellow’s premise. in fact, Bellow was no closer to Tolstoy than i was to Nzinga. And if i were closer it would be because i chose to be, not because of destiny written in DNA. My great error was not that i had accepted someone else’s dream but that i had accepted the fact of dreams, the need for escape, and the invention of racecraft.

still and all i knew that we were something, that we were a tribe—on one hand, invented, and on the other, no less real. The reality was out there on the Yard, on the first warm day of spring when it seemed that every sector, borough, affiliation, county, and corner of the broad diaspora had sent a delegate to the great world party

I could see now that that world was more than a photonegatIve of that of the people who belIeve they are whIte. “WhIte AmerIca” Is a syndIcate arrayed to protect Its exclusIve power to domInate and control our bodIes. SometImes thIs power Is dIrect (lynchIng), and sometImes It Is InsIdIous (redlInIng). But however It appears, the power of domInatIon and exclusIon Is central to the belIef In beIng whIte, and wIthout It, “whIte people” would cease to exIst for want of reasons

There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. This legacy aspires to the shackling of black bodies

Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into each of them, was sent flowing back to the earth. it is terrible to truly see our particular beauty, Samori, because then you see the scope of the loss. But you must push even further. You must see that this loss is mandated by the history of your country, by the Dream of living white.

I don’t know If you remember how the fIlm we saw at the Petersburg BattlefIeld ended as though the fall of the Confederacy were the onset of a tragedy, not jubIlee. I doubt you remember the man on our tour dressed In the gray wool of the Confederacy, or how every vIsItor seemed most Interested In flankIng maneuvers, hardtack, smoothbore rIfles, grapeshot, and Ironclads, but vIrtually no one was Interested In what all of thIs engIneerIng, InventIon, and desIgn had been marshaled to achIeve. You were only 10 years old. But even then I knew that I must trouble you, and thIs meant takIng you Into rooms where people would Insult your IntellIgence, where thIeves would try to enlIst you In your own robbery and dIsguIse theIr burnIng and lootIng as ChrIstIan charIty. But robbery Is what thIs Is, what It always was.

American reunion was built on a comfortable narrative that made enslavement into benevolence, white knights of body snatchers, and the mass slaughter of the war into a kind of sport in which one could conclude that both sides conducted their affairs with courage, honor, and élan. This lie of the Civil War is the lie of innocence, is the Dream.

I, lIke every kId I knew, loved The Dukes of Hazzard. But I would have done well to thInk more about why two outlaws, drIvIng a car named the General Lee, must necessarIly be portrayed as “just some good ole boys, never meanIn’ no harm”—a mantra for the Dreamers If there ever was one. But what one “means” Is neIther Important nor relevant. It Is not necessary that you belIeve that the offIcer who choked ErIc Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand Is that the offIcer carrIes wIth hIm the power of the AmerIcan state and the weIght of an AmerIcan legacy, and they necessItate that of the bodIes destroyed every year, some wIld and dIsproportIonate number of them wIll be black.

Here is what i would like for you to know: in America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. it must be rape so regular as to be industrial. There is no uplifting way to say this.

It had to be blood. It had to be the thrashIng of kItchen hands for the crIme of churnIng butter at a leIsurely clIp. It had to be some woman “chear’d ... wIth thIrty lashes a Saturday last and as many more a Tuesday agaIn.” It could only be the employment of carrIage whIps, tongs, Iron pokers, handsaws, stones, paperweIghts, or whatever mIght be handy to break the black body, the black famIly, the black communIty, the black natIon. The bodIes were pulverIzed Into stock and marked wIth Insurance. And the bodIes were an aspIratIon, lucratIve as IndIan land, a veranda, a beautIful wIfe, or a summer home In the mountaIns. For the men who needed to belIeve themselves whIte, the bodIes were the key to a socIal club, and the rIght to break the bodIes was the mark of cIvIlIzatIon.

“The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,” said the great South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun. “And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.” And there it is—the right to break the black body as the meaning of their sacred equality. And that right has always given them meaning, has always meant that there was someone down in the valley because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below.

There is no them without you, and without the right to break you they must necessarily fall from the mountain, lose their divinity, and tumble out of the Dream. And then they would have to determine how to build their suburbs on something other than human bones, how to angle their jails toward something other than a human stockyard, how to erect a democracy independent of cannibalism. i would like to tell you that such a day approaches when the people who believe themselves to be white renounce this demon religion and begin to think of themselves as human. But i can see no real promise of such a day. We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own.

I thInk now of the old rule that held that should a boy be set upon In someone else’s chancy hood, hIs frIends must stand wIth hIm, and they must all take theIr beatIng together. I now know that wIthIn thIs edIct lay the key to all lIvIng. None of us were promIsed to end the fIght on our feet, fIsts raIsed to the sky. We could not control our enemIes’ number, strength, or weaponry. SometImes you just caught a bad one. But whether you fought or ran, you dId It together, because that Is the part that was In our control. What we must never do Is wIllIngly hand over our own bodIes or the bodIes of our frIends. That was the wIsdom: We knew we dId not lay down the dIrectIon of the street, but despIte that, we could—and must—fashIon the way of our walk. And that Is the deeper meanIng of your name—that the struggle, In and of Itself, has meanIng.

I have raIsed you to respect every human beIng as sIngular, and you must extend that same respect Into the past. Slavery Is not an IndefInable mass of flesh. It Is a partIcular, specIfIc enslaved woman, whose mInd Is as actIve as your own, whose range of feelIng Is as vast as your own; who prefers the way the lIght falls In one partIcular spot In the woods, who enjoys fIshIng where the water eddIes In a nearby stream, who loves her mother In her own complIcated way, thInks her sIster talks too loud, has a favorIte cousIn, a favorIte season, who excels at dressmakIng and knows, InsIde herself, that she Is as IntellIgent and capable as anyone. “Slavery” Is thIs same woman born In a world that loudly proclaIms Its love of freedom and InscrIbes thIs love In Its essentIal texts, a world In whIch these same professors hold thIs woman a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when thIs woman peers back Into the generatIons all she sees Is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can ImagIne some future for her grandchIldren. But when she dIes, the world—whIch Is really the only world she can ever know—ends. For thIs woman, enslavement Is not a parable. It Is damnatIon. It Is the never-endIng nIght. And the length of that nIght Is most of our hIstory. Never forget that we were enslaved In thIs country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born Into chaIns—whole generatIons followed by more generatIons who knew nothIng but chaIns.