Essay Two. Freedom son

Macintyre’s moral framework emphasizing the importance of community fails to be persuasive to normative liberals because it is too descriptive, focusing too much on explaining why we behave and believe rather than how we should behave and believe. Not enough work is done to defend that niche of necessity. His core argument to justify criticizing the normative dominance of the liberal moral framework is to defend this communal moral process as a necessity of moral prosperity. I will analyze this argument and explain why its shortcomings mean Macintyre’s smaller, but quite solid argument for patriotism needs to give up just a little bit more ground and weight to the liberal to be accurate and justifiable. What I end up with are two bound, moderate ideas working together and against each other in my soul in harmony. The question being addressed is what moral obligation I have to another person. Should I have a special moral obligation to person X over person Y? Macintyre begins defining two moral frameworks: the liberal impersonal morality, and the patriotic community reality. The liberal impersonal is: made of rules any person could discover under ideal conditions, rules that constrain and render neutral competing interests; asks us to treat each person as an equal unit; requires neutrality in evaluating beliefs and independence from social relations(II). The patriotic framework says morality is what it is and there is a special character and bond linking the morality to your community. The logic goes, if understanding morality requires the context of community, and the community’s good is what justifies the morality, and because moral life is hard I can only maintain moral character being in community, then community is necessary for morality and standards. Since patriotism provides structures and standards that support morality and community good, it is a good thing (III). At its foundation, for every patriot, the national project is of upmost importance, the bedrock of your morality, and without it the narrative necessary for a person’s moral prosperity and understanding is kaput(IV). He then develops a normative argument for patriotic moral framework; mainly that it is the best option and a necessity(IV). Upon reading this argument I am immediately bothered by his argument for patriotism because he is giving up a lot of ground and knows it; shrinking from a lot of patriotic claims, compacting the idea into a little impenetrable rock of inspiration tucked in the soul. It makes it hard to critique. Macintyre concedes the patriotic moral danger that rarely, but inevitably arises from having to side with the national project over the community morality the project created or should’ve created. His response is two-fold. One, liberalism lacks the bond (the narrative, context, roots) and the necessary system (standards of allegiance) that is conducive to healthy morality, and two, that in social conflict if liberal morality fails to support reciprocity that leaves only the use of force(IV). I think a third good argument would be that ideas like cosmopolitanism, and the global project, spring from liberalism, and are equally authoritarian and dangerous for the same reasons patriotism is and maybe more. People of advanced, prospering civilizations are understandably resilient to the erosion of ideas and structures that have supported their civilization—on the surface the mindset is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But it is eroding. Patriotism, in Macintyre’s logical justification, seems to loop back and justify itself. The logical justification is suspect. The second point in the logic, that the community’s success, or value, or good is what justifies the community’s morality, in this case patriotism, is circular logic. The framework supports the idea, the idea supports the framework. Liberalism offers the opportunity in practice to have a special concern for certain others while offering freedom from this loop of moral justification and the opportunity to concern ourselves at all times with the moral excellence of the nation in coordination with humanity. If it can be proven that patriotism is not a necessity of moral health, than the concession of patriotic danger is condemning of the idea that owing something to particular people is moral. Liberal morality, whether is claims to need it or not, is not without a community moral foundation Macintyre asserts is imperative to moral function. The particular nature of community is being redefined. Human history, though not without significant corrections, shows a general trend away from spatially immediate moral influence. Macintyre is addressing patriotism on the state and nation scale rather than the local community. There is an established and growing cosmopolitan, globalized community. These communities have grown out of the more particular communities that existed before them rooted in the immediate space around them. Even at the local level, spheres are increasingly being reorganized by individuals. There is no specific argument made by the patriot to explain the importance of moral development from the community spatially closest to you. Technology has changed how we interact with other people, has changed which moral dilemmas are put before us, has changed our relationship with others, and our education. Some spheres are changing more than others, and the person who defends the patriotic framework would do well consider the findings of Putnam and others. And many spheres are consolidating only to reemerge anew. Wherever our current understanding of morality has come from, that was never the foundation. Old moralities are built into new moralities. The special bond remains, but the character and properties of the new morality may be very different from the old. Morality may descriptively be what it is today— the morality of social orders—but it need not and may not be tomorrow. If Macintyre cannot defend the liberal charge that patriotism and the morality that support it are a source of danger, there is no point in defending his framework’s importance in a normative moral context. It is what it is, and he should leave it at that. Macintyre’s best response to all this is a better, more accurate compromise. It would be too simple to say that the argument becomes one of which framework is more dangerous, which is just one aspect of justification. It is about striking an accurate moral tone; a beneficial balance between the liberal and the patriot. I share his concern the liberalism is a dangerous unknown and seems out of touch. I agree that Macintyre’s liberal moralist, who must be an independent moral champion who has read the stars, sat deep in thought, and found the answers, is a lonely achiever. Macintyre’s point is that is just not how it works, and application of the liberal framework gets too far ahead itself if it forgets the community. That is why proponents of the liberal impersonal morality need to be clear about what they’re promoting and show how, though in opposition, mostly normative arguments like Nussbaum’s aren’t in such direct clash with descriptive justifications like Macintyre’s. It seems possible to accept Macintyre and Nussbaum if once you’ve analyzed normative aspect of the patriotic framework, you reject that aspect, and consider patriotism and liberal morality separately— the first as descriptive, bound and valuable now; the second prescriptive and what one should seek. This perspective has value in that the ideas can exist together to check and evaluate each other. The notion of spheres put forth by Nussbaum is intuitively accurate. I certainly have a special concern and connection for those in the spheres closest to me. And I like the task, of bringing the circles closer; that I’m not charged not mostly with reinforcing the bonds I already have, but with strengthening all bonds with my fellow man. The liberal shouldn’t reject patriotism, but the normative emphasis on patriotic pride (Nussbaum). Macintyre has done a service to moral discussion advancing the attempt to carve out a niche for patriotism of appropriate moral size and strength. Patriotism understood descriptively can have normative potency, but by influence, and not with justification. Liberalism’s normative thrust will be managed and more human because it will be bound by the important, but descriptive moral function of patriotism put forth by Macintyre.