Alasdair Maclntyre and Utopia: An Introduction

For over sixty years, Alasdair Maclntyre has written on the challenges to human flourishing, first as a Marxist and Christian and now as a Thomistic-Aristotelian who insists on the need to read Marx. He has criticized Stalinist Marxism and political liberalism because both rest on autonomous morality, or the divorce of "is" from "ought." In his mature work, he proposes the concept of practices as a way to unite "is" and "ought" and resist emotivism/expressivism. His theory faces certain weaknesses: the refusal to engage with nation-state politics and of the problem of authoritarianism and a lack of discussion of the domination of nature. Regardless, Maclntyre's Aristotelianism provides resources in its defense of local communities, its understanding of practices, and its continuous critique of liberalism. Utopian and left thinkers would serve their project best by engaging with Macintyre's analysis of autonomous morality, without which we will fail to advance utopian causes.