Alexander Green

MacIntyre and Nussbaum on Diversity, Liberalism, and Christianity

ABSTRACT This article argues that the politics of difference has been unsuccessful in its attempt to liberate itself from the modern politics of universal dignity and self-determination. As a result, theorists who emphasize difference ultimately must find a way to balance a conception of diversity with that of a universal normative ethics. To make this case, I examine the virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum as two different examples of this tension, one constructing a particularistic virtue ethics around specific traditions, while the other presents a universalistic virtue ethics around universal human experience, thus serving as an example for how the “right” and “left” engage with diversity. There is a common denominator to the virtue ethics of MacIntyre and Nussbaum in that they both go about this by reconstructing an ethics of character out of elements of Aristotles ethics of virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics as the basis for a model of pluralism and do so within a modern liberal and hence rational–individualist framework. Both are critical of certain elements of Aristotles thought, while attempting to recover the “true” essence of Aristotelianism. While those who identify with the different political extremes are diverse, one basic premise is that the former believes in the role of tradition and the values of slow change in dialogue with the past, while the latter advocates the good of all individuals within a state that is blind to differences notwithstanding the practices of the past. Each approach faces a significant weakness: tradition is often unable to recognize that social benefits have often been brought about by modern liberalisms rejection of tradition, while universal human experience tends to forget that universal thinking is not universal but is a liberalization of a particular Christian way of approaching the world.

The Ethics of Divided Political Institutions: King, Priest and Prophet

The implication of the ethical on the political is another issue that divides Maimonides and Gersonides. For Maimonides, the political ideal is the prophet as philosophic-legislator who legislates a divine (political) law which cultivates different moral and intellectual virtues. For Gersonides, an institutional separation between the “secular” political body of the kingship and the “religious” (or intellectual) political body of the priesthood is preferable to the combined role of the prophet. The virtues of physical preservation and of beneficence are amplified for the sake of the collective through the institutions of kingship and priesthood, which serve to actualize physical preservation and beneficence on a larger scale, while giving the prophet the means to criticize and challenge both.

Luck and the Virtues of Physical Preservation

One difference between Maimonides and Gersonides on ethics is the emphasis put on the preservation of the body in the cultivation of character and action. Maimonides does not focus on this at all in his ethical works and discusses it at the end of the Guide as the lowest form of perfection. In contrast, Gersonides redefines the practical intellect with physical preservation as its main goal. Thus he makes virtues that strive to achieve this end a central part of his ethical lessons, such as endeavor (hishtadlut), diligence (ḥariṣut) and cunning (hitḥakmut) in crafting stratagems (taḥbulot), along with arts which also now serve this purpose. Humans share this practical intellect with the animal world and cannot ignore this commonality in their cultivation of virtue.

Justice and the Practical Wisdom of the Individual

One absence in the writings of Maimonides is an explicit discussion of practical wisdom and the necessity for practical deliberation over different competing goods and interests in an individual’s decision-making process. Gersonides’ ethics can be distinguished here from Maimonides’ through the former’s greater focus on competing practical goods with a method for how to decide between them. He interprets the narrative of the Hebrew Bible as a chronicle of cases whereby three different goods conflict: human physical needs such as family and property; peace and the cessation of conflict; and obeying God’s commands. He thus views the ethical stance of the Bible as seeking not to avoid conflict but rather endeavoring to create a tradition of demonstrating how to deal with serious practical conflicts.

Altruism and the Beneficent Virtues

Both Maimonides and Gersonides describe the universe as originating from God for no self-interested benefit, but derive different human lessons from God’s altruism. For Maimonides, the overflow to others is an outcome of one’s own perfection causing humans to feel the impulse to imitate God’s loving kindness and spread the “overflow” of their private contemplation through forms of political leadership. In contrast, Gersonides’ altruism is not merely a passive outcome of one’s own perfection, but is an active duty. Furthermore, it takes the form of a nonpolitical universal and altruistic ethics whereby humans are obliged to cultivate the virtues of loving kindness (ḥesed), grace (ḥanina) and beneficence (haṭava) in knowledge and action.