MacIntyrian Personalism; or Another Reason Macy Equals Concrete

In Dependent Rational Animals Alasdair MacIntyre gives an Aristotelian account of human development. It has often struck me that even those of us who seek to understand ourselves and others in the church’s terms nevertheless have no choice but to rely on the received accounts of the same in what are basically post-Freudian terms. The possibility therefore of a sort of Thomist psychoanalysis is intriguing. But more exciting still is the fact that MacIntyre’s account helps us understand what we are doing with the Guys by implying that a personalist ethics is the condition of the possibility of pursuit of the good. In other words, he links, in a way that modern psychology does not, the capacity of the human being for virtue with her upbringing and experiences.

MacIntyre notes that as the child first develops the first goods it pursues are entirely in terms of the satisfaction of its own immediate sensual desires for which it is entirely dependent upon its parents. A key aspect of the moral development of the child is to come to choose and eventually desire things that are not the simple satisfaction of their infantile passions. In other words, they have to come to reason that there is some good that is to be pursued and chosen because it is better than the good of the satisfaction of its elementary desires. So first the child learns that pleasing one’s parents and not simply crying is to be chosen in order to get food or praise. From this intermediate stage the parents will have to teach the child not to act so to please them but to act for what is truly better. Once the child has become sufficiently detached from both her own desires and the influence of others he becomes slowly for the first time a mature practical reasoner. The qualities that are cultivated in this transformation of desire, motivation and action are called virtues, and so a lack of virtue simply names the reason that one fails to attain what is good and best for them (see pp.83-9).

But what is needed in the first place for any such development to take place is unconditional acceptance in a situation of trust and security. This is usually provided by the parents, who teach the child that their commitment to him is not threatened by the child’s failures or by circumstance such as illness or retardation. In such an atmosphere the child is free to playfully test his experience and explore his world, knowledge of which is necessary for practical reasoning. The child is also free to take his first actions toward distancing herself from her desires and choosing a higher good for its own sake and so form the virtues. Absent such a situation of “trust based on experience” (85), however, the process will be significantly stunted. The child may become isolated from both parents and others, since the former does not provide support and the latter is a threat.

As a result, of course, the child is unable to develop the virtues necessary to judge and attain the good. He will remain focused on his own immediate desires and will develop the habit of fighting back against any who might threaten them. An inability to deal with conflict may result, since conflict is not conceived as disagreement over and reasoning about the good but as protection of the vulnerable self. Because this person has not developed practical reasoning and its attendant virtues which allow him to practice the good in a variety of situations he will often resort to either strident rule following or anti-nomianism. Both result from the inability to see or do the good in the contingent.

This account, while most influential in childhood, is also applicable across a lifetime. In other words, people need other people who love them and who refuse to leave them in order to become good.

While a catholic Christian account of such development would need to be filled out in several directions, MacIntyre's account sheds considerable light on what we have been drawn into at St. Joseph’s. Living on the street, or even as semi-homeless can be and more often than not is a dangerous, isolating experience. Faced with such insecurity, it is no wonder the satisfaction of elementary desires for comfort are pursued by binge drinking, sex and drugs. It is no wonder violence is common. But equally it is unsurprising that there continues to be a presence on the Hill, not just of individuals, but of a group of friends, at least one of whom refuses to leave the others alone. Many of these have lived their entire lives, from childhood, and continue to live, with inadequate resources of trust that would allow us to expect them to behave differently than they do.

So undeniably there is a sense in which our job is to be like parents. But this is far from meaning that we must be judgmental and strict and exacting. Being like parents does not mean being paternalistic. Like good parents, it means that we have to take what God has given us and love it and work with it at all costs and because that is our person. Like good parents, it means that we love these unconditionally, and at whatever cost to us. We simply are not free to behave otherwise, and it would be nonsensical to what limit we should set on the goods we give to our children. In this mode, being like parents simply means providing that context of unconditional love that is necessary for the development of the virtues and the attainment of the good life. Being parents, in other words, looks a lot like being friends. This is something that institutions, however compassionate, cannot provide.

MacIntyre’s account, that is, implies a sort of personalism by pointing to the fact that the development of virtuous people requires the same loving relationships that parents try to provide for their children. This is another reason why it does not make sense to ask if sending the homeless guys to Urban Ministries is not more effective for them and for as a use of our money. We should thank God for Urban Ministries and the necessary services that they provide. But, on this account, institutional solutions that treat homelessness or alcoholism or drug addiction by the imposition of external controls such as demanding sobriety before giving a bed or a meal are in a serious way putting the cart before the horse and in many instances expecting the impossible. It is no wonder that most of our Guys say they simply cannot go there.

The only “treatment program” that is going to “work” in other words, is not a treatment program at all. It is to enter into real friendships. And if this is the goal and if friendship becomes a reality, then the relationship by definition loses its nature as one person trying to “fix” another. Rather, we discover that precisely in treating each other as an end rather than a means, and by making each others' goods are own (the definition of friendship), we develop the virtues necessary to say that we are living well.