Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

This major work examines how competing traditions of moral and practical reasoning shape our understanding of justice and rationality. MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment project of establishing universal, tradition-independent standards of rationality has failed, leaving modernity in a state of intellectual crisis. Instead, he contends that all reasoning occurs within particular historical traditions that provide their own standards of rational justification.

The book traces four major traditions: Aristotelian, Augustinian, Scottish Enlightenment, and modern liberalism. MacIntyre demonstrates how each tradition embodies distinct conceptions of justice, practical reasoning, and human flourishing. The Aristotelian tradition grounds justice in the polis and human teleology. The Augustinian tradition, synthesizing biblical faith with philosophical inquiry, reconceives justice through divine will and grace. The Scottish Enlightenment attempts to derive universal moral principles from human nature and sentiment. Modern liberalism, emerging from the Enlightenment's failures, abandons substantive conceptions of the good while claiming procedural neutrality.

Central to MacIntyre's argument is his critique of modern liberalism's pretensions to tradition-transcendent rationality. He shows how liberal theorists like Rawls and Dworkin, despite claims to neutrality, operate within a particular tradition with its own contestable premises. This critique has significant implications for theological discourse. By demonstrating that secular rationality itself constitutes a tradition rather than a neutral arbiter, MacIntyre opens space for religious traditions to engage philosophical debate on equal epistemic footing.

The work's importance for questions about God lies in its vindication of tradition-constituted reasoning. Religious believers need not accept that their commitments violate universal rational standards, since such standards themselves prove illusory. Augustine and Aquinas emerge not as thinkers who subordinated reason to faith, but as participants in coherent intellectual traditions with their own sophisticated standards of rational inquiry.

MacIntyre's methodology combines historical narrative with philosophical analysis, showing how traditions develop through internal conflicts and external challenges. His account of how traditions can experience epistemological crises and revolutionary transformations provides resources for understanding religious conversion and doctrinal development. While not primarily theological, the work profoundly challenges secular assumptions about the relationship between faith and reason, suggesting that theistic traditions possess rational resources for addressing contemporary moral and philosophical problems.