Independence and the Virtuous Community

Abstract

In 1999 Alasdair MacIntyre altered the philosophical landscape and largely for the better, I think, with the publication of his Dependent Rational Animals (DRA). In this work he puts front and center the overlooked senses of dependence, disability, and vulnerability that, in varying degrees but always in some measure, make up the human condition and one’s animal identity in the course of a lifetime.1 Drawing out the implications of those senses, he presents a stirring defense of the virtues of giving and receiving as a realistic alternative to social thought that, by taking its bearings from sympathy or rational choice, prompts the illusion of assimilating the state to the family or vice versa (pp. 116-17 and 132). Ever aware of the real-life stakes of his topics, MacIntyre never tires of reminding us that, when we talk about practical knowledge, we are talking about something acquired and exercised not through theory or theoretical instruction, but through shared activities and practices (pp. 135-36). Challenging the traditional dichotomy of justice and benevolence as well as a misguided notion of self-sufficiency, MacIntyre champions virtues of acknowledged dependence and just generosity, virtues that must inform networks of giving and receiving. At the same time, his analysis displays a healthy wariness of these dual aspects of social life, pervaded not only by such networks constitutive of human flourishing, but also no less by hierarchical instruments of domination and deprivation, that come with the unequal distribution of power in society (pp. 102-3). While Aristotle reminds us that the level of justice in a society is relative to the kinds of friendship that prevail in it,