I realize maybe I should tell y'all about my thesis!
As you may have guessed, I haven't finished it yet, BUT
If the whole idea of writing a thesis is learning things along the way, I think I can give myself for satisfied with how things have gone so far (I still would have liked to have done it faster, and to be done with it, and not have Damocles' sword hanging over my head...).
So, chapter 1 was about setting up the relationship between narrativity and practical reason, so as to give grounding to the relevance of literature and stories for Ethics. In the process I learned:
A good chunk of the literature on ethics and literature deals mainly with the relationship between author and reader/audience, for which Gadamer's theory of hermeneutics is of key importance.
The turn to ethics is funnily disputed in an academic way, where literature academics insist it is a turn in philosophy towards literature, and philosophers insist it is the other way around.
MacIntyre's grounding of narrativity in an Aristotelian theory of action is HUGELY indebted to G.E.M. Anscombe's Intention.
I was able to insert Alejandro Vigo's interpretation of narrativity in Aristotle through the understanding of human rationality as distinctly possessing the capacity to project itself into the future, which would be the basis of conceiving life as a projective story, and the moral self as a narrative self.
I just think it's neat to support the same idea both from the standpoint of intentions and of ends, specially if ends are tied to a quality that is specific to human rationality (and this because of some more complicated things about how MacIntyre is trying, in After Virtue, to replace a biological telos with a sociological telos. But that would be too long to explain).
Chapter 2 ended up being the Jane Austen chapter. The highlights here were:
Some personal confusion because MacIntyre's set up of his interest in Austen and what he actually ends up describing as relevant later on not matching much. However I think I was able to argue with reasonable solidity how her novels could illustrate MacIntyre's notion of a practice and its relationship with institutions.
By far the most interesting part, however, was connecting the dots between MacIntyre and some feminist readings of Austen, in the sense that S. Morgan ties the fixedness and naiveté verging on stupidity of the Richardsonian heroine (and similar ones) to the idea that character in such novels is tied to sexual definition, whereas in Austen character is not defined sexually. And MacIntyre, on his side, is trying to explain why Austen is 'restoring a teleological orientation' to the virtues, and so he brings up the Humean notion of virtue as such habits as are agreeable or useful. In a Humean scheme chastity can only make sense for its utility, mainly, ensuring the legitimacy of heirs. There where in an Aristotelian sense chastity would be a part of temperance, the rational ordering of appetites and tendencies towards pleasure, governed by prudence and influenced by experience, in a Humean vision it's really about the unquestionable virginity of a woman. The Austenian vision of the heroine is dynamic, the Richardsonian vision of the heroine is static. The dots, you see, the dots!!! (btw, very useful, Austen's absolute roast of a Richardsonian obsession in Sanditon!)
Chapter 3: I'm still working on chapter 3. It's been a calvary to write through, because there are so many things I need to connect, pick up, wrap up here...
The most interesting discovery here was finding an obscure source where a feminist writer challenges MacIntyre about the inclusion of women in the scheme of After Virtue. It is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS how you can easily read or structure Dependent Rational Animals around her criticism. Both, Susan Moller Okin and him, who does rise up to the challenge and does it very interestingly, are a delight, to me.
In that frame I also managed to finally understand the interest in After Virtue by care ethicists and other feminists who were searching in the 80s for alternatives to systems of ethics (utilitarianism and deontology) which they felt were skewed towards autonomy, independence and rights to the exclusion of vulnerability, dependence, mutual aid, compassion and forgiveness. This also prompted a connection I only barely implied (there would be so much to talk!) with 70s marxist feminists pushing for the reintroduction of men in the domestic sphere and in childrearing to reduce the violence of the capitalistic public space. Very interesting in terms of MacIntyre's marxist background and that Patsy Stoneman mentions these authors in her Eilizabeth Gaskell.
I also in that vein realized how important work as self-realization and community-building activity is for MacIntyre. His concept of practice allows for the inclusion of artisans in the fulfilled life, something that would be very alien to Aristotle. And this ALSO connects with the Marxist notion of alienation and the way industrialization caused a ton of alienation; so MacIntyre's reading of the breakdown of the language of ethics and morality coincides historically with the very beginnings of merncantilism and therefore of capitalism beginning the process of dissolution of productive, meaningful labor within practices. Also very interesting how MacIntyre through the years unites both this sense and the idea, through St. Benedict, of work as prayer and almsgiving. Which leaves me pondering about how so much of the doctrinal disputes surrounding things like the environment really hinges on whether you read the story of Genesis as God placing Adam in the garden to take care of it, or as a commandment to subject and dominate the Earth.
Another thing is realizing that understanding mercy as a moral virtue and not just a feeling is much more justified by MacIntyre than I remembered/realized before.
There's a couple more things, but my eyes are closing off with sleepy, so... that's all for now
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