Alasdair MacIntyre, Utopianism, and the Politics of Social Institutions

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the relationship between two aspects of the social and political thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. The first is what MacIntyre has to say about the politics of social institutions, especially the distinction which MacIntyre makes in After Virtue between practices and institutions. The second is MacIntyre’s views regarding utopianism in politics. I argue that MacIntyre’s assessment of the merits and demerits of utopianism in politics has changed significantly between the publication of After Virtue in 1981 and the publication of Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity in 2016. From being a pessimistic critic of utopianism in politics (“utopianism of the future”), MacIntyre has come to support a specific form of utopianism, which he has called “utopianism of the present,” but which might better be described as “realistic utopianism.” This form of utopianism is practical and small-scale. It focuses on the institutions of civil society rather than on the state, or on an attempt to initiate large-scale social and political transformation of society as a whole, of the kind that is traditionally associated with radical politics. MacIntyre’s most recent views might also, therefore, be associated with the idea of prefigurative utopianism, as this is understood by scholars who work in the area of utopian studies.