Title: MacIntyre's The Believer and Emotivist Culture Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Author: Katherine Perry Date Written: February 22, 2006 Words: 2,085 In his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argues that members of contemporary society live in a world without a definitively objective moral foundation, a world he calls “emotionalist culture”. This essay will first define what specific characteristics MacIntyre believes are involved in such a culture. Second, it will explain and clarify the author's argument as to why the current state of the world reflects this emotionalist culture. Finally, he will present an argument that refutes MacIntyre's view because his list of emotionalist social characters is missing a key non-emotionalist actor: the believer, or an individual who bases his or her faith in a divine moral code. Before delving into an explanation of MacIntyre's vision of vedic culture, it is important and necessary to define emotionalism as a moral philosophy. A theory of emotion-based moral judgments, emotivism holds that the evaluation of values ​​can be understood only in terms of emotional meaning, or on the basis of personal, individual realities. MacIntyre describes the theory as follows: “Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically multiple judgments are nothing more than expressions of preference, expressions of attitudes or feelings, insofar as they are of a moral or evaluative character.” . (MacIntyre 10) In his argument, MacIntyre states that Emotivism fails as a theory of meaning but succeeds as a theory of use. To clarify, the statement “Capital punishment is wrong” as a theory of meaning could translate as “Capital punishment – ​​boo.” As a usage theory, this same statement would have persuasive or rhetorical effects so as to garner support for the cause of perhaps ending capital punishment. Combining MacIntyre's account of emotionalism with the concept of culture, or a particular society at a particular time and At this point it is now possible to explain what characteristics today's emotionalist culture contains. The author paints a rather pessimistic portrait of the modern world, which would certainly shock and disturb the average human being. In the emotionalist culture sadly depicted by MacIntyre, value judgments (or evaluations of the universal goodness or badness of certain actions) are nothing more than expressions of preference, attitude or feeling. Morality has no universal, general or objective basis. Instead, moral choices are inherently arbitrary and are therefore at the mercy of the individual mind. Like having a favorite color, morality has to do with taste and is simply a matter of opinion. To support his description of today's culture as based heavily on emotionalist theory, MacIntyre emphasizes its distinctiveness compared to societies of the past. He alludes to past thinkers Nietzsche and Sartre to contrast the “very different moral philosophies in Germany and France” with contemporary emotionalist cultures. In the past, emotionalist theories proposed by such thinkers were unconventional and eccentric, but MacIntyre claims that such theories dominate today's culture. It focuses on how pervasive such ideals have become in today's society and explains how they form a set of consensual beliefs based on emotionalism. MacIntyre highlights the centrality of emotionalist thought in contemporary culture in the following passage: Indeed, one way of framing my thesis that morality isn't what it used to be is simply to say that to a large extent people don'tthey think, speak, and act as if Emotivism were true, whatever their stated theoretical viewpoint. Emotivism has become embodied in our culture (22). In his description and differentiation of emotionalist culture from past societies, MacIntyre makes two bold claims. First, it states that morality is no longer what it was before the moral apocalypse. Second, and more importantly, it says that what once was morality has disappeared. MacIntyre calls this “a major cultural loss” and arrives at such a shocking and innovative claim – that today's society is actually an emotionalist culture – by constructing proof of the reasoning behind his belief. The argument is valid because its conclusion follows logically from the previous premises. MacIntyre's argument for his emotionalist culture theory is explained and summarized below: Premise 1: Emotivism, as a moral philosophy, involves a sociology, or study of social interactions between individuals. Premise 2: Sociology implies the presence of certain characters who embody the specific and significant social roles of a given society: the characters of today's culture are intrinsically emotional. Conclusion: A society's social roles constitute its culture; social roles based on emotionalist logic reveal the presence of an emotionalist culture. Taking each statement separately, the explanation of MacIntyre's argument begins with the premise that all moral philosophies require a sociology, or study of social interactions. Since Emotivism is categorically considered a moral philosophy, the author states that it also presupposes a sociology. Indeed, every moral philosophy explicitly or implicitly offers at least a partial conceptual analysis of an agent's relationship to his reasons, motivations, intentions, and actions, and in doing so generally presupposes some claim that these concepts are embodied or at least can be embodied in the social world. real (23). The second premise has two parts: a broad statement and a specific application of this statement to contemporary society. MacIntyre says that sociology involves the presence of certain characters who embody particular social roles that indicate the nature of a society. MacIntyre states that characters are “masks worn by moral philosophers” who “embody moral beliefs, doctrines, and theories” (28). Characters also include both the sociological expectations and the psychological wills of individuals, and therefore “morally legitimize a mode of social existence” (29). Regarding today's social context, MacIntyre states that three characters in particular embody the essence of culture: the aesthete, the manager and the therapist. They are all rooted in emotionalism, MacIntyre says, because each represents “the obliteration of the distinction between manipulative and nonmanipulative social relations” (23). MacIntyre describes the aesthete as an individual who exists and thrives in “environments where the problem of enjoyment arises in the context of leisure” (25). For the aesthete, the social world is a mere arena for the pursuit and ultimate satisfaction of one's desires – a goal that he or she will strive to achieve even at the personal cost of others. MacIntyre's second character, the manager, is the human embodiment of bureaucratic rationality, or the “rationality of matching means and ends economically and efficiently” (25). For the manager, the efficiency (not the moral purpose) of a task is evaluated. The therapist completes MacIntyre's trio of contemporary social characters and describes an individual devoid of values ​​and judgments, interested only in effectiveness and technique in “transforming maladjusted individuals into well-adjusted individuals” (29). Just like themanager represents the cancellation of the distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relationships, the therapist also represents this ambiguity "in the sphere of personal life" (29). Similar to the second premise, the conclusion of the argument also includes broad and specific components. MacIntyre argues that the social roles of a given society – embodied in its main characters – define its culture, or way of life. Furthermore, social roles grounded in emotionalist logic necessarily reflect an emotionalist culture and “provide a culture with its moral definitions” (31). While in theory MacIntyre's claim about contemporary culture seems plausible, a closer observation of the actual practices of members of modern society indicates that something is wrong with the argument, mainly regarding the list of main characters. The list is incomplete. MacIntyre's three characters are appropriate because they correctly reflect the values ​​and virtues of contemporary culture; However, a fourth character must be added to the esthete, the manager and the therapist: the believer. The refutation of MacIntyre's argument can be explained as follows: Premise 1: If the culture is emotionalist by nature, its "standard characters" or social roles must embody and reflect these same emotionalist values. Premise 2: Not all social roles embody and reflect emotionalist values. Conclusion: Therefore, culture cannot be considered truly emotionalist. In MacIntyre's second premise, he states that a certain sociology implies the presence of certain characters who embody the specific and significant social roles of a given society and that, furthermore, the characters of today's culture are intrinsically emotionalists. MacIntyre defines a character as “a very special kind of social role that places a certain kind of moral constraint on the personality of those who inhabit it in a way that many other social roles do not” (27). The believer's place in the list of social figures “immediately recognizable to the public” is crucial because of his pervasiveness and influence in contemporary society. For MacIntyre, characters are “moral representatives of the culture” and “express bodies of moral faith in their actions” (28). The believer certainly falls into this picture. A 2001 study conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that in the United States, 85 percent of people are affiliated with a particular religious sect, and nearly 80 percent of the total belong to some form. of the Christian church. Likewise, a 2001 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans regularly attend church. Even if a significant portion of this percentage does not actually attend religious services, the very fact that individuals lie about attending religious activities indicates how much people try to embody and personify the character of the believer. The believer is not only fused in the sociological layers of culture: he is also rooted in its foundations and governmental aspects. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. While in theory government is fundamentally separated from religious matters, through the separation of church and state, in practice the two are often conflated. Evangelical Christians, for example, have enormous influence in elections because their strong moral positions are generally consistent. In the 2001 presidential election, analysts argued that this group played a key role in George W. Bush's victory over John Kerry precisely because their strong beliefs led them to vote with one voice on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage . political world is the power of Christian voters,.