The self and the good

In the opening chapter of Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor notes that it is not possible to get clear about the 'modern identity' - about the human agent, person, or self - "without some further understanding of how our pictures of the good have evolved. Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes." (Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996] 3)

But there is another obstacle to this task:

Much contemporary moral philosophy, particularly but not only in the English-speaking world, has given such a narrow focus to morality that some of the crucial connections I want to draw here are incomprehensible in its terms. This moral philosophy has tended to focus on what it is right to do rather than on what it is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life; and it has no conceptual place left for a notion of the good as the object of our love and allegiance.... (3)

As I begin to teach Moral Theology to the FMA novices here in Nashik, relying on notes that I had made 20 years ago, I realize how very true this is: the whole approach of my notes - derived from theology classes at Kristu Jyoti College? - is a focus on the moral act rather than on the nature of the good life.... And that was the focus also of Azzopardi's Ethics in JDV...

So is Taylor making common cause with MacIntyre, at least on this point?

And what might be the position of Giuseppe Abba, a much neglected figure in contemporary virtue ethics, not even finding mention in the current article on the topic in the Wikipedia?

Charles Taylor

Among Taylor's influences: Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty. ["Charles Taylor (philosopher), Wikipedia, 26 Feb 2011.]

Taylor is part of the neo-Aristotelian revival, arising out of the perceived failure of ethical thought in the post-Enlightenment world. [He is therefore far from being 'modernist.'] His specific approach to neo-Aristotelianism is marked by a firm and constant rejection of what he calls 'naturalism' - 'that the nature of which he is a part is to be understood according to the canons which emerged in the seventeenth-century revolution in natural science' (Philosophy and the Human Sciences). [Dene Baker, "Philosopher of the Month: May 2003: Charles Taylor" at http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_may2003.htm, on 26 Feb 2011.]


In taking on naturalism, Taylor challenges 'the modern malaise' - an excessive centering on the self that flattens and narrows our lives, making them poorer in meaning and less concerned with others and with society (The Ethics of Authenticity). [His earliest writings seem to be leftist; his political affiliation was to a left-leaning, social democratic party.] [Baker]


He is associated - together with people like Alaisdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Gad Barzilai - with a communitarian critique of liberal theory's understanding of the self. Communitarians emphasize the importance of social institutions in the development of individual meaning and identity. [Wikipedia.] In his 1991 Massey lecture, "The Malaise of Modernity," he argued that political theorists from Locke and Hobbes to Rawls and Dworkin have neglected the way in which individuals arises within contexts supplied by society. 


The self is essentially defined by the framework of goods that define the good life in the Aristotelian sense. These moral frameworks are presided over by hypergoods - 'goods which not only are incomparably more important than others but provide the standpoint from which these must be weighed, judged, decided about'. (Sources of the Self) [Baker]


Taylor is described as a 'post-analytic' philosopher - someone who retains the clarity of the analytic tradition but goes beyond the analytic-continental divide. His efforts at 'philosophical archaeology' in Sources of the Self is a good witness to his desire to go beyond the ahistorical tendency of the analytic tradition (he studied in Oxford under Isaiah Berlin and G.E.M. Anscombe). [Baker]


While rejecting the tendency of certain forms of political liberalism to promote homogeneity, he upholds multiculturalism, but also argues that not all cultures are - or perhaps not everything in a culture is - intrinsically valuable, and that we must work towards a fusion of horizons. [Baker]