Morality versus Ethical Substance

Author(s): Fredric Jameson

Source: Social Text, No. 8 (Winter, 1983-1984), pp. 151-154
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466328 .
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 VersusEthicalSubstance
Morality
FREDRIC JAMESON

Not unsurprisingly, this same Hegelian distinctionis underscoredin Alisdair

MacIntyre'srecentAfterVirtue,in suchremarksas thefollowing:"A moralphilos-
ophy... characteristically presupposes a sociology. For every moral philosophy
offersexplicitly at leasta partialconceptualanalysisof the relationship
or implicitly
of an agentto his or her reasons,motives,intentionsand actions,and in so doing
generallypresupposessome claimthattheseconceptsare embodiedor at leastcan be
in thereal social world" (22). MacIntyre'sis farand away the most importantand
themostbrilliantreformulation of thequestionof theethicalin recentyears,a book
withwhichanystatement on thesubjectmustnecessarilycome to terms.It proposes
a returnto theclassicalAristotelianconceptionof the virtues,whichhe understands
as beinginseparablefroma realizedcommunityor polis in whichthose virtuescor-
respondto real social practicesand not to eitherunrealizableimperativesor rulesor
to Stoic repressions.The move is thereforethe Hegelian one in which individual
conceptionsof moralityare dissolvedin a visionof collectiveethicalsubstance;and
indeedforMacIntyretheone greatdeficiencyof Aristotlefromany modernstand-
pointis theabsence fromclassicalthoughtof historicity as such, of the conceptof
thehistorical.This is not somepersonalweaknessof Aristotlehimself,however,but
an inevitableconsequenceof the social formationor mode of productionin which
Aristotlethought,and in thishis designationof the structurallimitsof Aristotle's
philosophyis at one withMarx's analogous remarksin Capital, Vol. I. MacIntyre's
is thereforea Hegelian Aristotelianism, and finallya Marxianone, insofaras Marx
everywhere in this book constitutes the richestultimatesource for MacIntyre's
visionof historyand of social life.
Indeed, wereone to wishto appropriateAfterVirtuefortheMarxian tradition,
it would be enoughto point out thatthe firstsectionof thisbook offersthe most
probingand devastatinganalysisof the reificationof moralcategoriesundercapital
whichwe possess. The conceptualadvesariesaddressedby MacIntyre-most nota-
bly, utilitarianism-areby him explicitlylinkedto the liberalindividualismof the
marketsystem(as are a numberof his seemingallies in the whole neo-conservative
or radical right"returnto virtue").
We can also learn somethingfromMacIntyre'sdiscussionof the collectiveor
social basis of Aristotelianethicsin thepolis itself;I am thinkingin particularof his
demonstration thatfortheGreeksgenerallyand forAristotlein particular,the vir-
tues are not rules,commandmentsor taboos whichone enforceson one's self by
violence.Rather,theotherway around,the absence of virtue,or the enactmentof
someactiveformof evilor vice,constitutesformsof violencedone to thecommuni-

FredricJameson
teachesFrenchand thehistoryof consciousness
at theUniversity
of Cali-
Santa
fornia, Cruz. He is from
writing, timeto time,a book on postmodernism.
151

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152 Jameson

ty,a failure ofone'scommitment tothatongoingcollective projectwhichessentially

defines community: "an offense against the laws destroys those relationships which
makecommonpursuit ofthegoodpossible....Theresponse to suchoffenses would
haveto be thatoftakingthepersonwhocommitted themto havethereby excluded
himself or herself fromthecommunity" (142). Thereis thenherea conception of
thegroupas a collective project,whichalreadybeginsto suggest someofthenewer
waysofthinking aboutgroupformation towardswhichourcontemporaries seemto
be feeling theirway-namelythenotionof Utopiaas a stateof seige,as a perma-
nently beleaguered community, something as vividin UrsulaLe Guin'sidea of a
of
Utopia scarcity as it is in Sartre's notion of the"group-in-fusion."
Yet it is preciselyfromthestandpoint of anti-Utopianism thatMacIntyre re-
nouncestheactivepartofhisMarxianheritage-aswellas repudiating theNietzsche-
an UtopiaoftheUbermensch andindeedall overtly politicalmovements andcauses
generally. Heretheargument is at firstlinguistic andWittgensteinian: "Both[Niet-
zscheandSartre]sawtheirowntaskas inpartthatof founding a newmorality, but
inthewritings of bothitis at thispointthattheirrhetoric-very different as eachis
fromtheother-becomescloudyand opaque,and metaphorical assertion replaces
argument. The Ubermensch and theSartrean Existentialist-cum-Marxist belongin
thepages of a philosophical bestiaryratherthanin seriousdiscussion.Bothby
contrast areattheirphilosophically mostpowerful andcogentinthenegative partof
theircritiques"(21). Muchthe sameis impliedin his intermittent discussionof
Marxism itself,wheretheprojections of future socialistor communist societiesare
dismissed as emptyof content and thusas nonphilosophical, on thegroundsthat
whatone cannotsay is notto be considered thinking.
Two featuresof thisrejectionof theUtopianand theprophetic seemworth
noting. The firsthas to do with the Popperian overtones of the judgement, which
wouldimplythatMarxism's visionofthefuture wantedsomehow tobe predictive in
some "scientific"sense.MacIntyre reasserts theRenaissanceand Machiavellian
notionoffortunaas thepredictably unpredictable, thenecessarily unforeseeable
formof future events,butthisin a verydifferent context ofthegreatest interest to
peoplein the fieldof culturalstudies.For one of theotherstriking features of
MacIntyre's bookis oneofthenewestand mostprofound tendencies of contempo-
rarythought ingeneral, namelytheincreasing foregrounding of narrative itselfas a
fundamental instanceof human understanding also
(something dramatically argued
inPaul Ricoeur'srecentTempsetr&cit). Theinsistence on storytelling is ofcoursea
significant component of MacIntyre's Aristotelianism, implying as it does a funda-
mentalrelationship between theintelligibility ofa lifeanditssocialrolesandpossi-
butitis alsoa crucialmoveinhiscritique
bilities; oftheincreasing reification-that
is, de-narrativization-of contemporary ethicalcategories.
Theotherpointtobe madeaboutMacIntyre's anti-Utopianism is thatitrecapit-
ulatesoneofthegreatdebateswithin Marxism itself, the
namely critique ofUtopian
socialism."Theyhaveno idealstorealize,"criedMarxoftheworkers at theclimac-
tic momentof his address on the Paris Commune; rather,theirtask consistedin
uncoveringand revealingthe new formsof cooperativeand collectivesocial rela-
tionshipsthathad alreadybegun to emergewithinthe intersticesof the capitalist

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Morality& Ethics 153

mode of production.For Marx also, then,socialismis a matterof alreadyexistent

tendencieswithinour world,ratherthanof emptyvisionsof thefutureto be realized
on some mode of an ethicalimperative(a Kantian positioninto which,as is well
known,the Second Internationaltendedto lapse).
MacIntyre'scall fora returnto theAristotelianvirtuescan thus,as he is onlytoo
keenlyaware,be subjectedto thesame objectionshe raisesto Marxismas a political
movement:namely,whetherfromwithincaptitalit is possibleto regeneratea lifeof
social groups,a concretesocial fabric,whichon his own accountis inseparablefrom
the practiceof those virtues.
His response,paradoxicallyand eveyironically(giventhetone and stanceof his
book as a whole),entailsa kindof enclavetheoryveryconsistentwiththeincreasing
preoccupationwithsmall group or micro-politics of the late 60s and
characteristic
beyond. "Within the culture of bureaucratic individualism conceptions of the vir-
tues become marginaland the traditionof the virtuesremainscentralonly in the
livesof social groupswhoseexistenceis on themarginsof thecentralculture"(209).
Even to therhetoricof "marginality,"thisis a ratherastonishingstatementto find
in a work whose thrustwill generallybe identifiedas conservative.It is however
altogetherlogical in MacIntyre'sframework,since he mustbe able to identifystill
survivingsocial groupsapproximating thepolis sufficiently fortheirpracticeof the
virtuesto be concreteratherthanprojectingideal and emptymoralimperatives.The
basic difference betweenMacIntyre'senclavesand thoseof 60s radicalismlies not in
the concept,but in the contentof those enclavesthemselves:althoughethnicand
religiouscommunities are noted(see p. 234), itis significant
thatMacIntyre'scentral
symbolicillustration is drawnfromtheworkof the"last Aristotelian,"namelyJane
Austen,in whose novelsmarriagecomes to figurethe last space of the older polis:
"the restricted householdsof Highburyand MansfieldPark have to serveas surro-
gates forthe Greekcity-states and the medievalkingdom" (224).
The entirecomplexargumentof After Virtuewould have to be ignoredor mis-
read forus to see in thisemblematicevocationof thehearthyetanothersymptomof
bourgeois"privatization."Thatitis a symptomof de-politization, however,is surely
undeniable. The other argumentmusteredagainst historicalmaterialismis not,
indeed,thelatter'semptyUtopianism,but ratheritsincreasinglack of any kind of
Utopian politics: "as Marxistsorganizeand move towardspower theyalways do
and have becomeWeberiansin substance,evenif theyremainMarxistsin rhetoric"
(103)-it is a tellingreproach,but one whichassumesthatMarxismhas in itselfno
further possibilitiesof development.But Marxismis heremerelythe markerforall
contemporarypolitical movements,a sign for the more general absence of any
"tolerable alternativeset of political and economic structureswhich could be
broughtinto place to replace the structuresof advanced capitalism.For I...not
onlytake it thatMarxismis exhaustedas a politicaltradition,a claim borne out by
thealmostindefinitely numerousand conflicting rangeof politicalallegianceswhich
now carryMarxistbanners-this does not at all implythatMarxismis not stillone
of therichestsourcesof ideas about modernsociety-but I believethatthisexhaus-
tionis sharedbyeveryotherpoliticaltraditionwithinour culture"(244). It wouldbe
a mistaketo thinkthat such discouragementdoes not also characterizethe Left

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154 Jameson

today, with its flirtationswith various post-Marxismsand its returnto a whole

varietyof Utopian speculations(in thissense,the whole so-called"crisis of Marx-
ism" is in realitya crisisof Leninism,and it is not a crisisin Marxian"science" but
ratherin Marxist "ideology," which has everywheresingularlyabandoned any
attemptto projectpoliticallyand sociallygrippingvisionsof a radicallydifferent
future).
JaneAusten aside, however,MacIntyrealso turnsout to be just as Utopian as
therestof us. For in hisclosinglines,yetanothervisionof thefutureis offered,one
of a newdarkages duringwhichgroupsof people setaboutto construct"new forms
of communitywithinwhichthemorallifecould be sustainedso thatboth morality
and civilitymightsurvivethecomingages of barbarismand darkness.... This time
howeverthebarbariansare notwaitingbeyondthe frontiers; theyhave alreadybeen
governingus forsome time.And it is our lack of consciousnessof thisthatconsti-
tutespart of our predicament.We are waitingnot fora Godot, but foranother-
doubtlessverydifferent-St.Benedict"(245). To whichone is temptedto add, how-
ever,that such a St. Benedict,who will undoubtedlyhave studiedthe firststam-
meringpremonitionand prophecyof his role in an ancienttextcalled After Virtue,
willnecessarilyby thatbook be sentback to read Marx fullyas much as Aristotle.

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