An analytical evaluation of Macintyre's critique of the modern conception of the enlightenment project

Abstract

Modernity has generally been interpreted as a radical expression of human progress in the light of the advances of modern science and technology. According to Alasdair MacIntyre, however, modernity is a project "doomed to failure". Given the progressive-linearity of the modern model of rationality, the past has, in principle, been ruled out as a source of moral-political wisdom and guidance. From the perspective of modernity, the present (as the progressive moment of the future) has therefore nothing to learn from past traditions. MacIntyre contends that the moral confusion within modernity comes from its loss of telos, mediated in terms of the past. Modernity therefore harbours a paradox based on its inability to provide a philosophical justification for establishing the possibility of human solidarity in the present, while simultaneously affirming its faith in the future. In this regard, MacIntyre's work is an important contribution to the philosophical debate on modernity.