Editing Alasdair MacIntyre (section)

===''Whose Justice? Which Rationality?'' (1988)===
{{main|Whose Justice? Which Rationality?}}

MacIntyre's second major work of his mature period takes up the problem of giving an account of philosophical rationality within the context of his notion of "traditions," which had still remained under-theorized in ''After Virtue''. Specifically, MacIntyre argues that rival and largely incompatible conceptions of justice are the outcome of rival and largely incompatible forms of practical rationality. These competing forms of practical rationality and their attendant ideas of justice are in turn the result of "socially embodied traditions of rational inquiry."<ref>"Précis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality?" in ''MacIntyre Reader'', ed. Kelvin Knight (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998) 107.</ref> Although MacIntyre's treatment of traditions is quite complex he does give a relatively concise definition: "A tradition is an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined" in terms of both internal and external debates.<ref>''Whose Justice? Which Rationality?'' (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988) 12.</ref>

Much of ''Whose Justice? Which Rationality?'' is therefore engaged in the task of not only giving the reader examples of what MacIntyre considers actual rival traditions and the different ways they can split apart, integrate, or defeat one another (e.g. [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]], [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustinian]], [[Thomism|Thomist]], [[Humeanism#Practical reason|Humean]]) but also with substantiating how practical rationality and a conception of justice help constitute those traditions. Specifically, according to him, the differing accounts of justice that are presented by Aristotle and Hume are due to the underlying differences in their [[conceptual scheme]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = MacIntyre | first1 = A. | title = Précis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? | journal = Philosophy and Phenomenological Research | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 149–152 | doi = 10.2307/2107828 | year = 1991 | jstor = 2107828 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Annas | first1 = J. | title = Whose Justice? Which Rationality | journal = Philosophy and Public Affairs | volume = 18 | issue = 4 | pages = 388–404 | year = 1989 | jstor = 2265479 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Mathie | first1 = W. | title = Whose Justice? Which Rationality? | journal = Canadian Journal of Political Science | volume = 21 | issue = 4 | pages = 873–875 | year = 1988 | doi = 10.1017/S0008423900057814 | jstor = 3228938 | s2cid = 144577496 }}</ref> MacIntyre argues that despite their incommensurability there are various ways in which alien traditions might engage one another rationally&nbsp;– most especially via a form of immanent critique which makes use of empathetic imagination to then put the rival tradition into "epistemic crisis" but also by being able to solve shared or analogous problems and dilemmas from within one's own tradition which remain insoluble from the rival approach.<ref>''Whose Justice? Which Rationality?'', 361–362.</ref>

MacIntyre's account also defends three further theses: first, that all rational human inquiry is conducted whether knowingly or not from within a tradition; second, that the incommensurable conceptual schemes of rival traditions do not entail either [[relativism]] or [[perspectivism]]; third, that although the arguments of the book are themselves attempts at universally valid insights they are nevertheless given from within a particular tradition (that of Thomist Aristotelianism) and that this need not imply any philosophical inconsistency.