The Modern Emotivist Self

1. The Modern Emotivist Self “… finds no limits set to that on which it may pass judgment for such limits could only derive from rational criteria for evaluation and, as we have seen, the emotivist self lacks any such criteria. Everything may be criticized from whatever standpoint the self has adopted, including the self’s choice of standpoint to adopt. It is in this capacity of the self to evade any necessary identification with any particular contingent state of affairs that some modern philosophers, both analytical and existentialist, have seen the essence of moral agency. To be a moral agent is, on this view, precisely to be able to stand back from any and every situation in which one is involved , from any and every characteristic that one may possess, and to pass judgment on it from a purely universal and abstract point of view that is totally detached from all social particularity.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3d ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 31-32.

2. Sartre’s Young Man • A parable about dealing with deep conflict concerning personal conduct • The conflict between political commitment and personal obligation – joining the resistance or supporting one’s mother • The question-begging character of seeking authoritative advice • The necessity of falling back on choice • The heroism of choosing – avoiding bad faith, embodying authenticity, strength and honesty

3. Emotivism and the Modern Self The bifurcation of the contemporary social world into a realm of the organizational in which ends are taken to be given and are not available for rational scrutiny and a realm of the personal in which judgment and debate about values are central factors, but in which no rational social resolution of issues is available, finds its internalization, its inner representation in the relation of the individual self to the roles and characters of social life. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3d ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 34.