Macintyre and Hauerwas on Metaethics and Science

Abstract

The article seeks to sketch the outlines of an approach, based upon the work of MacIntyre and Hauerwas, which provides Christian moral theology with some congenial meta-ethical equipment. This sketch relies upon an examination of three concepts – freedom, virtue and narrative – together with the occasional sideways glance at contemporary secular moral traditions with which the Christian tradition finds itself in competition. The author suggests that this approach has to pay more attention to what seems to be a basic epistemological difference between so-called scientific and moral narratives. He claims that, in opposition to the MacIntyre/Hauerwas affirmation that “the activities of natural science” are merely another “species of moral activity,” science in some way transcends the boundaries of rival moral traditions, though not as moral tradition, but in the subordinate role of an instrument of traditions. He gives some hints at possible ways of dealing with this challenge.