Sunday, February 22, 2009

What I'm up Against: Alasdair MacIntyre

This is what MacIntyre says Luther says. Which is why I think he's wrong. Now I have one week and ten double spaced, 11 point pages to prove it.
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2 comments:

Moria said...

I'm not sure I understand your diagram, but it doesn't look like an accurate depiction of Luther. What of MacIntyre are you reading?

February 22, 2009 at 12:44 AM
sarahlaughed said...

I actually haven't *had* to read any of MacIntyre per se. What happened was that in philosophy, we touched on Luther around the same time we covered Machiavelli. I loved the readings, of course, because they were directly from Luther (selections from On the Enslaved Will and On the Freedom of a Christian), but the lecture portion on Luther didn't sound quite accurate with either the readings or what I know of him. And I told the professor so, or rather, I raised a concern.

By and by (last week), we got our term paper assignments and a list of options. And one leaped out at me:
"Is Alasdair MacIntyre (in 'A Short History of Ethics') right in his account of Luther's understanding of man and ethics, as a departure from the teleological outlook? (The view of Luther presented in class was largely MacIntyre's; this is your chance to challenge it.)"

I think I was baited.

But no matter, I took the topic. Basically, I've got to compare pages 121-127 (or the first three pages of Chapter Ten) of "A Short History of Ethics" with what Luther actually said and understood.

And it helps me to draw diagrams. Hence the posts - mostly because I just wanted to post something.

And whatnot.

The project is hard because I don't think MacIntyre is all wrong, but he's not all right either.
*ruminating and positing*.....

February 22, 2009 at 1:31 PM

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