The interesting discussion in contemporary Muslim social...

The interesting discussion in contemporary Muslim social thought is not over whether modernists or conservatives hold a more defensible position, but what aspects of liberal thought may be accommodated and what aspects must be rejected. MacIntyre's writings are interesting in this context because, like many Muslims, he is very strongly opposed to many aspects of modernism and liberalism for what turn out to be ultimately religious reasons.

Furthermore, the philosophical perspective he seeks to defend, a form of Neo Thomism with a strong emphasis on Aristotle, is more similar to the philosophical perspective of traditional Islamic thought than are any of the other major tendencies to be found among contemporary Western philosophers.

Of course, there remain important differences between the attitudes of Muslims and those expressed by MacIntyre, to be discussed below, but regardless of our differences, the thought of the most profound critic of modernism and liberalism in the West should be of great interest to those who feel a need to resist the imposition of modernist and liberal thought on Muslim societies, such as those inspired by the warnings of the Grand Leader of the Islamic Revolution against the `cultural invasion.' Muslim liberals who await a repetition of the European Enlightenment in Islamic culture would also be well advised to read MacIntyre, who has declared the Enlightenment project to be a failure and ultimately incoherent.

Perhaps if Muslim modernists would read MacIntyre they would become more critical of the claims made on behalf of liberalism, and would come to recognize the need to examine the intellectual history of their own traditions, as well as those of the West, to find the way forward. Perhaps MacIntyre's books can serve as a kind of vaccination against the infatuation with Western culture which Persians call gharbzadigi.

After Virtue The book which initially provoked the great storm of controversy was After Virtue , and in order to understand the true significance of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? One must understand something about the earlier work.

After Virtue begins with the disquieting suggestion that moral discourse in the West has lost its meaning, that it serves as a disguise for the expression of preferences, attempts to gain power, emotions andattitudes, but that it has ceased to have any relation to what is truly good or right. MacIntyre pins responsibility for the collapse of Western ethics on the Enlightenment.