MacIntyre and Modernity

According to MacIntyre, the advent of modernity has led to the fragmentation and compartmentalization of social life and values. In this paper I argue that it has also involved the creation of new forms of social relation and new liberal values. MacIntyre's critique does not do justice to the complex and contradictory character of these changes. I make this point through a discussion of the notion of tolerance and of developments in the modern university, including the impact of the RAE. Similar issues are raised by MacIntyre's criticisms of the `enlightenment project' and his attempt to return to an earlier Aristotelian model as the basis for moral and social thought. Rather than rejecting modernity and enlightenment ideas, I argue, we should affirm its core values of liberty, equality and community and seek to realise them in the modern world. A more adequate picture of modernity provides some grounds to question MacIntyre's pessimism about the possibilities of doing so.