Another school shooting ripped through the news cycle this week bringing the long simmering tensions over gun control in the United States to another boil. The sides are neatly divided between the left and right, Republicans and Democrats, and both have their usual talking points. Unfortunately, every time such a tragedy makes the headlines, the discussion moves in a fairly predictable circle with neither side budging, but becoming all the more entrenched. This familiar pattern brings to mind one of the primary theses of Alisdair McIntyre's influential work, After Virtue.
McIntyre argues that society has lost the ability to engage in meaningful moral discourse. At root is the moral confusion which underpins modern culture. We have uncritically borrowed thoughts, ideas, and language from Aristotle, Aquinas, Bentham, Nietzsche, Hume, Kant and other philosophers throughout the ages. Many of these ideas are incommensurate - they cannot be reconciled on their own terms - and thus lead to people talking past each other. One invokes talk of the greater good while the other discusses rights and progress is expected to be made. According to McIntyre, moral discourse has completely broken down and becoming hostile and uncivil pushing people farther away from each other.
It seems to me that nothing captures this sad state of affairs better than the American gun debate following a tragedy such as we witnessed this past week. If any progress is to be made among individuals, a first step requires recognition of our moral fractures and a reclamation of systematic thought.
