John Pearce's Radical Social Enterprise and Alasdair MacIntyre's Ethics: A Critical Synthesis

Abstract

The thesis explores the compatibility of Pearce’s conception of social enterprise with MacIntyre’s virtue-practice-institution framework. The aim is that through the synergy of the work of these two authors, a relationship between virtues as understood by MacIntyre and Pearce’s view of social enterprise will be established. Further, through the synthesis of their work, a more far reaching and viable alternative to capitalism can be envisioned. The thesis begins by detailing MacIntyre’s work on virtue and what Moore describes as MacIntyre’s virtue-practice-institution framework. MacIntyre argues that human flourishing can be achieved through prioritising the internal goods of a practice and subordinating external goods such as wealth. The practice is housed within an institution which encourages the pursuit of excellence through internal goods rather than focusing on external goods. External goods are regarded as only necessary to allow the practices within that institution to continue and flourish. Therefore, a hierarchy exists in which external goods are subordinated to internal goods. The thesis moves on to explore the compatibility of capitalist businesses with MacIntyre’s views. It is concluded that even a reformed capitalism could not be rendered compatible with MacIntyre’s view, despite the best arguments of Moore and others to the contrary. Alternatives to capitalism are then considered, with a particular focus on social enterprise. Pearce’s distinction between reformist and radical social enterprise is explored. It is argued that reformist social enterprises, which seek to change the nature of capital from within, can be viewed as aiding capitalism in that they are concerned with addressing the social ills created by capitalism. Radical social enterprise, on the other hand, rejects capitalism and serves as an alternative. The thesis identifies common themes between Pearce’s radical social enterprise and MacIntyre’s virtue-practice-institution framework and through the synthesis of their work, a philosophical understanding is given to radical social enterprise.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Steve Smith (Supervisor)