My current intellectual task is to build a bridge between my work on aesthetic morality and my current attempt to think about historical morality. I want to see how the aesthetic concepts I developed can apply to history.
Something about MacIntyre on conversation as the human activity. Something about narrative and human understanding. Something about social roles, their history, our history, and craft. Something about history as a form of literature. Something about an aesthetic theory being the prerequisite of historical theory. Something about the virtues as some kind of historical-aesthetic living. Something about Absolute Mind and forgiving everyone for everything (while still punishing them for crimes). Something about historical civilization being committed to understanding people.
I've decided to write a small essay on a few things Alasdair MacIntyre said. It turns out that MacIntyre's description of the virtues in After Virtue has some similarities to my description of aesthetic morality. They both focuses on the cultivation of habits; they both think that historical knowledge (both of the world and of personal history) is a prerequisite to morality; they both think that social rules and regulations need to be obeyed and used creatively, not rejected; they both approach morality from the point of narrative self-creation, and not as adherence to a set of rules.
Some other stuff maybe.
The main thing connecting all of this is the idea that history is a form of literature. At some point I'll have to take seriously the relationship between history and literature.
I'm trying to think about all this now but it is early and I'm not thinking clearly. I'm thinking I might be able to do some writing tonight after work. Not sure. I'll try to get some done before I go to work.
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