Alasdair MacIntyre regards our contemporary situation as one of interminable disagreement about moral values, a disagreement that derives from the ethical inadequacy of the modern conception of the self. Charles Taylor, by contrast, thinks there is considerable agreement about moral values but considerable confusion and disagreement about the sources of these values, where “sources” are whatever it is that accounts for the unquestionable hold morality has on us. Further, although he agrees with MacIntyre that the moral sources tapped by the Enlightenment project of modern philosophy are ultimately inadequate, he has a far more favorable view than MacIntyre of their richness, power, and even inevitability.

My focus will be primarily on Taylor's Sources of the Self. Critical reflection on its Geistesgeschichte of modern thought will reveal pragmatic liberalism's seventeenth- and eighteenth-century roots. Taylor will also help us deepen pragmatic liberalism's view of the self with the resources of nineteenth-century romantic naturalism and twentieth-century literary modernism. But the book also poses a major challenge to ethical naturalism by its strong argument against any account that does not find sources of morality beyond human beliefs and desires. Reflection on Taylor will lead pragmatic liberalism to a much more nuanced view of ethical objectivity.

Sections 1 through 3 offer an analysis and critique of Taylor's history of Enlightenment thought, and Section 4 continues the discussion into the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment.