New Conventions for Old 187really clear universal answers to moral issues. Relativism, strict conventionalism,
and particularism appear to be the only possible outcome. At most, like MacIntyre,
the argument does suggest there can be rich foundations, but these are highly par-
ticularist ones. One response to this criticism is that neo-Aristotelianism is itself a
fine balancing act between generality and particularity. One can retain both objectiv-
ity and contextual responsiveness. Context can change and moral rules can also be
adjusted. Perceptions, for example, of acceptable forms of sexuality have changed.
However, this, in itself, is not an argument against the grounding experience of sexu-
ality and that it is morally significant. However, if, like Nussbaum, it is maintained that
there are universal ‘grounding experiences’, then the question still arises (from within
the neo-Aristotelian framework itself), as to whether any of these experiences can be
apprehended, free of particular cultural or conventional mediation. The critic can still
argue that there are no primitive human experiences. There is consequently nothing
behind or underneath culture or ethos. One answer that certain neo-Aristotelians
put forward is that even if judgement is always mediated through culture or ethos,
this does not imply that ‘anything’ is possible. In the area of grounding experience,
Nussbaum, for one, suggests that certain experiences (death, child rearing, or sexu-
ality) have a form of commonality. No group is focused—especially in the twentieth
century—wholly on itself. Cross-cultural communication is ever-present. In this
context, neo-Aristotelianism claims to offer a via media, not unlike forms of weaker
communitarianism, Walzer’s reiterative universalism, liberal nationalism, and some
versions of liberal thin universalism.
Republicanism
Republicanism is one of the latest of the hopeful candidates of the 1990s to leap
into the foundational breach, usually pulling patriotism behind it. It also appears to
have generated some heavyweight academic support, which has given it an initially
strong impetus. Republicanism itself—like neo-Aristotelianism—has again been pur-
portedly recovered from a historical perception of an older discourse, originating in
Roman legal and political thought. The difficulties begin immediately here, since
some see the idea originating in Hellenic Aristotelianism. Thus, neo-Aristotelianism
can, in some renderings, become an expression of republicanism. This has though
been bitterly resisted by other theorists. One way round this issue, which does not
appear in many recent republican writings, is to draw a distinction between neo-
Athenian republicanism (which can incorporate the neo-Aristotelian perspective)
and neo-Roman republicanism. John Maynor, for example, has argued that the neo-
Roman variant is far better suited, as philosophical defence of modern republicanism,
than the neo-Athenian variant (see Maynor 2003: 6).
The term ‘republic’ itself is an anglicized form ofres publica(public thing), as
opposed tores privata(private thing). Theres publicaof Roman thought was the
remote, but attractive, legal abstraction of republican Rome. It retained this attrac-
tion even for later Roman Imperial emperors, who tried to continue the republican