Alasdair MacIntyre
Modern morality is a jumble of fragments; to make sense of a good life we must return to the virtues and the traditions that carry them.
Placement
After Virtue: modernity has lost the tradition of the virtues – back to Aristotle.
Key ideas
- Virtue and tradition
- Practice
- Narrative unity of a life
Influence
Influenced by 7
Aristotle
influenced by
MacIntyre answered the choice ‘Nietzsche or Aristotle’ with Aristotle, recasting the virtues as excellences acquired within practices, narratives and traditions (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981); SEP “Virtue Ethics”
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Thomas Aquinas
influenced by
MacIntyre moved from Aristotle to Aquinas, defending Thomism as able to integrate Aristotelian and Augustinian traditions of enquiry (Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 1988). A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988); Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990); SEP “Virtue Ethics”
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas Aquinas › c. 1225–1274
Karl Marx
influenced by
MacIntyre began as a Marxist critic of liberal society (Marxism: An Interpretation, 1953) and kept Marx’s critique of capitalism after his turn to Aristotle (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, Marxism: An Interpretation (1953); Marxism and Christianity (1968); After Virtue (1981); K. Knight (ed.), The MacIntyre Reader (1998)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced by
MacIntyre’s early conceptual study of Freud treated the unconscious as a descriptive rather than explanatory concept, a method commentators link to Wittgenstein (The Unconscious, 1958). A. MacIntyre, The Unconscious: A Conceptual Analysis (1958; rev. 2004)
Evidence: AI draft
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
influenced by
MacIntyre used Evans-Pritchard’s Zande material to ask whether one can understand a way of life without one’s own standards of rationality (‘Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing?’, 1964). A. MacIntyre, “Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing?”, in J. Hick (ed.), Faith and the Philosophers (1964), repr. in B. Wilson (ed.), Rationality (1970); E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937)
Evidence: AI draft
E. E. Evans-Pritchard › 1902–1973
K. E. Løgstrup
influenced by
MacIntyre introduced Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand to English readers (with H. Fink, 1997) and asked what a Thomist might learn from his account of trust and dependence (2007). H. Fink and A. MacIntyre, introduction to K. E. Løgstrup, The Ethical Demand (1997); A. MacIntyre, “Human Nature and Human Dependence: What Might a Thomist Learn from Reading Løgstrup?”, in S. Andersen and K. van Kooten Niekerk (eds.), Concern for the Other (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
K. E. Løgstrup › 1905–1981
G. E. M. Anscombe
influenced by
MacIntyre took up Anscombe’s thesis that the moral ‘ought’ survives from a lost law conception of ethics in diagnosing modern moral discourse (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981); G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy”, Philosophy 33 (1958); SEP “Virtue Ethics”
Evidence: AI draft
G. E. M. Anscombe › 1919–2001
Criticism
Criticizes 5
David Hume
criticised
MacIntyre read Hume’s grounding of morals in the passions, and his is–ought gap, as part of the failed Enlightenment project of justifying morality (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), chs. 4–5; Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988)
Evidence: AI draft
David Hume › 1711–1776
Immanuel Kant
criticised
MacIntyre argued that Kant’s attempt to ground morality in pure practical reason fails: universalisability lets through trivial and immoral maxims alike (After Virtue, 1981, chs. 4–5). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), chs. 4–5; A Short History of Ethics (1966)
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Friedrich Nietzsche
criticised
MacIntyre credited Nietzsche with exposing the failure of Enlightenment morality, but rejected his solitary great man for an Aristotelian ethics of virtues within practices (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), ch. 9 “Nietzsche or Aristotle?”, ch. 18
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
John Rawls
criticised
MacIntyre objected that Rawls treats individuals as prior to community and excludes desert, which only a shared conception of the good could ground (After Virtue, 1981, ch. 17). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), ch. 17
Evidence: AI draft
John Rawls › 1921–2002
Robert Nozick
criticised
MacIntyre argued that Nozick’s entitlement theory, like Rawls’s, leaves out desert, and that their rival premises cannot be rationally settled in our culture (After Virtue, 1981, ch. 17). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), ch. 17 “Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions”
Evidence: AI draft
Robert Nozick › 1938–2002
Works
- 1981After Virtue
Nietzsche or Aristotle? – a critique of Rawls, Nozick and Enlightenment morality.
Position
After Virtue opens with a disturbing image: our moral language is like the fragments of a science after a catastrophe – we still use words like “virtue” and “justice,” but the context that once gave them meaning is lost. Hence modern moral debates are interminable. The Enlightenment project of grounding morality in reason alone has failed; the alternative is “Nietzsche or Aristotle.” MacIntyre chose Aristotle: virtues are acquired excellences within shared practices, in the narrative unity of a human life and within living traditions. In later works he argued that rationality itself is bound to traditions. His critique of liberal individualism inspired communitarianism and the revival of virtue ethics.
Life & context
MacIntyre was born in Glasgow in 1929 and taught in Britain, initially as a Marxist-influenced critic of liberal society. In 1970 he moved to the United States, where he taught at Brandeis, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Duke and, for many years, Notre Dame. In the 1980s he converted to Catholicism and became a Thomist. He died in 2025.
Further main works
- A Short History of Ethics (1966)
- Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988)
- Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990)
- Dependent Rational Animals (1999)
Appears in
- Debate ‘Justice and Equality’
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