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After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

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This book captures the nature of modern moral debate: shattered, fragmented, with pieces of concepts bandied about in bad faith by people substituting arrogance for erudition.

Macintyre describes the emotivist nature of modern moral thought, the attempt to relegate moral discussion to a "personal" matter. He argues that this is the nadir, the deep dark hole we have fallen into -- moral thought was once clear and precise, offering real choices. His view depends on Aristotle, and attempts to show the wrong turns of the Englightenment.

The book is sweeping, which makes for some jumpy reading. He asserts some points which he does not want to bother to prove. There is almost a rushed feeling to some of the arguments, as if he wants to get them on the table very fast.

The argument boils down to an attempt to begin a restoration of moral debate, by picking up pieces and polishing the shards. His attempt is to show a historical nature to moral arguments, sited within social contexts, and to show that this in fact offers a strength to moral debate, rather than a weakening through relativism.

If you wonder why everyone seems to be talking past each other, and why moral discussion is nigh unto impossible to sustain, this book offers answers. It is a worthy beginning, or maybe a last diagnosis before the curtain falls. Read it to understand why we are what C.S. Lewis calls "men without chests".

After Virtue is a delightful book which presents the contemporary problem of moral philosophy today. MacIntyre says that there is an interminability of moral debate today. No consensus solution to the variety of moral issues such as abortion and war will present itself because proponents of both sides of the arguments in these two issues argue from a different set of premises from a different tradition of moral philosophy. You have Thomistic ideals of the value of life and justice against Rousseauist ideals of individuality, for example, in life issues. Can any of the enlightenment moral philosophies really help us make rational, clear decisions about the morality of a particular decision? MacIntyre investigates the moral philosophies of Kant, Hume, & Kierkegard, showing how each of them miserably fail as possible moral systems. Utilitarianism, pragmatism, and emotivism are also wonderfully skewered. With what are we left? It seems as if after the failure of these systems we are left with the Nietzschean amorality of total chaotic relativism. MacIntyre understands the enigma of Nietzsche's ideas and shows how his attacks toppled the pompous, arrogant ideals of the Enlightenment. But Nietzsche's system seems impossible from a human standpoint, since, for example, we are left with the unsettling discovery that events such as the Holocaust are not really "wrong" in any objective sense. MacIntyre interjects that there is another alternative: go back to the source of the Enlightenment project. Sometime around then a bald decision was made philosophically to abandon the Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics that had supported Western thought for the previous 2000 years whether in the purest Aristotelian form or rather in highly developed Thomistic incarnations such as that which the Catholic Church held (and still does) and similar ones influences by Islamic and Jewish philosophers during the middle ages. Can this form of moral philosophy withstand criticism and ultimately rise as a viable alternative to Nietzsche? MacIntyre thinks so, and he spends a large amount of time laying the groundwork for a revived account of such a system. When he poses the question, Nietzsche or Aristotle, finally I at least think that he has made a compelling argument in favor of Aristotle (and Aquinas as some of his later work will evolve towards).

Overall, I think this book is an incredible account of traditional Catholic Christian ethics and is a must for a Catholic as well as anyone else wanting to advance a conservative moral system.

This work, which represents possibly the most important *classical* responses to modern liberalism (Strauss' is the other candidate) is of huge importance because it presents a complex, compelling accout of Aristotle for those to whom Aristotle is important but too unknown (e.g. students of Heidegger, natural scientists, Straussians). MacIntyre's breadth of knowledge of the Western tradition, as well as his courage in taking on squarely (if sometimes unsuccessfully) every issue that crosses his argument is truly amazing. This book succeeds at presenting a fierce critique of modern liberalism, as it shows us the incoherence in our speech about morality, and challenges our most central ideals (e.g. rights, liberal freedom, utility, objectivity). This book should be read by any who want to understand the current debate over liberalism and should be read again and again by those who agree with MacIntyre's critique--there is much more here than can be digested in one casual reading.

For anyone interested in understanding one facet of the current debate over political liberalism, this book is invaluable. MacIntyre is consistently understandable and while many may not agree with his views they simply cannot deny his relevance to the discussion. A necessary read for those wishing to be well-informed.

The other reviewers have grabbed exactly what MacIntyre was getting at, if one combines their comments. It is certainly true that MacIntyre wishes to "skewer" the major moral philosophies of the modern day. This is absolutely necessary for his project. If he wishes to re-establish Aristotelian moral philosophy, he must first discredit those philosophies that have tried to destroy Aristotelianism. He does an excellent job, which is why After Virtue sparked so much debate. This book is a wonderful introduction to MacIntyre's thought, and is complemented by his Short History of Ethics (get the second edition). Any lover of Aristotle will be thrilled, and those who don't will be somewhat frightened and forced to re-think their positions.

In this work Alasdair MacIntyre argues that morality as we currently understand it has suffered a great disaster. As a result of the Enlightenment project's failed attempt to justify morality on its own terms, as MacIntyre argues, we are left with nothing more than shards of a once complete and coherent moral tradition. As a result the current state of morality is a form of emotivism, according to MacIntyre. MacIntyre's argument comes to a head when, in ch. 9, he claims that we must either go the way of Nietzsche's critique of morality or opt for a reworked version of Aristotle's ethics in which our moral claims can be justified.

This work is, in part, resoponsible for the renewed interest in virtue ethics among contemoporary moral philosophers. Regardless of whether one ultimately affirms or denies MacIntyre's conclusions this work is necessary reading for anyone who wishes to keep informed of current debates in moral philosophy.

Along these same lines I would recommend MacIntyre's other works which include Three Rival Versions and Whose Justice? Which Rationality? as well as Bernard Williams' Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, and John Rawls' Political Liberalism.

While many of us find Virtue Ethics an oddly intiguing, if perhaps atavistic, field of study, I wonder if we are not falling victim to a wishful nostalgia. In an era when morality is confused at best and non-existent at worst, Aristotle's views are comforting, to say the least. Not many in the field know the subject as well as MacIntyre, and I would suggest this book to anyone interested in Virtue Ethics; however, does MacIntyre pose any answers for the contemporary moral agent? Well . . . Also, MacIntyre spends far too much time arguing against analytic philosophy and the like. Any sophomore philosophy major could do the same.

I've read this book several times, even though it is quite dense in places. This book is best at skewering various movements: emotivism, analytical philosophy, social science (in its attempts to have physical-science-type laws). Ultimately, though, this is a reactionary work: he is clearly irritated that life/society is so much more muddled and confusing now, unlike the good old days.

Contrary to the other reviewer, I did not find After Virtue be full of jargon. I actually find that in most places, the terminology is well explained or defined. This book is an attempt to redefine the dimensions of modern ethical enquiry. It follows up on a trend in ethical enquiry, that of virtue theory. This book encapsulates MacIntyres view of the problems of ethics. The problem is that due to a historical schism of meaning the ethical realm has lost its fundamental values. MacIntyre in this book is shooting an azimuth from a prior time across the schism and shows us what is needed in modern ethics

In this, his most famous work, Professor MacIntyre seeks to review the history of the destruction of modern ethics. He sees ethics as having been destabilised by the Enlightenment project, when scientism got its first foot-hold in the modern mind, and the thinkers of the era tried to ground everything in hard, observed fact or even harder, structural logic. He correctly diagnoses that attempts at the former, when in a positivistic framework, end in emotivism (e.g. Hume), while attempts at the latter (e.g. Kant), end in failure. However, modern ethical theory does not necessarily end in emotivism for the simple reason that positivism is not the only approach. Indeed a semi-Kantian approach can be taken to ethics, in which it is seen not so-much as justified by logic, as a prerequisite of our language (transcendental, e.g. early Wittgenstein). This puts its ground outside the range of criticism. MacIntyre is at his most interesting in his attacks on the lack of 'telos' (goal) in modern ethics. It is as though we were taught all the rules of chess (the laws of movement)without being taught how to win. However, he falsely damns one of the orginal men who diagnosed this, Nietzsche, and his self-created man, so like Aritotle's 'megalopsychic man', the 'Ubermensch' as belonging in a "philosophical bestiary". Like all communitarians, however, he can not bring himself to answer why you should create morality (how can their be a ethical ground for any ethics) and also how you can actually do it (mass post-hypnotic suggestion perhaps).