MacIntyre's virtue ethics challenges modern moral philosophy's focus on reason alone. He argues this approach leads to fragmentation and incoherence in ethical thinking, failing to capture the complexity of moral life.

Instead, MacIntyre proposes a return to virtue ethics rooted in practices and traditions. He emphasizes character development through participation in socially embedded activities, offering a fresh perspective on how we understand and cultivate moral excellence.

MacIntyre's Critique of Modern Morality

Failure of Enlightenment Ethics

• Modern moral philosophy fails to provide coherent and universally acceptable ethical foundation
• Enlightenment project grounds morality in reason alone resulting in moral fragmentation
• Emotivism reduces moral statements to expressions of personal preference
• Loss of teleological thinking in modern ethics leads to incoherent moral reasoning
• Consequentialist and deontological theories fail to capture complexity of moral life
  • Utilitarianism (maximize overall happiness)
  • Kantian deontology (act according to universal moral laws)

Return to Virtue Ethics

• MacIntyre proposes return to virtue ethics inspired by Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions
• Emphasizes importance of practices, communities, and traditions in shaping moral character
• Reconceptualizes morality as cultivation of virtues and pursuit of excellence
• Virtues developed through participation in socially embedded practices
  • Medicine (compassion, integrity)
  • Teaching (patience, wisdom)

The Concept of 'Practice' in MacIntyre

Defining Practices

• Coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity
• Realizes goods internal to that activity
• Sustained by pursuit of standards of excellence over time
• Examples include professions, arts, sciences, games, and politics
  • Chess (strategic thinking, foresight)
  • Scientific research (curiosity, precision)
• Internal goods distinct from external goods like money, power, or status

Practices and Virtue Cultivation

• Virtues cultivated through participation in practices
• Individuals strive to achieve standards of excellence inherent in practices
• Reciprocal relationship between practices and virtues
  • Practices provide context for developing virtues
  • Virtues necessary for flourishing of practices
• Essential for achieving good life and sustaining moral traditions
  • Craftsmanship (patience, attention to detail)
  • Parenting (nurturing, selflessness)

Traditions in Moral Understanding

Nature and Importance of Traditions

• Moral reasoning and ethical life situated within historical and cultural traditions
• Tradition defined as historically extended, socially embodied argument about goods constituting way of life
• Provides context for moral reasoning, offering conceptual resources and shared understandings
• Narrative character embeds moral understanding in stories and histories
  • Greek philosophical tradition (pursuit of wisdom, dialectical reasoning)
  • Confucian tradition (filial piety, social harmony)

Tradition-Constituted Rationality

• Challenges Enlightenment ideal of universal, tradition-independent rationality
• Proposes tradition-constituted and tradition-constitutive rationality
• Moral progress occurs through internal rational development of traditions
• Encounters between different traditions can lead to evolution and growth
• Dynamic view recognizes traditions can evolve, face crises, and potentially fail
  • Scientific revolution (paradigm shifts in understanding)
  • Religious reformations (reinterpretation of doctrines)

Strengths and Weaknesses of MacIntyre's Ethics

Strengths of MacIntyre's Approach

• Recognizes social and historical context of moral reasoning
• Emphasizes character development beyond rule-following or consequence-calculation
• Highlights limitations in contemporary ethical discourse
• Offers compelling alternative framework for understanding moral life
• Provides way to understand and potentially resolve moral disagreements
  • Professional ethics (balancing competing obligations)
  • Environmental ethics (considering long-term consequences)

Criticisms and Limitations

• Concerns about relativism due to emphasis on tradition-bound rationality
• Potential for moral insularity within traditions
• Critique of modernity may be overstated
• Return to pre-modern ethical thinking questioned in pluralistic societies
• Applicability challenged by complexity and global nature of contemporary ethical issues
• Raises questions about adjudicating between competing traditions
• Addressing moral issues in diverse and interconnected societies proves difficult
  • Bioethics (conflicting cultural views on medical interventions)
  • Global justice (balancing national interests with universal human rights)