Category: Alasdair MacIntyre

Emptiness and Its Consequences: MacIntyre on “Emotivism”

October 20, 2019

Even more interestingly, he sees in the modern bureacratic/managerial organization an expression of emotivism that leads to a lack of agency and responsibility. This is because the emotivist “self” is basically empty–moving from feeling to feeling but with no real grounding–and this emptiness is then filled by stronger forces in society–political and commercial. … More Emptiness and Its Consequences: MacIntyre on “Emotivism”

Alasdair MacIntyre’s Third Way (After Virtue 3–Audio)

October 14, 2019

Alasdair MacIntyre developed a method that promised a third way, avoiding the problems of both moral absolutism and moral relativism. He makes clear in his Prologue to the third edition of After Virtue that he borrows from counter-Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico in developing his methodology of empathetic imagination with the aim of creating a way to gain an understanding of the flaws in the liberal system and the possible cures for those flaws in an older Aristotelian framework. … More Alasdair MacIntyre’s Third Way (After Virtue 3–Audio)

Alasdair MacIntyre’s Third Way (After Virtue 3)

October 14, 2019

Alasdair MacIntyre developed a method that promised a third way, avoiding the problems of both moral absolutism and moral relativism. He makes clear in his Prologue to the third edition of After Virtue that he borrows from counter-Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico in developing his methodology of empathetic imagination with the aim of creating a way to gain an understanding of the flaws in the liberal system and the possible cures for those flaws in an older Aristotelian framework. … More Alasdair MacIntyre’s Third Way (After Virtue 3)

Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: After Virtue 2 (Audio)

October 6, 2019

We start with the fundamentals. In order to understand where Alisdair MacIntyre is coming from in After Virtue, we have to understand a few ideas inherited from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle concerning teleology, man as political, and the meaning of virtue from Aristotle’s perspective. I take a first pass at contrasting Aristotelian thinking with the modern thought that MacIntyre thinks exploded the means of moral agreement within communities. … More Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: After Virtue 2 (Audio)

Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: After Virtue 2

October 6, 2019

We start with the fundamentals. In order to understand where Alisdair MacIntyre is coming from in After Virtue, we have to understand a few ideas inherited from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle concerning teleology, man as political, and the meaning of virtue from Aristotle’s perspective. I take a first pass at contrasting Aristotelian thinking with the modern thought that MacIntyre thinks exploded the means of moral agreement within communities. … More Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: After Virtue 2

Introduction to Alasdair MacIntyre and After Virtue (Audio)

September 30, 2019

After Virtue was first published in 1981, but MacIntyre wrote a new preface in 2007 reasserting his full confidence in the arguments. After Virtue promises to take on emotivism and moral relativism generally and to help us navigate not toward moral absolutism but toward moral judgment through a renewal of Aristotelian virtue ethics. This video introduces key themes, including his disagreement with communitarianism, and a bit of the life of MacIntyre–who’s still going at 90– in preparation for a reading of the third edition of After Virtue. … More Introduction to Alasdair MacIntyre and After Virtue (Audio)

Introduction to Alasdair MacIntyre and After Virtue

September 30, 2019

After Virtue was first published in 1981, but MacIntyre wrote a new preface in 2007 reasserting his full confidence in the arguments. After Virtue promises to take on emotivism and moral relativism generally and to help us navigate not toward moral absolutism but toward moral judgment through a renewal of Aristotelian virtue ethics. This video introduces key themes, including his disagreement with communitarianism, and a bit of the life of MacIntyre–who’s still going at 90– in preparation for a reading of the third edition of After Virtue. … More Introduction to Alasdair MacIntyre and After Virtue