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An Adequate Conception of the Human Good, a Preface to 

Alisdair MacIntyre  

 

 

 

BARSZCZAK Stanislaw  

University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland 

cassiacum@poczta.fm 

 

Received 18.06.2014; Accepted 22.08. 2014 

 

Abstract 

Some think that Virtue ethics by A. MacIntyre was the only solution to the moral vacuum in society. 

Responsibility as an essential. And what is a virtue? To know and understand the modern 

development of virtue ethics by Alisdaire MacIntyre, learning objective the best way to fill the 

moral vacuum is to chart our moral virtues. We believe the same thing.  Alisdair Chalmers 

MacIntyre (born 1929) is a Scottish philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and 

political philosophy. He is an extremely influential Catholic philosopher. The thinker directed 

toward metaphysics, because modern ethical study has lost its way. Since the enlightenment ethics 

has been dominated by normative theories. The thinker moreover, he understands that there is no 

past to which we might return. The philosophical task of Alisdaire MacIntyre is to account both for 

the dysfunctional quality of moral discourse within modern society and rehabilitate what he takes to 

be a forgotten alternative in the teleological rationality of Aristotelian virtue ethics. MacIntyre's 

thought is revolutionary as it articulates a politics of self-defence for local communities that aspire 

to protect their practices and sustain their way of life from corrosive effects of the capitalist 

economy. The theory of virtue in this respect is open to God. Theory of virtue, being a person with a 

certain quality of character. As, however, the civilizational progress, higher and higher forms of 

self-love guide our morality. Civilized man does not act so wickedly, above all that he too much self 

respect has. Though his respect for himself also produces the appropriate attitude to morality. 

Virtue ethics refers primarily to the nature of the person. Here I have to be honest, happy, I know 

how to behave. Due to this process we need to understand each other, we need to practice. We need 

to reach a certain capacity. Thus need more rules. I gained knowledge of certain principles, it 

owned a habitual. Whereas the defense of morality the “ethics of dilemma” approach to morality 

forgets an essential part of ethics - the Person's character and how personal moral growth is 

encouraged, A. MacIntyre noticed. Saint Thomas but gave bad person narration, which is different 

from the narrative people by MacIntyre. In the midst of human feelings and common disputes, we 

are looking for the ultimate truth. A natural morality is forged by people over time through trial 

and error. For MacIntyre, the practices necessary for training in practical reason through which 

we acquire the ability to act intelligibly requires the systematic growth of human potential by 

acquired excellence that cannot help but challenge the character of modern moral practice and 

theory. We must learn to respond to the feelings that accompany all of us, and are formed 

preferably in small communities. MacIntyre has sought to help us repair our lives by locating those 

forms of life that make possible moral excellence. Alisdair MacIntyre convincingly proves that 

rationality and ethics are inseparable; that it is impossible for the unjust person to think rationally, 

or for the irrational person to be just. According to MacIntyre's moral language expresses no 



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feeling, but the attitude. We need to find the means to realize the virtues, shape different attitudes 

and dispositions. Virtue ethics is different from the ethics act. The act is like at the beginning of the 

great task of shaping a complete man. You have to open up to life, which is good! Make your best. 

Today, the state of well-being is sought, it is therefore necessary to achieve appropriate social 

institutions. Virtues as understood by MacIntyre, as some features acquired; as a response to the 

need for historical descent into the depths of human feelings, they remain inevitable, tighter say, 

unavoidable for the growth of the human family. This is contemporary virtue ethics Alisdair 

MacIntyre. 

 

Keywords: internal, external, narrative, practical reason, virtue ethics 
 

 

 

1. Introduction 

Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (born 1929) is a Scottish philosopher primarily known for his 

contribution to moral and political philosophy. He is an extremely influential Catholic philosopher. 

MacIntyre converted to Roman Catholicism in the early 1980s. He is Emeritus Professor of 

Philosophy at Notre Dame and Duke University, and has also taught at Oxford, Yale, and Princeton. 

His most influential book, 'After Virtue,'(1981) was recognized as a significant critique of 

contemporary moral philosophy. The task of 'After Virtue' is to account both for the dysfunctional 

quality of moral discourse within modern society and rehabilitate what MacIntyre takes to be a 

forgotten alternative in the teleological rationality of Aristotelian virtue ethics. MacIntyre's thought 

is revolutionary as it articulates a politics of self-defence for local communities that aspire to protect 

their practices and sustain their way of life from corrosive effects of the capitalist economy. 

MacIntyre's second major work of his mature period, 'Whose Justice? Which Rationality?,' 1988) 

takes up the problem of giving an account of philosophical rationality within the context of his 

notion of "traditions,". The latter "is an argument extended through time in which certain 

fundamental agreements are defined and redefined" in terms of both internal and external 

debates.(A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Notre Dame, in: University of Notre 

Dame Press, 1988, p.12)MacIntyre argues that despite their incommensurability there are various 

ways in which alien traditions might engage one another rationally – most especially via a form of 

immanent critique which makes use of empathetic imagination to then put the rival tradition into 

"epistemic crisis" but also by being able to solve shared or analogous problems and dilemmas from 

within one's own tradition which remain insoluble from the rival approach. (ibid. p.361-362)  

 

Alisdair MacIntyre's aim in 'Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry' (third major book, 1990)is to 

examine three major rival traditions of moral inquiry on the intellectual scene today. While 'After 

Virtue' attempted to give an account of the virtues exclusively by recourse to social practices and 

the understanding of individual selves in light of "quests" and "traditions,". Alasdair MacIntyre 

believes the history of philosophy is profoundly relevant to contemporary life and thought. For 

MacIntyre, the history of philosophy is not necessarily a history of progress in which our grasp of 

truth is improving. My text is to focus on MacIntyre‟s radical heritage. Its particular strength is its 

sustained focus on Alasdair MacIntyre‟s political thought. MacIntyre from his early Marxism went 

to Aristotle. "Politics" is the aristotelian name for the set of activities through which goods are 

ordered in the life of the community. Though his criticisms of modernity are often thought to reflect 



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a nostalgic and unjustified preference for the Middle Ages, for a life like in medieval communes. It 

appears the reception of MacIntyre within political philosophy has largely been reductive and one-

sided, namely, that he is simply viewed as a conservative communitarian- and this is not true. 

'Dependent Rational Animals' (fourth major book, 1999) was a self-conscious effort by MacIntyre 

to ground virtues in an account of biology. "Human vulnerability and disability" are the "central 

features of human life", and  Thomistic "virtues of dependency" are needed for individual human 

beings to flourish in their passage from stages of infancy to adulthood and old age.(see, A. 

MacIntyre, The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 2006, p. VIII)  

 

I shall try to present the most salient points of MacIntyre‟s argument here regarding adequate 

conception of human good. MacIntyre convincingly proves that rationality and ethics are 

inseparable; that it is impossible for the unjust person to think rationally, or for the irrational person 

to be just. We can now say in terms of A. MacIntyre's an adequate conception of human good that 

the virtues genuinely flourish. And it was the aim of his articles: we have to live wisely, with 

intelligent life. Alasdair MacIntyre's writings on ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, 

philosophy of the social sciences and the history of philosophy have established him as one of the 

philosophical giants of the last fifty years. MacIntyre, unlike so many of his contemporaries, has 

exerted a deep influence beyond the bounds of academic philosophy.  

 

2. The intelligibility of action 
Alasdair MacIntyre introduces anew truly remarkable work of scholarship with the following 

succinct summary of its purpose: "I promised a book in which I should attempt to say what makes it 

rational to act in one way rather than another and what makes it rational to advance and defend one 

conception of practical rationality rather than another. Here it is” (see,A. MacIntyre, Whose justice? 

Which rationality? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, p.IX; cfr. Andy 

Blunden, Alasdair MacIntyre: Review of Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, May 2003, in: 

http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/macintyre.htm). And his advice to the reader who wishes to 

continue the investigation is: “We, whoever we are, can only begin enquiry from the vantage point 

afforded by our relationship to some specific social and intellectual past through which we have 

affiliated ourselves to some particular tradition of enquiry, extending the history of that enquiry into 

the present ...” (Whose justice? Which rationality? p. 401) “For each of us, therefore, the question 

now is: To what issues does that particular history bring us in contemporary debate? What resources 

does our particular tradition afford in this situation? Can we by means of those resources understand 

the achievements and successes, and the failures and sterilities, of rival traditions more adequately 

than their own adherents can? More adequately by our own standards? More adequately also by 

theirs? It is insofar as the histories narrated in this book lead on to answers to these questions that 

they also hold promise on answering the questions: Whose justice? Which 

rationality?”.(ibid.,p.402) We do not intend to recapitulate here all what MacIntyre has said. The 

main target of his critique is liberal individualism and the challenges posed to all of us, by a world 

in which liberalism is the dominant governmental and social power. 

 

Though, we are in the grip of a kind of liberal philosophy, at the same time we want our actions 

serve people. Essential to our learning to act is that we learn to behave in a way that others can 

construe our actions as intelligible.(see, A. MacIntyre, The Intelligibility of Action, 1986) In 'After 

http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/macintyre.htm


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virtue' thinker even said: “the concept of an intelligible action is a more fundamental concept than 

that of an action.”(After Virtue, 1981) Let's look at a work of philosophical MacIntyre,  his work on 

the philosophy of action, his development of key arguments from Wittgenstein concerning the 

conditions necessary for our actions to be intelligible to others as well as ourselves. So, by thinker 

intelligibility of an action depends on the narrative continuities in an agent‟s life. Yet the ability to 

narrate my life depends on having narratives available that make my peculiar life fit within 

narratives of a community that direct me toward an end that is not of my own making. The 

intelligibility of my life, therefore, depends on the stock of descriptions at a particular time, place, 

and culture. I am, at best, no more than a co-author of my life. 

 

At the beginning we are particularly taken with his distinction between action and behavior as 

crucial for understanding MacIntyre's entire project. Human behaviour seen as action of agents who 

desire and are moved, who have goals and aspirations, necessarily offers a purchase for descriptions 

in terms of meaning what thinker have called "experiential meaning". Behavior is rational "if, and 

only if, it can be influenced, or inhibited by the adducing of some logically relevant consideration." 

(see 'Determinism and Rational Behaviour,' in Mind, A Quaterly Review of Philosophy New Series, 

Vol. 68, No. 271 (Jul., 1959), pp. 28-41, Published by: Oxford University Press) We have already 

given the definition for rational behavior, but in this definition we find a point which must be 

clarified, that of a logically relevant consideration. What exactly is a logically relevant 

consideration? Well, that is logically relevant will necessarily vary from case to case. And it can 

vary so much that MacIntyre even goes as far as saying that the "task of philosophy might almost be 

defined as the task of defining 'logical relevance'." (ibid.) A. MacIntyre tries to show us that rational 

behavior is not causally determined, but that it comes out of our free will.  

 

A. MacIntyre is highlighting an important point: human actions reflect purposes, beliefs, emotions, 

meanings, and solidarities that cannot be directly observed. And human practices are composed of 

the actions and thoughts of individual human actors with exactly this range of hermeneutic 

possibilities and indeterminacies. So the explanation of human action and practice presupposes 

some level of interpretation. There is no formula, no universal key to human agency, that permits us 

to "code" human behavior without the trouble of interpretation. So, in A. MacIntyre 'Whose Justice? 

Which Rationality?'(1988) is to review of a comparative history of three influential Western 

'traditions' of moral and ethical theory that manages to stage a surprisingly strong and honest 

defence of Catholic Aristotelianism...Recall,  Ethics Nikomachean presents the theory for the 

fulfillment of human beings, what makes a man happy. This book shows a direct relationship 

between the virtuous and happy life. A. Macintyre makes Aristotle, the Christian. He unfolds 

several different rationalities at odds with one another, confronting modern society with the 

unrecognized depth of the disagreement between different "views." 

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that Freud's conception of the unconscious is complicated by his 

tendency to use the term in two different ways. MacIntyre shows how Freud uses the term 

"unconscious" both as a straightforward description of psychological phenomena, and as an 

evaluative notion to explain the links between childhood events and adult behavior. In his work A. 

MacIntyre discusses repression, determinism, transference, and "practical rationality," and offers a 

rare comparison of Aristotle and Lacan on the concept of desire.(A. MacIntyre, The Unconscious: 

A Conceptual Analysis)  

 



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Note the explanation of human action: whether we can find reasons for actions in the modern world 

that would not only enable us to act effectively but also move us to act in a manner that who we are 

and what we do are of a piece.(see also A. MacIntyre, Against the Self-Images of the Age, 1971, 

also, in After Virtue, “Fact, Explanation, and Expertise” and the “Character of Generalization in the 

Social Sciences.”) In    'Tradition, Rationality, and Virtue: The Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre,' 

Thomas D. D‟Andrea provides a helpful overview that rightly directs attention to MacIntyre‟s 

engagement with psychoanalysis and the philosophy of social science. Behaviorist and deterministic 

accounts of action, as well as his development of Wittgenstein‟s distinction between description and 

explanation all of which is crucial for the constructive account 'After Virtue' gives of practical 

reason and the virtues. 

 

We see A. MacIntyre attempt to provide an account of the human good in social terms directed him 

to metaphysics. For this account was inadequate without a metaphysical grounding. In 'The Task of 

Philosophy,' where he argues that first principles are not simply given before our engagement in a 

mode of inquiry. We have to ourselves to undergo a transformation amounting to a conversion if we 

are to understand “that it is only by participation in a rational practice-based community that one 

becomes rational.” MacIntyre provides a rich account of such a conversion in 'Edith Stein' by a 

close analysis not only of Stein‟s conversion but also Rosenzweig‟s and Lukacs‟ conversions. 

MacIntyre indicates in the prologue to the third edition of 'After Virtue,' that he came to recognize 

that “what historical enquiry discloses is the situatedness of all enquiry, the extent to which what 

are taken to be the standards of truth and of rational justification in the contexts of practice vary 

from one time to another.” 

 

MacIntyre certainly holds that it is undeniable that many culturally embodied systems of thought 

and action exist with their own standards of excellence. Moreover, adherents of these systems come 

to conclusions that are incompatible with other systems.  In the history of philosophy were what 

fragmented and largely transformed also morality, A. MacIntyre noticed. Philosophers as Kant and 

Mill attempt to develop accounts of morality in the name of some impersonal standard was an 

understandable response to the loss of shared practices necessary for the discovery of goods in 

common. Modern moral philosophy becomes part of the problem, for its stress on autonomy, like its 

corresponding attempt to free ethics from history, produces people incapable of living lives that 

have narrative coherence. Through the development of subplots and the introduction of new 

characters, the story MacIntyre tells is thickened and made more complex. The current morality 

portrayed in history already it is not satisfied for him, A. MacIntyre sees the inadequacies of 

Marxism. The first involves the nature of moral judgment and the meaning of such key evaluative 

words as good, right, virtue, justice, duty, and happiness(see, a short essay in Against the Self-

Images of the Age, 1971) A.MacIntyre observes that it is exactly at the level of language that the 

moral inadequacies and corruptions of our age are evident.  

 

Other causes that hinder compliance moral judgments are a source not only in the language, in the 

psychology, or generally in the absence of education, upbringing, but also in a variety of theories 

and philosophical problems, for example regarding the status of general concepts (cfr. a dispute 

about universals of Middle Age, or theory of the concreteness to the idea of mental by G. Berkeley). 

In 'After Virtue' philosopher confronts the emotivism. The latter says: ethical reflection, and the 

resulting provisions are merely the expression of subjective sensations and feelings of the 



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individual. Emotivism considered evaluation and standards for pseudo-sentences that apparently 

show the state of things, in fact, but are an expression of irrational and emotional posture leaning to 

take a similar position on the matter. (see, A. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981) 

 

 

3. Epistemological crisis and dramatic narrative 

In an article first published in 1982, wonderfully titled 'How Moral Agents Became Ghosts, or, 

Why the History of Ethics Diverged from That of the Philosophy of Mind,' MacIntyre writes, “At 

the beginning of modern moral philosophy which I date in the 1780s the moral agent as traditionally 

understood almost, if not quite, disappeared from view. The moral agent‟s character, the structure of 

his desires and dispositions, became at best a peripheral rather than a central topic for moral 

philosophy, thus losing the place assigned to it by the vast majority of moral philosophers from 

Plato to Hume.” Choice, as MacIntyre thought Stanley Hauerwas comments, “conceived by Kant 

and Reid as deciding between desire and the requirements of morality and later by Sartre as the 

condition of an individual‟s authenticity” replaced character as crucial for moral agency. And the 

rest, as the story goes, is history. (see, S. Hauerwas, The virtues of A. MacIntyre, in: First Things, 

October 2007) By taking the active study of philosophical traditions A. MacIntyre even concludes, 

crucial for him is the historical fact that one tradition of inquiry can put another tradition into an 

epistemological crisis. (For his account of such crises, see the chapter in A. MacIntyre, The Tasks 

of Philosophy entitled "Epistemological Crisis and Dramatic Narrative.") In an extraordinary essay, 

“Colors, Cultures, and Practices” in The Tasks of Philosophy , MacIntyre draws explicitly on 

Wittgenstein‟s arguments against a private language, to argue that our judgments of color are 

socially established standards. He then provides a fascinating account of how painters such as Hals 

and Turner discovered through the practice of their painting color discriminations that established 

standards of excellence that make impossible relativistic judgments. The subtitle of his 1999 book, 

Dependent Rational Animals , is Why Human Beings Need the Virtues , which makes clear that 

MacIntyre thinks that we are necessarily teleological beings who must learn to trust one another. 

The “plain person” is the character MacIntyre has identified to display the unavoidability of the 

virtues. Plain persons are those characterized by everyday practices such as sustaining families, 

schools, and local forms of political community. They engage in trades and professions that have 

required them to learn skills constitutive of a craft.  

And so we have concepts such as fact, value. A. MacIntyre sees  the assumed impossibility to move 

logically from an is to an ought. A. MacIntyre likewise insists on the importance of avoiding the 

tendency to treat philosophers as though they all held the same worlview-presuppositions. They did 

not. They occupied radically different social, cultural and historical contexts, and their 

presuppositions about the nature of reality were oftentimes radically different from, and at odds 

with, each other A. MacIntyre argues that political institutions and practices are themselves very 

much dependent on local political attitudes.(A. MacIntyre, After Virtue. London, UK, New York, 

2011, NY. Bloomsbury Publishing, Plc, p.13) 

 

After finishing the War in Vietnam, the American public  could not take an official stance regarding 

this war. So different dimensions of human had been entangled in reality. And today also 

commonly have to deal with the fragmentation, but of a human life sensu stricto. What is the theory 

of a common society by Alisdaire MacIntyre? This Scottish thinker seems to say: "I'll be better." He 

shows a good, a rule, a virtue, as a result which we acquire practice of (cf. an article by A. 



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MacIntyre, Plain Persons and moral theory). What are the right play ball? Gaining efficiency. In 

MacIntyre terms 'a good' shows what we get in experience. One must be able to distinguish between 

what generally makes me happy than what currently makes me happy. We want that, so we should 

rely on a good trial, or opinion (phronesis- good Judgement). We have to do (it), which we consider 

to be the most tenable, rational. Alisdair MacIntyre also relies on human inclinations and natural 

law, which is not going to change. Unlike emotywism by Jean-Paul Sartre (referencing only on 

doing the decision), utilitarianism (we recognize life), Kantian deontology duty (doing what is 

necessary), Scottish thinker is based on the authority of Aristotle's virtues.  

 

The main work of MacIntyre gives rise to a new way of thinking in ethics, but rather an attempt to 

renew Aristotle's moral philosophy. MacIntyre opposes the philosophy of postmodernism 

traditionalist anti-modernism. He questions the ways of thinking derived from the dominant culture 

in our own philosophical enlightenment. MacIntyre's views are inspired by the Marxist critique of 

liberalism and weave the moral values that constitute intellectual Christianity in its Catholic variant. 

At a conference in 2009 in Notre Dame, Indiana, entitled "Catholicism instead of what," he recalled 

the French poet Charles Péguy (1873-1914), who is the author of such sayings as: “We must always 

tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see/.../ “It will 

never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently 

progressive/.../ Everything begins in mystery and ends in politics." The conference Alisdair 

MacIntyre  talked about the narrative of people, on their progress and regress, but most of all he 

read in the thinking of students and encouraged them to cultivate the values in the Christian children 

education. Because here is not so much about morality as the viability of their parents. And what is 

the capacity of the church to improve this situation,? MacIntyre rhetorical question was. Thinker 

pointed to the correction of the education system, the development of societies: evoking civil 

America war he gave on it as the most destructive war up. The conflict between societies. So you 

have to put in the end the question: how good are we? Here a narrative of life is in conflict with the 

secular mind. Let's put on our personal development, but also the development of institutions that 

protect people, also a certain stability is very important now, for human rationalization of public 

life.  

 

All the people are invidious, Alisdair MacIntyre expressed that at some point. The Thinker relied on 

our personal "madness", "madness person." God is a Jew, as if we often agree with this argument. 

Child- it becomes after his birth. A rational look at the lives that depend on our feelings and choices 

is important, we need to take this into account. You have to finally ask about how we improve our 

lives, memory of which  we keep in our societies? How people work together? In the face of the 

various dimensions of our humanity, we must confront mercy and justice. Alisdair MacIntyre  

invoked here poetry and life narrative. If we believe in the power of meaning, we should ask about 

the quality of the opportunities of the Christian liberty. Quite to the current show nothingness, and 

that one we are being wasted, to admit that our metaphysical procedure entails political behavior 

often. The paradox of our potentiality lies in the fact that we need politicians. And as we pray, so 

we are. There are daily depravity and poverty of everyday life, we need schools, Catholic 

workshops we need not only for Christians. Do not Isolate moral order of the richness of life. 

According to our internal tensions must be built in this view our political answer. 

 



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Virtue ethics by Alisdair MacIntyre, it's about ordering goods, setting them in the most accurate 

series, arranging of the goods. Is not bad, good deeds. Compare the pair: ignorance- evil, 

knowledge- good. So, good people do good things. For these goods come through experience, 

phronesis- good recognition. In this context, Thomas would say: I wish you, Jesus. Alisdair 

MacIntyre is not so much an arbitrary position of Saint Thomas, what the attitude of practical 

reason (practical reasonning). What is good for me, considering it first. But above all a question of 

only seeing the other person. I am curious. For exemple person A-is good, person Y is needed. As a 

result, the reaction can be particular or universal. Hence Y has finally realized, was made an act 

(action). Otherwise how emotivism, that is incorrect theory, according to Virtue Ethics, make 

decision, that is, it would make others people able to make someone happy. So, I do not have 

money, it means, I do not have money as a value that MacIntyre called the Good. It means, that is 

earn money gradually wise life that money has become a virtue. I think. 

 

Acquire MacIntyre virtues: flourishing, happiness, excellence , relationship, justice, patience, 

courage (facing fear), temperence, honor, contemplation, the mean, relevance, revival of interest, 

pleasures, career(having career, różne od having job), freedom, money, wealth, emotions, prestige, 

respect (which responsibility), to choose proportial life, industrous (pilny), whole life. Avoid 

extreme to find golden mean. Courage is among excess and deficiency. You need moderation, for 

we are individual. We are utilitarian, beacause we can recognize life. Virtues as habit. Mamy czynić 

z cnót nasz codzienny habit. You do desire freedom, pleasure. Why? 

Because it leads to something very important, the friendship, the greater ability. In demonstrating 

the complete person (see article, Plain Persons and Moral Theory) MacIntyre distinguishes three 

social roles of men, I already mentioned, which we realize. And so, in life we can be an esthete 

(Aesthate), manager (Menager) or therapist (therapist). And even if we do not know how to try it 

and created it, in our choices alot the roles of moral inconsistencies. We can see the difference 

one's, for example, in distinguishing between the words 'meaning,' that is, the meaning of what you 

say, and 'use' - in expressing something, of the preferences and the emotions. MacIntyre argues that, 

in this respect, emotivism is not consistent, correct, because sometimes we can make bad decisions.  

 

The function of human is to utilize a life. Let's note, my particular happy decision is different from 

your happy particularistic decision. St. Thomas gave bad person narration, which is different from 

the narrative people by MacIntyre (ordinary Plain Persons). In this view, the history of man seems 

to be dangerous something. I choose some fear, etc. Mostly people are not rational rules regarding 

appointment. Do you know how to take correct decision (right way). MacIntyre would want to tell 

us: "I'll be better." But how we are good now, as people? Here's a question that ultimately emerges 

from these analyzes Scottish thinker. We need to find the means to realize the virtues, shape 

different attitudes and dispositions. Virtue ethics is different from the ethics act. The act is like at 

the beginning of the great task of shaping a complete man.  

 

The theory of virtue in this respect is open to God. Virtue ethics refers primarily to the nature of the 

person. Here I have to be honest, happy, I know how to behave. Due to this process we need to 

understand each other, we need to practice. And so when baking cakes need to know the technology 

of baking the cake, to tast, but also, for example, you must collect the ingredients for the baking, 

eggs, flavorings. We need to reach a certain capacity. Thus need more rules. I gained knowledge of 

certain principles, it owned a habitual. And now I know better, for example, what it means 'not to 



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kill'. And you too. "You flourishing," that is- you're happy. In various situations, in our decisions 

Biblie Revelation is ver helpful. And justice, here you are, it seems to have constantly a great job 

for us. But what to say, for example, for extreme cases, in making moral decisions? MacItyre seems 

to prompt us one solution to this issue: if the practice of virtue is worthly, that is, the most sensible 

approach to the virtue is always possible. This is not idealism. 

 

4. The unavoidability of the virtues 

G.E.M. Anscombe believed that Virtue ethics by A. MacIntyre was the only solution to the moral 

vacuum in society. Responsibility as an essential... What is a virtue? To know and understand the 

modern development of virtue ethics by Alasdair Macintyre, learning objective the best way to fill 

the moral vacuum is to chart our moral virtues. A. Macintyre believed the same thing. Overview the 

best way to fill the moral vacuum is to chart our moral virtues. The virtues help us overcome the 

effects of the three groups of people: atheste, menager, therapist. Throughout history they have been 

important because they help ordinary people be moral. There are internal and external goods. It is 

too concerned with normative rules or the reality of those normative rules. This has not helped fill 

the moral vacuum of society. MacIntyre directed toward metaphysics, because modern ethical study 

has lost its way. Since the enlightenment ethics has been dominated by normative theories. These 

theories give a moral answer to a problem based on different circumstances. 

 

Virtue ethics before the 20th century had died out. However it was noticed that there was a distinct 

gap in the moral mindset that normative ethics was not fulfilling. A fresh approach was needed. In 

'After virtue' A. MacIntyre traced the history of virtue ethics and tried to establish a system of virtue 

ethics for the modern age. His basic complaint was that modern ethics put too much emphasis on 

reason and not enough stress on people, their characters and the contexts of their lives. History is 

important, Macintyre noticed that as societies developed 2,500 years ago, so different virtues 

developed too. In the age of Homer a poet who told the story of (the Iliad and the Odyssey), the 

following virtues were paramount; Physical strength, Courage, Cunning, Friendship. These are 

known as the Homeric Virtues. Eventually, as cities (the polis) developed, life slowly became more 

civilized. Aristotle developed his theory of virtues for the city of Athens and his virtues became 

known as the Athenian Virtues. They were (briefly) as follows: Courage, Friendship, 

Justice: retributive (getting what you deserve) and distributive (making sure that the goods of 

society are fairly distributed), Temperance, Wisdom. The emphasis on strength and cunning, needed 

in time of war, was gone. 

  

Macintyre argued that the Athenian virtues of Aristotle were the most complete. Athenian virtues 

For Macintyre, the problems with ethics began during the Enlightenment, a period of time during 

the 17th and 18th Centuries when Science became more important for discovering truth. It was 

thought that a single, rational cause for morality could be discovered and thinkers such as Hume 

and Kant attempted to do this. Macintyre argued that despite the theories of people like Kant and 

Hume, the virtues have lived on. What‟s more, society depends for its very existence, upon people 

who exhibit the virtues. The virtues Macintyre argued that living a virtuous life depended upon 

getting into the habit of being moral and of striving towards being virtuous. He argued that this can 

give life an overall purpose and meaning. The virtues for Macintyre, are any human quality which 

helps us to achieve the „goods‟ in life. 

 



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So, Alisdair MacIntyre argues that modern ethical theory, as it has developed since the seventeenth 

century, has been exposed by contemporary as conceptually bankrupt. To find an alternative, he 

looks to ancient Greece and especially to Aristotle's concept of virtue. Although his critics consider 

this alternative to be something of an impossible dream, MacIntyre argues that it is central to a 

recovery of ethics. So, we are trying to in the text to explore the core ideas of MacIntyre‟s ethics 

and politics in order to present a coherent vision of his intellectual and practical project. The reader 

will discover how the evolution of MacIntyre‟s teachings has led him to a position that the authors 

convincingly label „Revolutionary Aristotelianism,‟ a doctrine that unites the many concerns and 

interests evinced by him over a half-century or more. 

 

So, A. MacIntyre writes, "There seem to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our 

culture."(After Virtue, 1981, ch.2) What to do in this situation. In 'After Virtue' Alisdair MacIntyre 

sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that 

had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of 

this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who 

emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life.  

 

Whereas the defense of morality the “ethics of dilemma” approach to morality forgets an essential 

part of ethics - the Person's character and how personal moral growth is encouraged, A. MacIntyre 

noticed.(Agent-Centered, Not Act-Centered, see the first chapter of this article) We are not 

concerned to know what goodness is but how to become good people, since otherwise our enquiry 

would be useless. (see, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II 1103b 27-9) Among the most important 

messages of the Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics are the opinions: "Happiness is the reward of 

virtue/.../ Moral virtue is an outcome of habit/.../ Since the early years of shaping the habits of one 

kind or another, depends quite a lot, depends very much depends almost everything." (ibid.) 

According to Aristotle a virtue is a skill to learn to be virtues. Learning to be virtues. Courage is 

neither covardly nor foolhardy, is like second nature. To take Golden mean by Aristotle is very 

important. Aristotle provided MacIntyre with an account of why our actions require a conception of 

an end as well as the social and political conditions necessary to sustain a life formed by the virtues 

constitutive of that end that is simply lacking in modern moral practice and theory. We are for 

MacIntyre's critique of modern ethics as a disastrous fetishism of rules detached from community 

like Atheiste, Menager, Therapist etc. For exemple managerism is an inappropriate form of 

corporate leadership and management culture that is characterized by a self-serving management 

biased toward capital markets and apathetic toward employees; it mostly occurs in publicly traded 

companies. 

 

MacIntyre's moral philosophy is shown to provide the resources for a powerful crititque of 

liberalism. His dicussion of the managerist and emotivist roots of modern culture is very interesting, 

it seems to be the inspiration for a critical social science of Modernity. Conservatives and liberals, 

moreover, both try to employ the power of the modern state to support their positions in a manner 

alien to MacIntyre‟s understanding of the social practices necessary for the common good. 

Liberalism, opponent to it the thinking by MacIntyre derives from a judgment that the best type of 

human life, that in which the tradition of the virtues is most adequately embodied, is lived by those 

engaged in constructing and sustaining forms of community directed towards the shared 

achievement of those common goods without which the ultimate human good cannot be achieved. 



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A. MacIntyre 'Ethics and Politics' ends with a fascinating defense of the virtue of toleration and free 

speech.  

 

The thinker moreover, he understands that there is no past to which we might return. He notes that 

we are all “inescapably inhabitants of advanced modernity, bearing its social and cultural marks.” 

Accordingly he acknowledges that his understanding of the tradition of the virtues and the 

consequences for modernity of the rejection of that tradition is one that is possible only on this side 

of modernity. We can gain some understanding of the moral character of modernity only from the 

standpoint of a different traditions. But as personal activity necessary to achieve an excellent 

learning, so research activity necessary for the discovery of the first principles. The Thinker from 

Aristotle goes out to Saint Thomas, who writes: we know the essence of things only by the effects.  

 

Alisdair MacIntyre's understanding of practical reason and the virtues are secular...In his important 

chapter called “Aquinas on Practical Rationality and Justice” in Whose Justice? Which 

Rationality?, MacIntyre does acknowledge that Thomas Aquinas‟ account of practical reason does 

have a “theological dimension,” because it requires knowledge of God. But he appeals to Thomas 

himself for evidence that such knowledge does not require -revelation. Thus, as if following the 

indications of A. MacIntyre, as our mentor, at the threshold of the third millennium, we open 

ourselves to a strong family, also on a human weakness, I would say, in the midst of human feelings 

and common disputes, looking for the ultimate truth. In 'Edith Stein' A. MacIntyre writes: “We do 

not begin with some adequate grasp of the concepts of knowledge and truth and in the light of these 

pass judgment on whether or not we know something of God or whether or not it is true God exists, 

but rather it is from our encounters with God and with the world and with human beings that we 

learn what it is to have knowledge of what truth is.” 

 

The ethical condition is not the condition of having a certain right theory; rather the ethical 

condition is having a certain character. This observation from 'Ethics and Politics' makes clear his 

view that a natural morality is forged by people over time through trial and error. For MacIntyre, 

the practices necessary for training in practical reason through which we acquire the ability to act 

intelligibly requires the systematic growth of human potential by acquired excellence that cannot 

help but challenge the character of modern moral practice and theory. This is contemporary virtue 

ethics Alisdair MacIntyre. 

 

5.Conclusion 

In fact, MacIntyre‟s work is extreme, but we live in extreme times, as Stanley Hauerwas noticed it. 

MacIntyre has sought to help us repair our lives by locating those forms of life that make possible 

moral excellence. Alisdair MacIntyre convincingly proves that rationality and ethics are 

inseparable; that it is impossible for the unjust person to think rationally, or for the irrational person 

to be just. We can now say in terms of A. MacIntyre's an adequate conception of human good that 

the virtues genuinely flourish. And it was the aim of his articles: we have to live wisely, with 

intelligent life. And it also became our goal, we were better.  

 

"The rights of property are absolute. There is and can be no standard external to them in the light of 

which some particular distribution of property could be evaluated as just or unjust. Justice on this 

view serves the ends of property and not vice versa," citing D. Hume MacIntyre said. (Whose 



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Justice? Which Rationality?, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, p. 295) A. 

MacIntyre also shows that no conception of justice and ethical life is possible outside of some real 

community in some place at some time. How to proceed against the way of life in which human 

relations are governed by the world market? As remarked above, MacIntyre advises each of his 

readers to look to their own tradition for the resources to take such a challenge forward. 

 

Let us try to live wisely now in the families, in our communities. So we drew attention to the A. 

MacIntyre understandings of the centrality of practical reason, the significance of the body for 

agency, why the teleological character of our lives must be displayed through narrative, the 

character of rationality, the nature of the virtues, why training in a craft is paradigmatic of learning 

to think as well as live, his understanding of why the Enlightenment project had to fail, his 

particular way of being a historicist, and why the plain person is the necessary subject of 

philosophy. 

 

 

References 
[1] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (2007). After Virtue, Notre Dame, in: University of Notre Dame Press, 3rd 

edn. 

 

[2] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (2006). The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Vol. 1, Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press. 

 

[3] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (1988). “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Notre Dame”, IN: University 

of Notre Dame Press, 1988. 

 

[4] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (1999). Dependent Rational Animals, Chicago: Carus Publishing. 

 

[5] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (2009).”On having survived the academic moral philosophy of the 

twentieth century”, lecture of March. 

 

[6] MacIntyre, Alisdair. (2009). God, Philosophy and Universities, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & 

Littlefield Publishers. 

 

[7] Hauerwas, Stanley. (2014). "The Virtues of Alasdair MacIntyre". First Things. Retrieved 16 

June 2014. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


