Abstract

Alasdair Maclntyre, author of After Virtue, combined moral philosophy, sociology, and history in a way that could lead scholarship in journalism and mass communication along interesting new paths. His definition of a social practice may be especially helpful by providing a model of what can happen when journalists working in close knit professional communities strive to meet standards of excellence and his articulation of the creative connection between social practice past and present offers new possibilities for writing journalism history. After Virtue and other works by Maclntyre neither make rtference to journalism nor provide moral decision making schema easily exportable to professional life, yet his account of the concept and role of the virtues in western society may provide a rich analytical resource for mass media scholars. This article attempts to illustrate how.