Alasdair MacIntyre’s seminal book After Virtue was central in the rehabilitation of the Aristotelian approach to ethics. His work in moral and political philosophy is among the most important of his generation, and is influenced by Marx, Aquinas, Aristotle, and conversion to Roman Catholicism. He is a permanent senior research fellow at the University of Notre Dame.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s seminal book After Virtue was central in the rehabilitation of the Aristotelian approach to ethics. His work in moral and political philosophy is among the most important of his generation, and is influenced by Marx, Aquinas, Aristotle, and conversion to Roman Catholicism. He is a permanent senior research fellow at the University of Notre Dame.

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1984, given by Alasdair Maclntyre, a Scottish philosopher.

When _After Virtue_ first appeared in 1981, it was recognized as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. _Newsweek _called it “a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world.” Since that time, the book has been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies. Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release the third edition of (...) _After Virtue_, which includes a new prologue “_After Virtue_ after a Quarter of a Century.” In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity. In the Third Edition prologue, MacIntyre revisits the central theses of the book and concludes that although he has learned a great deal and has supplemented and refined his theses and arguments in other works, he has “as yet found no reason for abandoning the major contentions” of this book. While he recognizes that his conception of human beings as virtuous or vicious needed not only a metaphysical but also a biological grounding, ultimately he remains “committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity.”. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most controversial philosophers and social theorists of our time. He opposes liberalism and postmodernism with the teleological arguments of an updated Thomistic Aristotelianism. It is this tradition, he claims, which presents the best theory so far about the nature of rationality, morality, and politics. This is the first reader of MacIntyre's groundbreaking work. It includes extracts from and his own synopses of two famous books from the 1980s, After Virtue and Whose Justice? (...) Which Rationality? as well as the whole of several shorter works and two interviews. Together, these pieces constitute not only a representative collection of his work but also the most powerful and accessible presentation of his arguments yet available. The MacIntyre Reader concludes with Kelvin Knight 's clear, concise, and insightful overview of the development of MacIntyre's central ideas and how they have developed in his writings. Students will find this book a powerful and accessible introduction to one of the great thinkers of our time. "The publication of the new MacIntyre Reader--a fascinating anthology of his work from his Marxist beginnings to his Thomistic conclusions--provides an interesting opportunity for reconsidering the man's thought." --The Weekly Standard Kelvin Knight is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of North London. (shrink)

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there ; subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343?2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son (...) Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda. They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics ; Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics ; On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics ; Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most creative and important philosophers working today. This volume presents a selection of his classic essays on ethics and politics collected together for the first time, focussing particularly on the themes of moral disagreement, moral dilemmas, and truthfulness and its importance. The essays range widely in scope, from Aristotle and Aquinas and what we need to learn from them, to our contemporary economic and social structures and the threat which they pose to the (...) realization of the forms of ethical life. They will appeal to a wide range of readers across philosophy and especially in moral philosophy, political philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

V tretji knjigi Politike, ene najpomembnejših in vplivnejših politično-filozofskih razprav sploh, se Aristoteles ukvarja z nekaterimi temeljnimi pojmi svojega političnega raziskovanja, npr. z opredelitvijo državljanstva, upravljanjem mesta kot celote, različnimi vrstami ustave, razlikovanjem med krepostjo dobrega človeka in vrlino dobrega državljana ter z razmerjem med političnimi skupnostmi, krepostjo in pravičnostjo. Zlasti prvo in drugo poglavje proučujeta pomen izraza 'državljan', upoštevajoč različne oblike državljanove prisotnosti pri oblasti in odločitvah. Analiza pokaže, da mora dober državljan biti sposoben bodisi vladati bodisi biti vladan, (...) isto pa pričakujemo tudi od dobrega človeka. In the third book of Politics, one of the most important and influential treatises on political philosophy ever written, Aristotle deals with some basic concepts of his political investigations, such as the definition of citizenship, the government of a city as a whole and the different types of regimes, the distinction between the virtue of a good man and the virtue of a good citizen, as well as the relation between political communities, virtue and justice. Particularly the first and second chapter examine the meaning of the word ‘citizen’, considering different kinds of citizen’s commitment to power and general decisions. The analysis shows that the good citizen will need to know both how to rule and to be ruled, and the good person is expected to have this very same capacity as well. (shrink)

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute. Clearly divided into three parts and featuring a contribution from Alasdair MacIntyre, this volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianism to examine the Aristotelian (...) tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising the different readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, assessing MacIntyre's development of Aristotelian themes and revealing their conflict with modernity. Firmly establishing the relevance of Aristotle's thought today, Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics. Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics. (shrink)

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute. This volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianism to examine the Aristotelian tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising the different (...) readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, while Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics. Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics. (shrink)

This paper argues that Aristotle conceives happiness not primarily as an exercise of virtue in private or with friends, but as the exercise of virtue in governing an ideal state. The best states are knit together so tightly that the interests of one person are the same as the interests of all. Hence, a person who acts for his or her own good must also act for the good of all fellow citizens. It follows that discussions of Aristotle’s altruism and (...) egoism are misconceived. (shrink)

The formation of the moral point of view in Bernard Williams’ work might be understood as taking place between two central concepts: the individual and the community. It is through the tension between these two poles that some form of knowledge is acquired. In Williams’ work, the individual virtue takes the name of authenticity, and the communitarian knowledge is, importantly, ethical confidence. A philosophical peer of Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, has dealt with the same question, although in very different ways. (...) They are usually taken to be philosophical rivals in many respects, especially regarding their political views, their views on religion and their thoughts on Aristotle. But if we look deeper into their claims, we should discover that not only do they have similar ethical concerns, as their responses to those concerns are not, in essence, as different as they seem. My purpose with this paper, however, is not to deny the important differences between the two philosophers, but rather to make conspicuous Williams’ demanding ideas on the formation of the moral point of view by (1) connecting significant portions of his work and (2) contrasting his ideas with that of a philosophical “rival,” namely by interpreting MacIntyre’s own declarations on Williams’ work. It will stand out that both philosophers’ motivation to do ethics is to grant an equilibrium between the individual conscience and the moral knowledge that is acquired within a community. (shrink)

Contemporary neo-Aristotelians disagree about whether Aristotle’s work can contribute to rather than compete with or replace modern political theories, particularly theories that take individual rights seriously. In his Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics, Fred Miller says “yes.” In After Virtue, drawing on Aristotle to provide an alternative to what he sees as the moral bankruptcy on which modern political theories rest, Alasdair MacIntyre says “no.” However, I maintain—as does Miller (though on somewhat different grounds)—that MacIntyre is (...) mistaken to think that Aristotelianism and modern political theories are entirely at odds with one another. They are mostly reconcilable, a position I call the ‘compatibility thesis.’ An implication of this is that Aristotle’s thought, especially concerning the common advantage, can clarify and strengthen modern political theories that regard individuals (not the state or society) as morally primary and that advocate protecting them equally via rights under the rule of law. (shrink)

This paper traces Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of the development of the Greek polis as presented in A Short History of Ethics, After Virtue, and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?. The paper argues for the centrality of Aristotle’s conception of politics as an architectonic art to this account. It explores the foundations of MacIntyre’s presentation of moral rationality in Homer and offers the poems of Hesiod as an aid to understanding MacIntyre’s view of the post-Homeric crisis in Greek ethics. (...) Aristotle is then invoked to show how MacIntyre represents the polis as a classical response to that crisis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Émile Perreau-SaussineCaleb BernacchioPERREAU-SAUSSINE, Émile. Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography. Translated by Nathan Pinkoski. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. xvii + 216 pp. Cloth, $40.00This book is the much anticipated translation of the author's doctoral dissertation completed under the direction of Pierre Manent and Charles Taylor in 2000. Manent also contributes a foreword to this edition. Alasdair (...) MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography comes in the wake of Perreau-Saussine's untimely death in 2010, during which time he was translating a portion of his dissertation (chapter 2, part 1), which is included in the present text. Accordingly, the book does not discuss works published by MacIntyre after 2000. The book provides a detailed account of MacIntyre's intellectual development. Besides the introduction and epilogue, its three chapters cover politics, philosophy, and theology, respectively. [End Page 557]In chapter 1, Perreau-Saussine recounts the impact of British political debates during the 1950s and 1960s on MacIntyre's early intellectual development. Sharing a disdain for the Labour Party's embrace of a "reformed capitalism" and welfare state politics with other members of the New Left such as Charles Taylor, MacIntyre connected this political stance with a theoretical critique of utilitarianism, foreshadowing his later criticisms of bureaucracy in After Virtue. However, unlike Taylor, who "places himself on the field 'culture,'" focusing on the articulation of a richer account of modern values, "in MacIntyre's eyes, virtue and wisdom are more fragile than Taylor thinks." Perreau-Saussine not only insightfully explains the contrasting views of MacIntyre and Taylor in terms of their estimation of the prospects inherent within postwar liberal politics but also explains how MacIntyre's pessimistic take on postwar politics led him to embrace elements of conservatism, especially the theme of the individual as "embedded" within a community and tradition, which thus provide an essential context for understanding individual freedom. As such, the author argues, for MacIntyre, Burke and Marx come together in their critique of the abstractions of liberalism. However, "[u]nlike Burke's conservatism," the author argues, "MacIntyre's is not a liberal conservatism but one that tends toward an antiliberal conservatism." We might also note that this skepticism of the market places MacIntyre in opposition to many contemporary conservatives. Perreau-Saussine shows how MacIntyre's early affinity with conservative ideas, originally as a source of criticism of the Labour Party's embrace of the welfare state, links with MacIntyre's later work, especially his notion of a practice, which connects with Ruskin's discussions of the craftsman, and his account of the natural law, which, like Burke, he takes to be embedded within communities and traditions.Chapter 2 shows how MacIntyre's participation in postwar politics overlaps with various philosophical debates of the time, including those concerning the role of morality within Marxism, the adequacy of analytic moral philosophy, and the impact of the late Wittgenstein's work. For MacIntyre and other Marxists, Stalin's brutality highlighted Marxism's need for an adequate account of ethics. Whereas some appealed to Kantian themes to address this problem, MacIntyre rejected this path. Accordingly, Perreau-Saussine notes "MacIntyre's unceasing interest with Hegelian philosophy of action," especially Hegel's critique of Kant's appeal to an abstract notion of "humanity," a theme that returns in After Virtue. This recognition of the lack of an adequate moral perspective within Marxism, made apparent by Stalin's consequentialism, along with MacIntyre's refusal to embrace Kant's "abstract universalism" was another avenue leading him from Marx to Aquinas, as the author adeptly illustrates. Perreau-Saussine's comparison of MacIntyre and Lyotard is also insightful. For both, Stalinism and the theoretical failures of Marxism lead to a rejection of this political tradition; but where Lyotard, rejecting universalism altogether, turns to Nietzsche, MacIntyre turns to Aristotle and then Aquinas, seeking a more adequate conception of reason rather [End Page 558] than rejecting it. Like Hegel, the late Wittgenstein's emphasis on the role of communal standards for individual thought and action also made an important impact on MacIntyre's thought, further informing his focus on local communities and traditions. As the... (shrink)

Virtue ethics now constitutes one of three major approaches to the study of ethics by Anglophone philosophers. Its proponents almost all recognize the source of their approach in Aristotle, but relatively few of them confront the problem that source poses for contemporary ethicists. According to Aristotle, ethikê belongs and is subordinate to politikê. But in the liberal democracies within which most Anglophone ethicists write, political authorities are not supposed to legislate morality; they are supposed merely to establish the conditions necessary (...) for individuals to choose their own life paths. Contemporary ethicists who have addressed this question have proposed three very different answers to the question of how virtue ethics ought to be related to politics in modern nation-states. Martha Nussbaum seeks to provide all human beings with the capacities—intellectual and moral as well as material—they need to choose the best way of life. Arguing that the modern nation-state is incapable of providing its citizens with the education they need to live a good life, Alasdair MacIntyre looks to smaller, tradition-based communities. Because political action is coercive and truly ethical action is voluntary, Douglas den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen insist, ethics and politics should be strictly separated. This article examines each of these attempts to revive an Aristotelian understanding of ethics, bringing out the advantages and problems involved. (shrink)

At a time when many professional philosophers in the English speaking world have all but given up the attempt to think critically and in large scale terms about the modern world, MacIntyre's work is defiantly untimely, and greatly welcome for that. It is remarkably wide ranging, comprehensive and thought provoking. He has been described as a `revolutionary Aristotelian', but this indicates only part of the picture. His work draws on ideas not only from Marx and Aristotle, but also from (...) analytical philosophy, philosophy of science and Thomist sources; and it combines these all together to construct a critical response to the modern condition. It has generated important debates among thinkers in all these areas. (shrink)

This classic and controversial book examines the roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in modern life, and proposes a path for its recovery.

Scrutiny (1932-1953) was one of the most important critical reviews of the last century. Its editors and contributors included F. R. Leavis, Q. D. Leavis, Denys Thompson, L. C. Knights, D. W. Harding, W. H. Mellers, H. A. Mason, among others. In recasting Scrutiny’s critique of mass culture by way of Alisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981), I hope to show that the Scrutiny project not only dramatizes the conflicts internal to what MacIntyre calls emotivist culture, but provides a (...) new way of looking at the group’s relation to the culture industry, its purported elitism, and its deep ties with a communitarian rather than socialist politics. (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whose Aristotle? Which Aristotelianism? A Historical Prolegomenon to Thomas Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical CultureCarol PosterThe description of various works of logical and rhetorical theory as “Aristotelian,” although far from unusual, is not particularly informative, because it assumes, incorrectly, that there is some ultimate singular Aristotle being imitated by all authors who consider themselves, or who are labeled by others, Aristotelian. In fact, there never has been an interpretation of (...) Aristotle that satisfies the canon of St. Vincent of Lerins, “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est”; instead, there have been almost as many Aristotles as there have been interpreters of Aristotle. Thomas Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical Culture (1993), therefore, is not so much situated against the background of some single, unique, undisputed Aristotle but, rather, as he himself mentions, within an evolving tradition of Aristotelianism.The historical transformations of Aristotle include two distinct traditions, one oriented toward scientific-technical philosophy andthe other toward rhetorical-poetic and ethical humanism.1 The technical-philosophccical tradition, in which Aristotle was conceived primarily [End Page 375] as metaphysician and natural philosopher, emphasized the logical treatises of the organon, the speculative systems of the Physics and Metaphysics, and the scientific works of the biological treatises. This tradition originated in the Greco-Roman middle and Neoplatonic schools and has had a continuous history stretching through the Middle Ages, Counterreformation, neo-Thomism, and certain contemporary European postmodernisms. The rhetoricalhumanistic tradition, on the other hand, emphasizing the Rhetoric, Poetics, Politics, and ethical treatises, views Aristotle as a practical philosopher, concerned with the productive arts and those matters about which knowledge is probable rather than certain. This rhetorical-humanistic tradition was a relatively negligible aspect of Aristotle’s ancient reception, had a slight presence in the Islamic and Latin traditions, developed in certain strands of Renaissance humanism, and came to fruition in the late eighteenth century, primarily, though not exclusively, within a Protestant tradition. In eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Britain, the rhetorical-humanistic Aristotle found expression directly in neoclassical poetics and, in a more complicated fashion, in a group of authors (including the Scottish moderates and the slightly later Oxford Noetics) who enlisted Aristotle in a battle against skepticism and materialism. It is the latter of the two strands of the rhetorical-humanistic Aristotle that resurfaces (albeit in an indirect and mediated fashion) in the work of Alastair MacIntyre, Richard McKeon (and other members of the Chicago school), and Thomas Farrell, who used Aristotle’s model of probable deliberation and habituated virtue to construct an alternative to twentieth-century skepticism and materialism.Significant Strata of Aristotelian ReceptionThe history of Aristotelian reception is not monolithic. There has been tremendous variation across periods and national traditions of what works were considered authentically Aristotelian, which of those works were considered important, and how they were interpreted. The phases of Aristotelian reception immediately relevant to Farrell’s work include Greco-Roman Platonism, Islamic commentary, medieval Latin Christianity, Renaissance humanistic textual recovery, neoclassical “Aristotelianism,” early modern Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism, and the nineteenthcentury rehabilitation of Aristotle. This article will summarize briefly pre eighteenth-century interpretations of Aristotle as prolegomena to a close analysis of the works of two eighteenth-century Scotsmen, James Moor [End Page 376] and John Gillies, whose reconfiguration of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Poetics, and Organon as tools for practical wisdom in modern society anticipated (and, albeit indirectly, influenced) Farrell.2AntiquityTwo distinct strands of Aristotelian reception, the rhetorical-humanistic and technical-philosophical, originated in antiquity. Of these, the rhetorical-humanistic strand was substantially less important. Neither the Poetics nor the Rhetoric was well known in antiquity. The Rhetoric was not the subject of a Greek commentary until the Byzantine period and, although occasionally cited by Greco-Roman rhetoricians including Cicero, Quintilian, and Dionysus of Halicarnassus, was not widely or carefully read.3 The Poetics was also virtually unknown and was never the subject of an ancient commentary.4The Greek commentaries on Aristotle, which are predominantly technical-philosophical in character, include some fifteen thousand pages of extant text. Despite the existence of a distinct ancient Peripatetic school, the majority of commentaries were produced in the Platonic schools, where the works of Aristotle... (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Ethical Politics Political Dimensions of Virtue Conclusion Reference Further reading.

The topic of equality comes up in a variety of contexts in Aristotle’s Politics from Book II to VII. The desire for equality with equals and superiority to inferiors seems to play an important explanatory role for Aristotle in determining the characteristics of the constitution of a state and being a significant causal factor in constitutional change. He distinguishes between types of equality, numerical and proportional, and equality relative to some interest and unqualified equality. Aristotle appeals to his conception of (...) equality in his explanation of the nature and types of democracy and oligarchy in the differentiation of the three types of good constitutions—monarchy, aristocracy and polity—and their less than ideal counterparts—tyranny, oligarchy and democracy—as well as in his analysis of political stability and constitutional change. Despite the complexity of his conception of equality and its political importance, Aristotle’s detailed descriptions of actual constitutions and constitutional changes seldom mention equality. How the desire for equality is explanatory or which type of equality is realized in a specific constitution is left to the reader to determine. The goal of this paper is to discover whether a coherent account of equality can be extracted, on Aristotle’s behalf, from what he does say. In the first two sections, we will look at the role equality plays in Aristotle’s descriptions of actual constitutions in Politics IV and V. The third section will examine the role equality plays in his design of an ideal constitution in Politics VII and VIII. We will conclude by summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of Aristotle’s approach to equality. (shrink)

이글은 아리스토텔레스의 정치적 친애와 관련된 두 가지 아포리아를 제기하고 그것에 대한 답을 제시하는 것을 목표로 삼는다. 첫째는 ‘아리스토텔레스에게서 정의 역시 정치적 공동체의 최고의 덕이자 규제적 원리로 강조되는데, 왜 친애가 정의보다 더 중요한가’ 하는 것이다. 둘째는 ‘정치적 친애의 성격을 이익친애를 넘어 덕친애의 유형으로까지 볼 수 있는가’ 하는 것이다. 첫 번째 물음과 관련해선 정의와 친애가 스타시스(stasis)와 갖는 관계성을 검토함으로써 그 답을 제시할 것이다. 두 번째 물음과 관련해선 아리스토텔레스의 최선정체(hē aristē politeia)와 정치적 통치원리(politikē archē) 그리고 최선의 호모노이아(homonoia)의 관점에서 정치적 친애의 덕친애 가능성을 밝힐 (...) 것이다. 이러한 작업은 정치적 친애의 성격을 개인친애의 관점이 아닌 정체와 시민의 관점에서 통일적으로 접근하는 방법을 통해 이루어진다. (shrink)

I argue that we cannot fully understand Aristotle’s position on political stability and state preservation in the Politics with paying close attention to his Eudemian Ethics. We learn from considering the Politics and the Eudemian Ethics in concert that even ‘correct’ regimes are unstable when citizens do not possess full virtue. Aristotle introduces his formal account of the knowledge requirements for virtue in Eudemian Ethics 8.3, and he applies these knowledge requirements as an explanation for state decline in Politics 2.9 (...) when discussing the Spartans. If we primarily focus on the Nicomachean Ethics as Aristotle’s single essential ethical work, we will not learn the lesson he intends his readers to take away from the Spartan discussion in the Politics: that virtue requires correct understanding of the hierarchy and structure of the good life. This knowledge prevents the erosion of the virtues of character and the decline of political regimes. (shrink)

The essays in this collection explore the implications of Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of liberalism, capitalism, and the modern state, his early Marxism, and the complex influences of Marxist ideas on his thought. A central idea is that MacIntyre's political and social theory is a form of revolutionary--not reactionary--Aristotelianism. The contributors aim, in varying degrees, both to engage with the theoretical issues of MacIntyre's critique and to extend and deepen his insights. The book features a new introductory essay (...) by MacIntyre, "How Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary," and ends with an essay in which MacIntyre comments on the other authors' contributions. It also includes Kelvin Knight's 1996 essay, "Revolutionary Aristotelianism," which first challenged conservative appropriations of MacIntyre's critique of liberalism by reinterpreting his Aristotelianism through the lens of his earlier engagement with Marx. "This is an excellent collection. Its particular strength is its sustained focus on Alasdair MacIntyre's political thought, in particular MacIntyre's complicated relation and indebtedness to Marxism. In their introduction, the co-editors say that the reception of MacIntyre within political philosophy has largely been reductive and one-sided, namely, that he is simply viewed as a conservative communitarian. In focusing on MacIntyre's radical heritage, this volume helps correct that simplistic misperception. --_Keith Breen, Queen's University Belfast_. (shrink)

MacIntyre argues that management embodies emotivism, and thus is inherently amoral and manipulative. His claim that management is necessarily Weberian is, at best, outdated, and the notion that management aims to be neutral and value free is incorrect. However, new forms of management, and in particular the increased emphasis on leadership which emerged after MacIntyre’s critique was published, tend to support his central charge. Indeed, charismatic and transformational forms of leadership seem to embody emotivism to a greater degree (...) than do more Weberian, bureaucratic forms of management; hence, MacIntyre’s central contention about our emotivistic culture seems to be well founded. Having criticised the details but defended the essence of MacIntyre’s critique of management, this paper sketches a MacIntyrean approach to management and leadership by highlighting the affinities between MacIntyre’s political philosophy and Greenleaf’s concept of servant leadership. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre explores some central philosophical, political and moral claims of modernity and argues that a proper understanding of human goods requires a rejection of these claims. In a wide-ranging discussion, he considers how normative and evaluative judgments are to be understood, how desire and practical reasoning are to be characterized, what it is to have adequate self-knowledge, and what part narrative plays in our understanding of human lives. He asks, further, what it would be to understand the modern (...) condition from a neo-Aristotelian or Thomistic perspective, and argues that Thomistic Aristotelianism, informed by Marx's insights, provides us with resources for constructing a contemporary politics and ethics which both enable and require us to act against modernity from within modernity. This rich and important book builds on and advances MacIntyre's thinking in ethics and moral philosophy, and will be of great interest to readers in both fields. (shrink)

Nature in the Politics has been most extensively studied in the context of the book 1 argument that the polis is "by nature." Fred Miller's Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics is a landmark in this respect as in many others, and his discussion of the naturalness of the polis is, I think, definitive, and should put an end to the notion that according to Aristotle people find their natural end functioning as mere parts in some large organic social (...) whole. However, nature in Aristotle's ethical and political works contains complications outside book 1, and I hope that there remain some points to be made and issues to be elucidated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life by Mark RyanDavid ElliotThe Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life Mark Ryan eugene, or: cascade books, 2011. 229 pp. $20.80If the spirited debate between Stanley Hauerwas and Jeffrey Stout remains front-page news in theological ethics, then Mark Ryan’s subtle and penetrating The Politics of Practical Reason will help keep it there. (...) Ryan argues that practical reason is the hinge of ethical thinking and that it is “political” in the sense of shaping the community or polis. Given this hinge, the pressing question is of course, “Whose practical reason?” To answer this, Ryan probes major contemporary ethicists from Charles Taylor to Alasdair MacIntyre, but the book always circles back to Hauerwas and Stout. Their debate is ultimately decided by proxy, through a mediating philosopher whose work on practical reason Ryan sees both as the gold standard and as the indispensable background for understanding Hauerwas. Expecting this to be MacIntyre, the reader may be surprised—and perhaps even convinced—that the philosopher who best explains and possibly vindicates Hauerwas is in fact Elizabeth Anscombe, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s protégé, close friend, and translator.The book opens with Anscombe’s Intention (1957), which Donald Davidson called “the most important treatment of action since Aristotle.” In it, Anscombe argued that intention presupposes desire and is declared in public language within a context of social practices presupposed for agency to be intelligible. The implication is that we form intentions as members of a community with a particular form of life sustained by social practices. With human desire as its motivating nisus, Ryan insists that intention “is part of the very form of practical reasoning, then, to be political” (144).Having retrieved Anscombe’s model of practical reason, Ryan examines the field of contemporary ethics to see who measures up. Charles Taylor fails to place agents in a particular community, locating us instead in that bloated abstraction called “modernity.” Ryan therefore concludes that Taylor’s is an “ethics for anybody,” which leaves the self finally disembodied (94–98). Stout fares little better due to his refrain that Hauerwas went astray when he abandoned justice talk. Ryan counters that Stout’s sort of justice should be abandoned; lacking a substantive vision of the good and a teleology of freedom, Stout’s justice is reckoned a blind guide who cannot see or say why the polis should pursue one end and not another. Hauerwas, on the other hand, specifies a particular polis within which practical reason can intelligibly function: the church. It has [End Page 218] a substantive vision of the good (i.e., the peaceable kingdom) located in a scriptural narrative displayed by social practices requiring formation in the virtues (119–21). Ryan therefore endorses Hauerwas’s politics of practical reason, indebted to MacIntyre and made possible by Anscombe.I see one lacuna in this otherwise excellent book. Ryan seemingly advocates a pragmatic model of practical reason that is wholly internal to the polis rather than grounded in “truths of human nature as such” (101). This makes Anscombe an uneasy ally. Her “Modern Moral Philosophy” famously proposed a retrieval of virtue that required an overhauled “account of human nature … and above all of human flourishing” (41). This move opened the door for ethical naturalism, perhaps even natural law—both of which Anscombe and the later MacIntyre endorse. But these look suspiciously like what Ryan calls an “ethics for anybody.” So in the end are Anscombe and MacIntyre turncoats, or do Hauerwas and Ryan not follow them far enough? This crucial question remains unanswered.Despite this wrinkle, Ryan’s book is the best intervention in the Hauerwas–Stout debate that we now have. It throws light on Hauerwas, challenges Stout, shows why Anscombe matters, and gives practical reason its generous due. Philosophically deft and charitable in tone, it deserves to be read and studied as a major contribution to the field.David ElliotUniversity of Notre DameCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Edited by Richard McKeon, with an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle—constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years—has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this edition includes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, (...) The Short Physical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, On Generation and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety. (shrink)

Aristotle is the most influential philosopher of practice, and Knight's new book explores the continuing importance of Aristotelian philosophy. First, it examines the theoretical bases of what Aristotle said about ethical, political and productive activity. It then traces ideas of practice through such figures as St Paul, Luther, Hegel, Heidegger and recent Aristotelian philosophers, and evaluates Alasdair MacIntyre's contribution. Knight argues that, whereas Aristotle's own thought legitimated oppression, MacIntyre's revision of Aristotelianism separates ethical excellence from social elitism and (...) justifies resistance. With MacIntyre, Aristotelianism becomes revolutionary. MacIntyre's case for the Thomistic Aristotelian tradition originates in his attempt to elaborate a Marxist ethics informed by analytic philosophy. He analyses social practices in teleological terms, opposing them to capitalist institutions and arguing for the cooperative defence of our moral agency. In condensing these ideas, Knight advances a theoretical argument for the reformation of Aristotelianism and an ethical argument for social change. (shrink)

One can no longer truly say that virtue theory is the neglected tradition in moral philosophy. I won’t say much about the reasons for its revival, although the reasons for its temporary , though long, decline interest me. Now there are very many things that could be said here. For example, it is often thought that virtue theory requires some sort of teleology, but with the decline of Aristotelian physics and its replacement with the mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, (...) notions of function and purpose were given an ever-diminishing role throughout intellectual life. (MacIntyre 1982) Alternatively, or in addition, one might see virtue theory condemned through guilt by association with Aristotle. Pursuing this line it might be predicted that a developing discontent with forms of reductionist naturalism in metaphysics might also give weight to a new respect for Aristotelian themes in ethics. But while I want to paint here with a reasonably broad brush, I want to draw the focus in a little. Thinking specifically now about the relation between virtue theory and the twentieth century, one can see various ways in which virtue theory was out of keeping with the spirit of the age. As we shall see, however, some of the criticisms seem to be somewhat at odds with each other. One general line of criticism, which has several parts to it, starts from a philosophical view about the nature of morality. The second general 2 line is harder to characterise but might be thought to derive from reflection about the model of moral agent that virtue theory offers. There are several related but distinct ways in which virtue ethics has been out of step with modern moral theory. First, a developing consensus - - though one now strongly challenged - - supposes that there are certain constraints on what is to count as moral behaviour. It presupposes that the central problem of morality is that there is a conflict, to put it crudely, between morality and self-interest.. (shrink)

Presents the Nicomachean Ethics as a work of political philosophy, emphasizing the interplay between its practical political concerns and its underlying philosophic perspective and arguing that it is rhetorical in the precise Aristotelian meaning of the term.

Two important criticisms of contemporary liberalism turn to Aristotle's political thought for support that which advocates participatory democracy, and that sympathetic to the rule of a virtuous or philosophic elite. In this commentary on Aristotle's politics the author explores how Aristotle offers political rule as an alternative to both the rule of aristocratic virtue and an unchecked participatory democracy. Writing in lucid prose, she offers an interpretation grounded in a close reading of the text, and combining a respectful and patient (...) attempt to understand Aristotle in his own terms with a wide, sympathetic, and argumentative reading in the secondary literature. (shrink)