Knowra Alasdair MacIntyre Alasdair MacIntyre Alasdair MacIntyre is a Scottish-American philosopher whose work criticizes modern moral philosophy and develops a historically grounded account of virtue, practices, and tradition.
Virtue ethics : An approach to ethics centered on virtues, character, and human flourishing rather than rules or consequences alone. MacIntyre revives this tradition as an alternative to modern rule-based moral theories.
After Virtue : MacIntyre’s 1981 book arguing that modern moral discourse has lost the shared framework needed for rational agreement. It presents his diagnosis of emotivism and his proposal to recover virtue ethics.
Marxism : A family of social, political, and economic theories based on the work of Karl Marx. MacIntyre’s early political and philosophical writing developed within Marxist debates.
Consequentialism : A family of ethical theories that assesses actions by the value of their consequences. MacIntyre rejects accounts that make outcomes, rather than virtues and practices, the basis of morality.
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? : MacIntyre’s 1988 book arguing that standards of rationality and justice develop within historical traditions. It extends his critique by comparing rival traditions through their histories of inquiry.
Practice (philosophy) : A socially established, cooperative activity through which participants pursue internal goods and standards of excellence. MacIntyre uses practices to explain how virtues become intelligible through shared forms of activity.
Enlightenment project : The intellectual effort to ground morality through universal rational principles independent of religious or inherited authority. MacIntyre argues that its failure left modern ethics without a shared account of moral purpose.
Analytic philosophy : A broad philosophical tradition emphasizing clarity, argument analysis, and attention to language and logic. MacIntyre’s early career engaged closely with the methods and debates of analytic philosophy.
Deontological ethics : Ethical theories that judge actions by duties, rules, or constraints rather than consequences alone. MacIntyre challenges the claim that universal rules can ground morality apart from a shared account of human goods.
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry : MacIntyre’s 1990 book comparing encyclopedic, genealogical, and Thomistic approaches to moral inquiry. It stages the contest between traditions that his account treats as central to rational progress.
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