Editing Alasdair MacIntyre (section)

==Philosophical approach==
MacIntyre's approach to moral philosophy interweaves a number of complex strands. Although he largely aims to revive an Aristotelian moral philosophy based on the virtues, he claims a "peculiarly modern understanding" of this task.<ref>''After Virtue'', (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 3rd edn, 2007) xii.</ref>

This "peculiarly modern understanding" largely concerns MacIntyre's approach to moral disputes. Unlike some [[Analytic philosophy|analytic philosopher]]s who try to generate moral consensus on the basis of [[rationality]], MacIntyre uses the historical development of ethics to circumvent the modern problem of "incommensurable" moral notions, whose merits cannot be compared in any common framework. Following [[Hegel]] and [[R. G. Collingwood|Collingwood]], he offers a "philosophical history" (as opposed to analytical and phenomenological approaches) in which he concedes from the beginning that "there are no neutral standards available by appeal to which any rational agent whatsoever could determine" the conclusions of moral philosophy.<ref>''After Virtue'', 3, xiii.</ref>

In his most famous work, ''[[After Virtue]]'', he deprecates the attempt of [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinkers to deduce a universal rational morality independent of [[teleology]], whose failure led to the rejection of moral rationality altogether by successors such as [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], and [[Charles Stevenson (philosopher)|Charles Stevenson]]. He emphasizes how this overestimation of reason led to Nietzsche's utter repudiation of the possibility of moral rationality.<ref>''After Virtue'', 257</ref>

By contrast, MacIntyre attempts to reclaim more modest forms of moral rationality and argumentation which claim neither finality nor logical certainty, but which can hold up against [[Moral relativism|relativistic]] or [[Emotivism|emotivist]] denials of any moral rationality whatsoever (the mistaken conclusion of Nietzsche, Sartre, and Stevenson). He revives the tradition of [[Aristotelian ethics]] with its teleological account of the good and of moral actions, as fulfilled in the medieval writings of [[Thomas Aquinas]]. MacIntyre himself recalls some factors that led him to this Thomistic shift.<ref>"I did not see him [Herbert McCabe] again until the Fall of 1982, when I gave the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford on 'Some Transformations of Justice'. He attended every lecture and each of the seminars that followed each lecture. We also had long discussions in various pubs. I took very strong note of his criticisms, as I acknowledge in the Preface to Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, the book that resulted from the Carlyle Lectures in 1988 /…/ It is of course true that we [Herbert McCabe and I] acknowledged many of the same influences and came to be in substantial agreement on a range of central issues. We were both Dorothy Emmett's students, although neither of us held views anything like hers. We were both influenced by Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach. But Herbert's preoccupations were those of a theologian, even if an unusually philosophically skilled theologian, whereas mine are those of an Aristotelian philosopher, even if I take Aquinas to be the most important interpreter of Aristotle. And we each drew on Wittgenstein's insights for our own purposes." (''My Interview'', cit.). "McCabe's remarkable achievement", notes MacIntyre, was "to understand Aquinas both in his own terms and in ours and so to overcome these difficulties". ''Foreword'' to Herbert McCabe, ''God Still Matters'', London: Continuum, 2002, vii.</ref> American theologian [[Stanley Hauerwas]] is even more certain of this philosophical debt. He wrote, "the change in McIntyre's views of Aquinas' significance from ''After Virtue'' to ''Whose Justice? Which Rationality?'' no doubt is due to many factors, but surely Alasdair's regard for Herbert's reading of Aquinas had some effect".<ref>Stanley Hauerwas, "An Unpublished Foreword", ''New Blackfriars'', Vol. 86 (May 2005), p. 292.</ref> This [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]]-[[Thomism|Thomistic]] tradition, he proposes, presents "the best theory so far," both of how things are and how we ought to act.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

More generally, according to MacIntyre, moral disputes always take place within and between rival traditions of thought relying on an inherited store of ideas, presuppositions, types of arguments and shared understandings and approaches. Even though there is no definitive way for one tradition in moral philosophy to logically refute another, nevertheless opposing views can dispute each other's internal coherence, resolution of imaginative dilemmas and [[Epistemology|epistemic]] crises, and achievement of fruitful results.<ref>''After Virtue'', xii–xiii</ref>