Product Description

When "After Virtue" was first published 25 years ago, it was immediately obvious that Alasdair MacIntyre had produced an important and highly controversial re-evaluation of contemporary moral philosophy. MacIntyre drew on more than 500 years of history to explore the causes of the current crisis in moral description and showed how attempts to formulate moral principles had grown progressively more difficult in the period after the Enlightenment. With extraordinary vigour and range, MacIntyre convincingly explains what has driven moral philosophy into its current quagmire and suggests ways out of it. This edition includes a new preface in which Professor MacIntyre responds to some of the central questions raised by the first edition, and reflects on the progress or otherwise of moral philosophy in the intervening quarter-century. The status of "After Virtue" is now assured. This new edition gives us a chance to assess its impact and to reach out to a new generation of readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18559 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-20
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"'Offers a diagnosis of the present state of moral philosophy which expands into a diagnosis of the present state of modern society.' Richard Rorty 'Frank, original and full of incidental insights... unquestionably one of the most lively, interesting and provocative books to have appeared for at least a decade.' Steven Lukes"

About the Author
Alasdair MacIntyre is Research Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame University, USA. For a succinct assessment of his works and their significance see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre

Customer Reviews

Brief
Excellent. This work systematically destroys the pretentions of the new normative ethics. Post enlightenment the ethical structures of society have been continually undermined. Macintyre asks the question Nietzsche or Aristotle? We cannot flinch, we must be either ethical or anti-ethical. A work of incredible relevance and of incredible brilliance.

Barbarians at the Gates?
This is a review of the third edition of 2007. I originally read the second edition (1985) on the recommendation of one of my philosophy lecturers when I did my degree. The third edition has an additional prologue, but otherwise there are no changes; it is a reprint, page by page. I was always aware that it was an important book and so it was never thrown into a charity bag like many others. It has always sat on my shelf waiting to be re-read; and now I have had the chance with this new edition. The title of the book's opening chapter - `A Disquieting Suggestion' - immediately arouses intrigue and curiosity, especially when its first sentence asks us to "Imagine that the natural sciences were to suffer the effects of a catastrophe."

Much of the first half of the volume is given over to elaborating MacIntyre's theory that the history of philosophy took a wrong turn with what he calls the `enlightenment experiment'. It is not until the fourteenth of the book's nineteen chapters that he finally starts to build the foundations of his own case, constructed on the support of the Aristotelian tradition. He declares liberal individualism to be at odds with this tradition, hence his argument's need for diversions into matters of `fact', `predictability', and `ideology'. The book's final paragraph contains warnings about "the new dark ages which are already upon us ... This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament."

It is simply not possible for me to give a full review of this book in the limited space available. My list of quotations from this book that I consider worthy of comment is much too long, and I feel I could write my own book commenting upon and refuting many of the propositions put forward. Although it is impossible to reduce the arguments in this book down to a concise soundbyte, in the prologue to this new edition he does provides some kind of summing-up by way of his critique of liberalism: (deep breath) "... the best type of human life, that in which the virtues is most adequately embodied, is lived by those engaged in constructing and sustaining forms of community directed toward the shared achievement of those common goods without which the ultimate human good cannot be achieved."

MacIntyre uses big words such as `phenomenology' and `epistemological' that can be unwieldy for those new to philosophy, but do not let these put you off, for the gist of his important argument can still be readily followed. And his suggestions are not always convincing. One senses that, however interesting and controversial his argument, that there are holes, that retorts can be offered to some of his assertions. And beware the "of courses"! There are many assumptions made. Waters can be muddied. He often reveals himself as a conservative who laments the passing of `sure' values, and sometimes states the obvious - although his explorations can be highly insightful nevertheless.

The postscript to the second edition is included in this third. Here he restates his position in the areas of the relationships between (i) philosophy to history; (ii) the virtues and relativism; and (iii) moral philosophy to theology. MacIntyre is here eager to state that `After Virtue' should be seen as a work in progress, rather than a statement set in stone. But that MacIntyre rightfully matters in today's debate on ethics is clear from the many references to his work that often appear in newspaper articles on subjects as diverse as social housing and bonuses paid to bankers. Whilst I might disagree with some of his arguments and some of his conclusions, there is much here worthy of support. MacIntyre's is a valuable argument in a twenty-first century world where ethics can appear to have disappeared from the mainstream. That situation is one that is dangerous to us all and MacIntyre tries with vigour and candour and surprising propositions to remedy the disaster to which such a world leads.

Don't waste your money
The book has obvious erudition. Chapter 2 even attempts to define a problem but only in the light of a very dubious allegory advanced in chapter 1.

Anyone educated in science, engineering or medicine and therefore used to a disciplined and rationalist style of argument is likely to be disappointed. The allegorical and pompous approach of the entire work promises much but in the end fails to deliver anything of substance and leaves exactly the sort of intellectual vacuum that he attempts to indict other modern philosophers for creating.

The Wikipedia entry on this volume states "After Virtue is a highly regarded book on moral philosophy" and then explains its content in the clear language of an encyclopaedia. Compare the style of the Wikipedia article to the actual language of the book. On page 187 paragraph 3 the first sentence for me encapsulates the highly irritating and pointless style of discourse. "By `practice' I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended." Doesn't that sentence really sing! My objection is not just to the appallingly bad and indisciplined structure that this philosopher feels licensed to use. Once you have considered what he perhaps means it is almost entirely vacuous.

Two sentences later by way of explication we have " Bricklaying is not a practise; architecture is. Planting turnips is not a practice; agriculture is." If like me you feel this is pretentious garbage then this book is not for you, for it typifies the tone.