Moral Philosophy, Moral Identity and Moral Cacophony: On MacIntyre on the Modern Self
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Seiriol Morgan
Abstract
This paper focuses on Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of the modern self, arguing that we are not as bereft of the resources to engage in rational thought about value as he makes out. I claim that MacIntyre’s argument presumes that philosophy has a much greater power to shape individuals and cultures than it in fact has. In particular, he greatly exaggerates the extent to which the character of the modern self has been an effect of the philosophical views of the self that have been influential during the period, leading him to be overly pessimistic about its nature and powers. Finally, I argue that MacIntyre has provided us with no strong reason for thinking that a moral tradition structured by modern values could not be viable.
© 2008 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Articles in the same Issue
- MacIntyre and the Polis
- Men at Work: Poesis, Politics and Labor in Aristotle and Some Aristotelians
- After Tradition?: Heidegger or MacIntyre, Aristotle and Marx
- The Uniqueness of After Virtue (or ‘Against Hindsight’)
- MacIntyre, Thomism and the Contemporary Common Good
- From Voluntarist Nominalism to Rationalism to Chaos: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Critique of Modern Ethics
- MacIntyre’s Search for a Defensible Aristotelian Ethics and the Role of Metaphysics
- MacIntyre’s Radical Intellectualism: The Philosopher as a Moral Ideal
- Traditional Moral Knowledge and Experience of the World
- Moral Philosophy, Moral Identity and Moral Cacophony: On MacIntyre on the Modern Self
- Utopias and the Art of the Possible
- Misunderstanding MacIntyre on Human Rights
- Alasdair MacIntyre’s Contribution to Marxism: A Road not Taken
- Why Business Cannot Be a Practice
- Ethics, Markets, and MacIntyre
- What More Needs to Be Said? A Beginning, Although Only a Beginning, at Saying It
- Social Criticism and the Exclusion of Ethics
- Practices: The Aristotelian Concept
Articles in the same Issue
- MacIntyre and the Polis
- Men at Work: Poesis, Politics and Labor in Aristotle and Some Aristotelians
- After Tradition?: Heidegger or MacIntyre, Aristotle and Marx
- The Uniqueness of After Virtue (or ‘Against Hindsight’)
- MacIntyre, Thomism and the Contemporary Common Good
- From Voluntarist Nominalism to Rationalism to Chaos: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Critique of Modern Ethics
- MacIntyre’s Search for a Defensible Aristotelian Ethics and the Role of Metaphysics
- MacIntyre’s Radical Intellectualism: The Philosopher as a Moral Ideal
- Traditional Moral Knowledge and Experience of the World
- Moral Philosophy, Moral Identity and Moral Cacophony: On MacIntyre on the Modern Self
- Utopias and the Art of the Possible
- Misunderstanding MacIntyre on Human Rights
- Alasdair MacIntyre’s Contribution to Marxism: A Road not Taken
- Why Business Cannot Be a Practice
- Ethics, Markets, and MacIntyre
- What More Needs to Be Said? A Beginning, Although Only a Beginning, at Saying It
- Social Criticism and the Exclusion of Ethics
- Practices: The Aristotelian Concept
