Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity

An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10691041
AutoresDavid Mcpherson (0000-0002-4077-441X, Creighton University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen68
Número271
Páginas426-429
Fecha de publicación2018-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqx034
OpenAlexW2731732789
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11

In many respects, Alasdair MacIntyre's latest book can be read as an updated version of his most influential work, After Virtue, which was published 35 years earlier. It thus provides an opportunity to take stock of what has remained constant in his philosophical project since then and also of where his thought has developed. In After Virtue, MacIntyre argued that the ‘Enlightenment project’ of seeking to provide a justification for morality apart from a shared teleological worldview failed to secure rational agreement and subsequently led to an ‘emotivist culture’ in which the appearance of rational argument masks what is in fact attempts to manipulate others in the service of arbitrary preferences. In Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (henceforth ‘Ethics’), the basic argumentative structure is similar, though the ‘Morality’ project takes the place of the ‘Enlightenment project’, ‘expressivism’ takes the place of ‘emotivism’, and Bernard Williams takes Nietzsche's place as the key figure with whom to contend in defending a neo-Aristotelian ethical perspective. Both texts also combine philosophical, historical, and sociological analysis and affirm an important connection between theory and practice.

Argument (complex analysis) · Argumentative · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Expressivism · Modernity · Morality · Narrative · Sociology · Teleology · Telos · Virtue · Virtue ethics · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy