forty years ago. first edition of after virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most influential works of ethics in the late twentieth century. In Italy it was initially placed amidst contemporary North American debate. liberal I communitarian, inaugurated by principle of virtue In John Rawls (1971).
In this perspective, the McIntyreian proposal was correctly formulated in its moderate critical range, but it placed excessive emphasis on the role played by the category of community. after virtue In short, it risked being regarded as the fifteenth expression of a nostalgic idea about one’s warmth and organicity. Nature Community disputes over the coldness and mechanical nature of modern liberal society.
Important post-publication studies after virtue, which eventually began to dig into the McIntyrian non-fiction production of the last thirty years, with the subsequent production of Glasgow Philosopher gradually clarified its meaning. Macintyreana anti-liberal controversy.
The biography and intellectual path of McIntyre is characterized by various turning points. It begins with a name of Marxism which is soon to be orphaned by the Soviet ideal of context and which is regarded as the heir to pure Christianity from bourgeois moral shackles to break free of its radical eschatological charge and create an effective could produce. social change. In the 1960s – right at the time when Marxism had the greatest influence on this side of the Iron Curtain in European countries – McIntyre distanced himself as much from Marxism as from Christianity for the lack of fundamentalism. Criticism of liberalism is understood not as a political theory but as an ethos, a form of life that, in its inseparable union with the capitalist form of production, produces only individual isolation and the improvement of social relations. can do
novelty of after virtue It lies in the fact that it also introduces a propositional part named after Aristotle. This innovation is the result of a long journey of thought that led McIntyre to identify in the concept of Practice The axis on which to rotate the possibility of a new morality and a new politics. Practices are activities present in our daily life: raising and education of children, business and profession, sports and artistic activities, intellectual research. These practices are characterized by internal and external motives and socially established rules and patterns. Practice can avoid libertarian and capitalist corruption that follows the diffusion of external ends (assistant effectiveness with respect to power, wealth, pleasure) only when subjects are involved that possess the moral and intellectual qualities required by the nature of the practice. make use of. Wisdom, temperance, justice, courage, patience, humility are some of the qualities that have been placed at the center of living ethics by various morals of Greek and Latin origin, both pagan and Christian.
The fundamental intuition that underlies the ethics of McIntyre’s virtues—and which will become more and more clear and clear in the passage from Aristotelianism to Thomism—is that such virtues embody the precepts of natural law. In other words, those who do not want to succumb to systemic imperatives that corporate modernity Activities practiced in the workplace, family or in free time must comply with the laws of natural law. But these precepts – which seem to many intellectuals, including Catholics, to have completely discarded the category of natural law altogether – are none other than the essential attributes of the practices through which we are partly get better. of our life, of our happiness. In this sense, the precepts of natural law can be regarded as quasi-reciprocal principles of social practice.
McIntyre does not hide the difficulties that people increasingly face in using virtue within their practices, especially in the workplace. there corporate modernity It seems to proceed in a rigid way, imposing its systemic imperatives everywhere, even in the most intimate sphere of family life. This does not mean that daily experience puts us before examples of Resistance People who come together to support themselves in their family and work life. An example of this is the International Society for MacIntyreian Inquiry (ISME), founded in 2007 by a small group of scholars from various cultural backgrounds (Thomist Catholic, Neo-Marxist, analytical philosopher) to help themselves in their practice of intellectual research. was done. To use the qualities necessary for this practice to avoid being swallowed up by the social system. The 14th conference of this society will be online from July 12 to 15, in which more than one hundred scholars from dozens of countries will participate in seminar sessions, discussion panels, workshops reserved for students, presentation of books. In short, a fine example of intellectual extremism.
For information and registration https://www.macintyreanenquiry.org/isme-2021-summer-conference
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