After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

An influential work of moral philosophy, After Virtue (1981) by the Scottish-born philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre takes a bleak view of the state of modern moral dialogue, viewing it as suffering from a lack of rational thought and an inability to resolve disagreements. By looking at older forms of moral discourse, such as Aristotle’s moral framework, and comparing them to the modern version, he generally finds the modern moral framework to be lacking and suggests fixes that could give society a better moral grounding.

Exploring themes of what it means to be truly moral, how morality affects society, and what happens to a society when morality becomes a secondary concern, After Virtue is considered one of the most important texts in the modern field of ethics. Reissued in two expanded editions in 1984 and 2007, it has been praised and analyzed by ethicists and philosophers and is studied widely in philosophy classes.

This guide uses the second edition of After Virtue, published by University of Notre Dame Press in 1984.

Summary

After Virtue begins with an allegory that asks a hypothetical question: In a world where all sciences have been dismantled by catastrophe and society has been left to reassemble them, what would they look like if reassembled from the remnants of knowledge that survived? MacIntyre argues that while they would be superficially similar, they would be devoid of real scientific content due to the absence of key suppositions and attitudes.