Alasdair MacIntyre

How should we respond when some of our basic beliefs are put into question? What makes a human body distinctively human? Why is truth an important good? These are among the questions explored in this 2006 collection of essays by Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most creative and influential philosophers working today. Ten of MacIntyre's most influential essays written over almost thirty years are collected together here for the first time. They range over such topics as the issues raised by different types of relativism, what it is about human beings that cannot be understood by the natural sciences, the relationship between the ends of life and the ends of philosophical writing, and the relationship of moral philosophy to contemporary social practice. They will appeal to a wide range of readers across philosophy and especially in moral philosophy, political philosophy, and theology.

The article considers the problem of actions–beliefs link. As author shows, the widespread approach in social science, those origins can be traced back to Hume and Mill and which tries to reveal the causal relations between beliefs and actions, is mistaken. It is mistaken because it proposes that, firstly, beliefs and actions are distinct and separately identifiable social phenomena and, secondly, causal connection consists in constant conjunction. MacIntyre, instead, proposes, taking as a starting point the distinction between physical movement and human action, to consider the actions–beliefs link in terms of the descriptions which the action should correspond to. If we, on being asked for an explanation of what we have done, refer it to an antecedent condition of a Humean kind, we precisely remove it from the class of actions and assign it to, most probably, the class of physical movements. To explain behavior as a genuinely human action, an explanation must refer to the customarily recognized rules of a particular social order. This presupposes that action must fall under some description which is socially recognizable as the description of an action; an action must fall under a description and my actions under a description available to me; and agent can do only what he/she can describe. As an illustration of his approach, author examines the role of Stalin’s philosophical work “Dialectical and historical materialism” in the process of the ideological “closing” of Soviet society

Richard Rorty argues that the present state of analytic philosophy is the result of the collapse of the logical empiricist program. But most of the characteristics of analytic philosophy which Rorty ascribes to that collapse predated logical empiricism. The historical explanation of the present state of philosophy must begin not later than with the schism between philosophy and the other disciplines in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To begin then leads to a different view of how philosophical problems are generated.

Is it more dangerous to call something evil or not to? This fundamental question deeply divides those who fear that the term oversimplifies grave problems and those who worry that, to effectively address such issues as terrorism and genocide, we must first acknowledge them as evil. Recognizing that the way we approach this dilemma can significantly affect both the harm we suffer and the suffering we inflict, a distinguished group of contributors engages in the debate with this series of timely and original essays. Drawing on Western conceptions of evil from the Middle Ages to the present, these pieces demonstrate that, while it may not be possible to definitively settle moral questions, we are still able—and in fact are obligated—to make moral arguments and judgments. Using a wide variety of approaches, the authors raise tough questions: Why is so much evil perpetrated in the name of good? Could evil ever be eradicated? How can liberal democratic politics help us strike a balance between the need to pass judgment and the need to remain tolerant? Their insightful answers exemplify how the sometimes rarefied worlds of political theory, philosophy, theology, and history can illuminate pressing contemporary concerns.