Peter Wicks

This vital collection showcases the trajectory of MacIntyre's thought and the perennial significance of his work. One of the world's foremost philosophers for over half a century, Alasdair MacIntyre stands at the forefront of the revival of Aristotelianism in contemporary thought. Alasdair Macintyre on Practical Philosophy serves as an accessible introduction to MacIntyre's work while also providing a clear sense of how he continued to develop and refine his philosophy after the publication of After Virtue. This essential reader includes some of his most important works on ethics and politics, including unpublished pieces from his Common Goods and Political Reasoning project. Focusing on the period between After Virtue and MacIntyre's final masterpiece, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, the collection shows how he came to understand Aristotelianism not merely as a rival to consequentialist and deontological ethical theories, but as a distinctive account of ethical inquiry, one which can illuminate both the sources of our contemporary moral disputes and the conditions under which true moral progress can be made. Alasdair Macintyre on Practical Philosophy also reveals how MacIntyre found vital resources for understanding and criticizing the irrationalities and injustices of contemporary society and politics in the Aristotelian tradition.

In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre develops an account of practices, a type of socially established and cooperative activity in which participants pursue unique goods, guided by standards of excellence that develop over time. This account provides valuable insights into the nature of scientific and scholarly inquiry and the kind of apprenticeship required to contribute to such inquiries. MacIntyre’s treatment of the relationship between practices and institutions can sharpen our understanding of the reasons why the bureaucratic structures of the modern university often fail to serve the goals of academic inquiry. However, insofar as the educational mission of the university is understood to include not only the training of scholars and scientists but the production of a broadly educated public that mission is threatened not only by institutional features of the modern university, but by the culture of modernity itself.