Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity
An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative

MacIntyre explores the philosophical, political, and moral issues encountered in understanding what the virtues require in contemporary social contexts.

Alasdair MacIntyre (Author)

9781316629604, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 January 2020

334 pages
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'For over three decades, Alasdair MacIntyre has been arguing that Thomistic Aristotelianism offers the best path forward for contemporary politics and ethics. While his philosophical career began in the 1950s, it has been this project … that has established his reputation as one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century.' Jennifer A. Herdt, Studies in Christian Ethics

Alasdair MacIntyre explores some central philosophical, political and moral claims of modernity and argues that a proper understanding of human goods requires a rejection of these claims. In a wide-ranging discussion, he considers how normative and evaluative judgments are to be understood, how desire and practical reasoning are to be characterized, what it is to have adequate self-knowledge, and what part narrative plays in our understanding of human lives. He asks, further, what it would be to understand the modern condition from a neo-Aristotelian or Thomistic perspective, and argues that Thomistic Aristotelianism, informed by Marx's insights, provides us with resources for constructing a contemporary politics and ethics which both enable and require us to act against modernity from within modernity. This rich and important book builds on and advances MacIntyre's thinking in ethics and moral philosophy, and will be of great interest to readers in both fields.

Preface
1. Desires, goods, and 'good', the philosophical issues
2. Theory, practice, and their social contexts
3. Morality and modernity
4. Neo-Aristotelian ethics and politics developed in contemporary Thomistic terms: issues of relevance and rational justification
5. Four narratives
Index.

Subject Areas: Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Society & social sciences [J], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]