The Nature of Virtue Ethics
In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre claims that human beings need the virtues. This attempt to claim that human nature is the source and standard of living well does not fully meet John McDowell’s challenge to those who would claim that human nature is ethically normative. A being with...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2019
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| In: |
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Year: 2019, Volume: 93, Pages: 239-252 |
| IxTheo Classification: | NCA Ethics VA Philosophy |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre claims that human beings need the virtues. This attempt to claim that human nature is the source and standard of living well does not fully meet John McDowell’s challenge to those who would claim that human nature is ethically normative. A being with practical reason, McDowell explains, can step back from and judge natural impulses. Why, then, should nature have any normative authority over a practically rational being? While MacIntyre’s descriptions of why human beings need the virtues are largely correct, I contend that his position can be fully vindicated by supplementing his account with an Aristotelian value-laden metaphysics. By exploring why Aristotle maintains that goodness is coextensive with “that for the sake of which” and a being’s nature, it is possible to see why virtues are proper objects of practical reason and why it is normatively better for humans to contribute to communal networks of care. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-7925 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/acpaproc2021430126 |