Böcker av Professor Alasdair MacIntyre

Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Three convictions underlie this book. The first is that an educated Catholic laity needs to understand a good deal more about Catholic philosophical thought than it does now. The warring partisans on the great issues that engage our culture and politics presuppose the truth of some philosophical theses and the falsity of others. Second, argues MacIntyre, Catholic philosophy is best understood historically, as a continuing conversation through the centuries, in which we turn and return to the most important voices from our past. Third, philosophy is not just a matter of propositions affirmed or denied but of philosophers in particular cultural and social situations interacting with each other in their affirmations and denials, in their argumentative wrangling. This is the context for a book of vital importance and interest for anyone involved with education in a religious context. But from someone with MacIntyre's authority and reputation, the reader can expect something extremely perceptive about the role of religion in modern culture and society as a whole. The reader will not be disappointed.