Why do contemporary moral debates seem to go nowhere? Why have we been arguing about the same issues for decades without any resolution? It seems that no one can rationally resolve these moral debates. While some take the interminability of moral debate to prove that moral judgments are rooted in subjective emotions, MacIntyre argues that our situation points to a historical catastrophe. In this episode, we dive into Chapter 2 of MacIntyre's After Virtue and try and figure out what is going wrong with moral discourse.

In this episode, we dive into the first chapter of After Virtue. MacIntyre suggests that we live in an age of moral confusion so severe that we lack any coherent moral framework. MacIntyre explains that we once had a suitable moral framework but it is lost. Now all we have are its fragments and so we do not properly have a practice of morality today at all, but only a parody of real moral practice. Furthermore, we do not even realize that this is our situation.

Could MacIntyre be right? Are we really so morally confused? Do we not have at least some universal moral convictions? And how could we have lost the framework for morality without anyone noticing? We'll explore these questions and more.

This episode kicks off a series on the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's 1981 book After Virtue. After Virtue is one of the most successful academic press books of the 20th century and was widely read by those outside professional philosophy and even among the general public. This book significantly contributed to the revival of Virtue Ethics, calling into question the dominant moral theories of its day. MacIntyre claimed that modernity ushered in an age of moral confusion and ultimately argues for the retrieval of Aristotelian virtue ethics.

In this episode, I consider the book as a whole. I discuss what MacIntyre means by 'virtue' and also identify precisely the main target of the book.

I recorded this episode about a week before the news of MacIntyre's passing. He was 96. I release it now two days later in honor of arguably the 20th century's most important moral philosopher.