How Virtues Become Vices: Values, Medicine and Social Context

Abstract

Alasdair MacIntyre's writings on ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of the social sciences and the history of philosophy have established him as one of the philosophical giants of the last fifty years. His best-known book, After Virtue (1981), spurred the profound revival of virtue ethics. Moreover, MacIntyre, unlike so many of his contemporaries, has exerted a deep influence beyond the bounds of academic philosophy. This volume focuses on the major themes of MacIntyre's work with critical expositions of MacIntyre's views on the history of philosophy, the role of tradition in philosophical inquiry, the philosophy of the social sciences, moral philosophy, political theory, and his critique of the assumptions and institutions of modernity. Written by a distinguished roster of philosophers, this volume will have a wide appeal outside philosophy to students in the social sciences, law, theology, and political theory. Mark C. Murphy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is author of Natural Law and Practical Rationality (Cambridge, 2001) and An Essay on Divine Authority (Cornell, 2002), as well as of a number of articles on natural law theory, political obligation, and Hobbes' moral, political, and legal philosophy. His papers have appeared in Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Nous, Faith and Philosophy, Law and Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly, the Thomist, and elsewhere.