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She argued that modern moral philosophy's talk of 'moral obligation' was a leftover from a divine-law framework almost nobody still believed in, and called for a return to Aristotle's ethics of character instead.
He argued that modern moral arguments never resolve because we inherited the vocabulary of virtue while losing the shared way of life that gave it meaning.
Connection
Elizabeth Anscombe the starting point for After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre — MacIntyre's After Virtue takes Anscombe's 1958 essay as its explicit starting point, extending her diagnosis that modern moral philosophy's vocabulary had become incoherent into a fuller argument for recovering Aristotelian practices and traditions.
Ideas
Words
“It is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology.”
“The concept of intention is neither that of a prediction nor that of a wish; it belongs to the description of an action from the inside.”
“I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question 'Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?'”
“A virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices.”
Key Moments
1956
Protests Truman's honorary degree
1958
Publishes 'Modern Moral Philosophy'
1981
Publishes After Virtue
c. 1983
Converts to Catholicism
Works
Intention
After Virtue