Alasdair MacIntyre - How To Appear Virtuous Without Being So - Inadequate Shared Public Morality
Jan 8, 2024
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Alasdair MacIntyre, 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist discusses the inadequacy of shared public morality and virtues. He highlights the lack of coherent understanding of virtues and the reliance on superficial moral rhetoric. The podcast explores moral dilemmas in military and commercial scenarios, emphasizing the limitations of indeterminate conceptions of virtue.
In our late modern culture, we lack a substantive and systematic shared public morality, relying instead on a superficial moral rhetoric that lacks a clear understanding or agreement on the meanings of virtues.
The inadequacy of a shared public morality hinders moral education and leaves individuals morally resourceless in navigating complex situations, indicating the need for a substantive account of virtues to provide moral guidance.
Deep dives
The Inadequacy of Shared Public Morality
The podcast discusses the inadequacy of a shared public morality, highlighting how we lack a systematic and coherent account of virtues. Instead of a shared public morality, we have a shared moral rhetoric, which is a superficial vocabulary that lacks a clear understanding or agreement on the meanings of virtues. This lack of agreement hinders moral education and leaves us morally resourceless in navigating complex situations.
The Indeterminateness of Virtues
The podcast explains how the indeterminateness of virtues leads to moral resourcelessness. Using examples of courage versus honesty, temperateness versus justice, and intellectual virtues versus integrity, the podcast demonstrates how individuals with an indeterminate understanding of virtues struggle to reconcile conflicting moral demands in new situations. The podcast emphasizes the need for a substantive account of virtues to provide moral guidance.
Education in Seeming Virtuous
The podcast concludes that the shared public morality of commonplace usage does not provide an education in virtues, but rather teaches individuals how to appear virtuous without actually embodying virtuous qualities. This deficient moral education results in a lack of moral resources and leaves individuals ill-equipped to navigate ethical dilemmas. The podcast highlights the importance of a robust and comprehensive account of virtues for effective moral education.
This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "How To Seem Virtuous Without Actually Being So".
It focuses upon MacIntyre's contention that not only do we not have any substantive and systematic shared public morality, what is available to us in our late modern culture is at best a shared rhetoric, and it remain inadequate for understanding and inculcating the virtues. He provides three examples where some adequate understanding of virtues in conflict would be needed.
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You can get MacIntyre's Education in Morality here - https://amzn.to/40ns6Jy
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