

Alasdair MacIntyre, Plain Persons - Narratives of Moral Decline - Sadler's Lectures
Feb 28, 2025
14:44
This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory"
It focuses upon a generalized narrative that MacIntyre calls "the story of the decline and fall of the plain person", with four main "episodes".
1. The protagonist strives to answer the question "what is my good", but doesn't develop a temperateness needed toward less than supreme goods
2. A "radical discrepancy develops between rules needed for pursuit of the good and the multiplicity of goods
3. The discrepancy gets resolved in one of two incompatible ways. Either rules take priority or goods do. The protagonist learns that they cannot avoid taking sides
4. The protagonist discovers that the major issues at stake cannot be rationally resolved
MacIntyre also maintains that this is not just a story of individuals but of our moral culture from the 16th-20th centuries, as set out in his book After Virtue
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You can find MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" here - https://amzn.to/3KUbXVf