Talk:Alasdair MacIntyre

Changes Sep/2004

 * He stresses the decay of modern moral discussion, and finds its origin in the preponderance of Emotivism


 * Rewritten: his tracing of the fall starts much, much earlier, with Descartes.


 * Because of his call for restoring a moral center by endorsing coherent systems of ethical values, he is often depicted as a conservative thinker.


 * Deleted: "often depicted" is weaselly, you as often see his radicalism criticised.


 * Extended bibliography

It's still pretty lousy, but I haven't time to rewrite it properly. Charles Stewart 04:47, 16 September 2004 (UTC)

Placed arrestingly to work
I was wondering what this meant: "an idea he placed arrestingly to work in his "disquieting suggestion" in After Virtue ". SlimVirgin (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2005 (UTC)
 * Missed this comment first time around: change "placed" to "put" and you should find it makes sense. --- Charles Stewart 15:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

St. Edith Stein
User: 24.254.42.48 wrote: Macintyre is currently working on a book about St. Edith Stein.

I've rved this edit because (i) it is an unsourced claim that I've not been able to verify and (ii) it was placed in the wrong section. But it might be a good tip: I'll see if I can verify it. --- Charles Stewart 15:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

U.S?
I know MacIntyre happens to be working at the moment in the US but it is a bit misleading to label this English philosopher an "U.S. philosopher" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony164 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
 * He's not English either. I'm removing the "American philosophers" right away, it's just inappropriate. Porcher 03:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Please expand and wikify
I am placing this article on the to-do list of the philosophy project, because it needs expansion and overhaul of layout. A highly notable contemporary philosopher such as MacIntyre ought to have a better article, which at least discusses his most central works and the debates they have inspired. --Thorsen 06:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I have tried to make it fit the guidelines a bit more, and added more information to the biography and 'works'. (Is it excessive to include all his American jobs and his extra wives?) I removed the bit about him being a 'Scottish' philosopher, because he never worked in Scotland and seems to regard himself as an American. Anarchia 08:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

just as an example, the phrase "This approach has a greater scope than others" is insufficiently explicit.

This (which?) approach has a greater scope (to do what? in which fields?) than others (which, and why?)

Tim bates (talk) 15:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

MacIntyre - categories
Someone may want to double-check the classification of MacIntyre as a "Catholic philosopher." He's not Catholic, as far as I know, although some of his positions are similar to some traditional Catholic positions. (While I haven't followed MacIntyre's work in recent years, I did take a course from him in the 1970s, and thus had a chance to observe him in action over a period of time.) But I don't have certain knowledge that he's not, so I'm not making an actual change.

It also looks to me as if this page is no longer a stub, though no doubt it could be expanded.

REllrod 02:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * says he is protestant, so i'm removing the category. --Buridan 13:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * He was protestant (he was born in Scotland, after all), but there is evidence that he became a Catholic later in life, e.g. his article 'How Is Intellectual Excellence in Philosophy To Be Understood By a Catholic Philosopher?' In Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education, 12 (1991), 47-50. And he wrote an introduction for the book Morality: The Catholic View by O.P. Servais Pinkcaers. I haven't altered the article though. Anarchia 09:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * MacIntyre's religious beliefs and associations are still unsourced and have been removed. Someone knowledgeable should add some sourced information regarding his popularity among Catholic theologians. Chubbles 18:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Political involvement
WRT this brief account of AM's involvement with socialist parties, certainly this material is relevant to this article, but I would like to verify it before including it. Help appreciated! &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 09:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * MacIntyre was one of the editors of the journal International Socialism from 1960 until 1968 as can be seen from the International Socialism index for these years. Recently a collection of his Marxist writings called Alasdair MacIntyre’s Engagement with Marxism: Selected Writings 1953-74 was published by Brill in 2008 — the publishers blurb can be found here. This book was reviewed in a recent issue of International Socialism — the review can be seen here. --Mia-etol (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Lecturing Career
How could the bloke start his lecturing career in 1951 when he was 22? 94.192.115.70 (talk) 12:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I doubt if he was actually a lecturer at 22 - most of the other biographies I've looked at say that he began his teaching career in 1951. Since English bachelor courses last 3 years and he did his masters at Manchester it's quite probably that as a post-graduate student he did seminars and tutorials while preparing for his masters. This was a not uncommon way for post-graduate students in Britain to financially support themselves while doing their post-graduate studies - whether this is still the case I don't know. --Mia-etol (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I've now changed the word "lecturing" to "teaching". Mia-etol (talk) 08:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Communitarianism
Is Macintrye really part of this?? On the page, it says that Communitarianists espouse positive rights: but in After Virtue, he directly attacks the concept of human rights as "believing in fairies and unicorns". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.7.101.149 (talk) 07:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed these references. Alisdair MacIntyre specifically denies he is a communitarian in the introduction to the Third Edition of After Virtue.Anymouse (talk) 05:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Politics
I have heard (in conversation) that MacIntyr'e politics are a little more radical and controversial than the brief description offered here. If this is the case (in an untrivial sense) I hope someone can add more info on MacIntyre's geo-political philosophy or give info on where to learn about MacIntyre's politics, past and present. Thanks.Teetotaler 3 April 2007 nded his works from that period have recently been republished. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.202.186 (talk) 11:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

irish?
The biography section now claims that MacIntyre is Irish, and it cites his interview with Giovanna Borradori in support of this claim. But apart from a few references to "Irish tradition," nothing in the interview says or implies that he is Irish, and the lead-up to the interview even claims that he's Scottish, which is what we should expect to be true about someone born in Glasgow. I can only assume that someone who doesn't know the difference between Scotland and Ireland made the edit. It should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.227.212.130 (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Virtue ethics: unclear passage
I have removed from the section on virtue ethics the following passage: Virtue ethics is... [but] also fully engaged with other forms of modern ethical systems (e.g. Kantian deontology). I neither fully understand what it is meant to mean, nor am sure that if I did, it would be wholly relevant. Please feel free to reinstate it, perhaps in a clearer form, if you see it's appropriateness better than I. hgilbert (talk) 09:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC)