20th Century Ethics (Sess 6) - Alasdair MacIntyre, Has the Enlightenment Failed

This Meetup is the sixth in our series on 20th Century Ethics.

“The joint effect of the secular rejection of both Protestant and Catholic theology and the scientific and philosophical rejection of Aristotelianism was to eliminate any notion of man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos.” - MacIntyre

For 2026 we will be launching a series of sessions focused on 20th Century Ethics. The series will build progressively over the course of the year, but individual sessions can be explored independently. The goals of the series are to a) move beyond the ‘greatest hits’ of historical philosophical works into more contemporary 20th Century debates, b) create a landscape of the diverse traditions in phenomenology, virtue ethics, critical theory, and neo-Kantianism, c) explore modern issues of identity, communication, justice, and animal rights, and d) stage opportunities to contrast different thinkers critically. While the content is advanced, the format and discussion style still affords individuals new to these works and, indeed, new to philosophy in general an excellent opportunity to learn and discuss in structured discussion-based environment.

The series will include

• (Jan/26) Immanuel Kant – a foundational ‘grounding’ for the series
• (Feb&Mar/26) Max Scheler – critique of Kant’s formalism with an emphasis on value theory.
• (Apr/26) Paul Ricoeur – identity and ethical responsibility with a focus on selfhood and justice.
• (May/26) Juergen Habermas – socially embedded ethics.
• (June/26) Alasdair MacIntyre – challenges Kantian universality with Aristotelian virtues ethics.
• Phillippa Foot – naturalistic virtue ethics
• Christine Korsgaard – moral norms and an argument for contemporary Kantian Ethics.
• Onora O’Neill – global justice and bioethics.
• Epilogue for the series – a comparative look at the threads of autonomy, responsibility, virtue and discourse in a comparative roundtable.

In Session 6, “Has the Enlightenment failed”, we will continue our journey into 20th century ethics by considering Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. Here, he argues that modern moral discourse has collapsed into fragmentation because we inherited the language of virtue while discarding the teleological framework that originally made it coherent. MacIntyre claims that attempts by thinkers such as Kant and Hume to ground morality without a shared conception of human purpose were destined to fail, leaving us with emotivism and managerialism as the default moral culture. He rather advocates for a return to Aristotelian virtue ethics grounded in practices, internal goods, narrative unity, and embodied traditions. MacIntyre challenges the reader to rebuild our communities in ways capable of sustaining these virtues.

For this Meetup I will be using the Third Edition published in 2007.

The following sections will be discussed

• Ch 1, A Disquieting Suggestion, pg. 1-5.
• Ch 3, Emotivism: Social Content and Social Context, pg. 23-35
• Ch 4, The Predecessor Culture and the Enlightenment Project of Justifying Morality, pg. 36-50.
• Ch 5, Why the Enlightenment Project of Justifying Morality Had to Fail, pg. 51-61.
• Ch 9, Nietzsche or Aristotle?, pg. 109-120.
• Ch 14, The Nature of the Virtues, pg. 181-203.
• Ch 15, The Virtues, the Unity of the Human Life and the Concet of a Tradition, pg. 204-225.

A few questions to consider:

1. Is he right that Nietzsche and Aristotle are the only coherent options after the Enlightenment’s collapse?
2. Can one realistically have narrative unity?
3. Can institutions genuinely sustain internal goods?

In 2026 we will begin recording the sessions to create an archive summarization of sessions. I am truly excited about 2026 and hope that you will participate in the series and help make it a fulfilling experience for all of the participants.

Hope to see you at the session.