MacIntyre's Disquieting Suggestion

In this lecture I introduce a disquieting suggestion from the introduction to philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's seminal book, "After Virtue". This suggests a fundamental problem with how we as a modern society understand ethics, from which I briefly outline a way forward.

Bibliography:
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Third Edition. Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 2007.

Related Materials:

[Thedisciplemike]

I am thoroughly disquieted. God bless you, professor! Great points. It seems rather ludicrous but nonetheless consistent with today's logic to profess a "different opinion" to the idea that Donkeys are not Horses. "All is subjective" becomes a phrase to which says "Nothing is true." The moment you profess there is an objective truth, whether in morals or anything else, you become a bigot. A bigot for declaring one way is true and the other is wrong. And these days, being a bigot is worse than being wrong.

[NoThanks-otyj]

really interesting! do you get much into the philosophy of scientism?

[benabaxter]

So you're saying it is not in principle possible to resolve difficulties between competing ethical systems until they have a common grounding. I would buy that. As with so many other difficulties, it seems to me that the solution is conversion, and not just in the philosophical sense but in the religious. Common religious conviction in God grounds ethics very well. In a sense, it would even allow for various systems to coexist provided they used terms in a similar ways. God is a lawgiver, so perhaps there is a mystical deontology out there somewhere. It doesn't have to just be virtue ethics, does it?