Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Vorwort
In this landmark work, MacIntyre returns to the 'Virtue'-based ethics of Aristotle in answer to the crisis of moral language caused by the Enlightenment.

Autorentext
Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025) was Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP) at London Metropolitan University, UK, and an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, USA. His publications include After Virtue (1981), Whose Justice? Whose Rationality? (1988) and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990).

Zusammenfassung
Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Inhalt
Prologue to the Third Edition \ Preface \ 1. A Disquieting Suggestion \ 2. The Nature of Moral Agreement Today and the Claims of Emotivism \ 3. Emotivism: Social Content and Social Context \ 4. The Predecessor Culture and the Enlightenment Project of Justifying Morality \ 5. Why the Enlightenment Project of Justifying Morality Had to Fail \ 6. Some Consequences of the Failure of the Enlightenment Project \ 7. 'Fact', Explanation and Expertise \ 8. The Character of Generalizations in Social Science and their Lack of Predictive Power \ 9. Nietzsche or Aristotle? \ 10. The Virtues in Heroic Societies \ 11. The Virtues at Athens \ 12. Aristotle's Account of the Virtues \ 13. Medieval Aspects and Occasions \ 14. The Nature of the Virtues \ 15. The Virtues, The Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of a Tradition \ 16. From the Virtues to Virtue and After Virtue \ 17. Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions \ 18. After Virtue: Nietzsche or Aristotle, Trotsky and St Benedict \ 19. Postscript \ Bibliography \ Index.