Criticism And Pursuit

The rise of the Enlightenment campaign and the Modernity expelled the moralityfoundation whose ultimate authority is extrinsic divine in the medieval period, and therational proof of moral norms turned into the foundation of the human inner natureand the subject ration, trying to make people provide their own moral principle, andgiving these ethical principles to universal validity. Humanity against the divine,therefor, reliable contact is built between moral rules and human nature. What humannature to return to find the rational and authority foundation of moral rules? In thiscritical issue, the thinkers of Enlightenment have different points, and the modernmorality gets into the endless conflicts between the pluralism and the relativism.To save the modernity morality crisis, many modern thinkers, especially Rawlsand Habermas insisted thinking based on the modernity morality, facing the moderncrisis directly, and returning to Kant's universal rationalism. However, Rawls andHabermas'public ration concepts and their proof ways had basically been separatedfrom the Moral Metaphysics'hedge. So,their theories are facing such a question thathow to realize their public rational society.Modern universal rationalism ethics is both unscrupulous metaphysics preinstalland the non-traditional virtue resources, and to favor rational construction aboutuniversal moral rule, thus the humanity lose the intrinsic support about virtueresources. So, MacIntyre advocated returning ancient virtue tradition.Based on the thorough analysis of the moral theory crisis and the moral life crisisin contemporary west, MacIntyre suggests returning to Aristotle's virtue ethicstradition. MacIntyre looked through the modernity morality and concluded that moral construction work had thoroughly failed since Enlightenment, and this leads to thecrisis of moral life and theories in the modern society. MacIntyre claimed that theethical language of our society was in a grave disorder condition. He usedemotionalism as the current ethical state token for another purpose. Why in this way?The fundamental reason rested with the limitations of enlightenment reason, theimmediate reason was that the thinkers wholly failed to save Enlightenment. It causedtoday's virtuous life to be in the fragment. MacIntyre believed that modern moralphilosophy failed, we faced two choices: Nietzsche or Aristotle. MacIntyre thoughtNietzsche's standpoint was still individualism essentially, it was itself in the modernitymorality problems. Therefore, we could not accept post-modernism, also could notapprove the modernism, the only choice should return to Ancient Virtue Tradition.According to the explanation of the failure of the Enlightenment project,MacIntyre pointed out that we must trace the classical Aristotle virtue ethics traditionto eliminate the modernity moral crisis and reconstruct the contemporary virtue ethics,community and teleology on this basis. MacIntyre's principle was the historicismcritic . MacIntyre began to restate the western ethical tradition of virtue. He describedthe historical development of virtue theories. He recounted Homer's virtue,Athens'virtue,Aristotle's virtue and the medieval times'virtue.MacIntyre claimed that we must seek the spiritual resources of virtue ethics ofthe classical tradition to digest of the social moral dilemma completely, andreconstruct the foundation of morality in this basis. MacIntyre's process to illuminatethe moral connotation can be considered as the moral theory construction process.However, MacIntyre on Aristotle's return is not simple imitation, but the abundantvirtue in Aristotle's virtue ethics on the basis of the concept. Since virtue is anacquired human quality, with virtue and practice virtue we can make people get in thepractice of various interests, and conversely, if people are lack of morality, practicethe intrinsic interests access will be seriously hamper. Therefore, virtue and practiceare interconnected and a certain type of practice must depend on the corresponding moral. The understanding of the concept of virtue is to change own life to a united one,and whereby the individual character depends on the individual can be narrativeself-unity. MacIntyre is a typical scholar who uses facts in the history to explain histheorems, and he connected the ethical problems with the entire western moralphilosophy together. Based on the whole history, he hidden his perceptions in themultitude of ethics historical narrative, and put forward the contemporary moralphilosophy and diagnosis criticism on the base of historical changes. MacIntyreemphasized that the moral philosophy and the historical tradition which is the courseof the survival and development of the philosophy are interconnected. To investigateevery kind of ethics, we cannot separate it with its social and history. The socialstructure is the ethical thought in the history with its historical tradition inheritance,and what is more important is that this kind of thought is the supplier to meet the erain the social life in need. Therefore, the moral evolution should not be separated fromits historical background.However, MacIntyre's idea of returning back to Aristotle is very controversial,and it is argued that MacIntyre's critiques on modern western moral philosophy issomewhat exaggerated. Modern western moral philosophy is not as bad asMacIntyre imagined. The most important is that the modern society does not have theancient social conditions, and the traditional community framework has lost.Therefore, is it possible to return to Aristotle's tradition? Facing the blame, MacIntyreis also aware of his theory, therefore, in the" After virtue" published for nearly twentyyears later, another book is published to demonstrate his virtue ethics book:"Dependent Rational Animals Why Human Beings Need Virtue " .In this book,MacIntyre appeals the ethical ideology to be based on the "people's dependence"ultimately. At the same time, MacIntyre optimistically revived the Aristotlecommunity of traditional light of hope from St. Benedict (Benedict ) churchcommunity.In conclusion, the predicament and chaos triggered by modernity moral argumentation has not made people into absurd and despair, but inspire contemporaryethical thinkers to make a deeper reflection. Ethicists industriously choose or create amoral value of general significance for the whole human society, and search orconstruct a rational argumentation foundation for it.