On The Three Dimensions Of Mac Intyre's Definition Of Virtue

Alasdair MacIntyre(1929-)is a famous contemporary western philosopher and ethicist,as well as a key representative of contemporary Virtue Ethics and Communitarianism in Political Philosophy.Looking back on MacIntyre's academic career and works,I suppose that After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory(1981)is the most important one.On the one hand,its publishing had a great effect on western ethics.On the other hand,it was the starting point of his later study of virtue and moral traditions.In this book,MacIntyre put forward his unique theory of virtue,namely the three dimensions of virtue,based on the restatement of the Aristotelian tradition of virtues.The three dimensions of MacIntyre's definition of virtue are “practice”,“the unity of human life” and “tradition”.First,MacIntyre views virtues as qualities necessary to achieve the goods internal to practices;second,he considers them as qualities contributing to the good of a whole life;third,he regards virtues as qualities sustaining the traditions which provide both practices and individual lives with their necessary historical contexts.For MacIntyre,the three dimensions of virtue are the three developmental stages of his definition of virtue.The three stages are progressive and indispensable,and form a complete system of the conception of virtue.In addition to the elaboration of his definition of virtue,this paper also refers to the key queries and criticisms of it.Although these critiques have their own reasons,we can not deny that MacIntyre does propose a new way to understand and view the western tradition of virtue and western moral status quo from a unique perspective.