Abstract
Alasdair MacIntyre has developed a theory of virtue ethics that is closely integrated with sociology and organization studies. While rejecting reductive views of the virtues, MacIntyre appeals to their functional role in facilitating collaboration as a basis for justifying their normative requirements. This raises the question of how agents within cooperative contexts come to appreciate their intrinsic value. I argue that MacIntyre's account of the virtues is undergirded by an implicit personalist moral psychology. To make this evident, I draw upon the account of moral psychology developed by Michael Tomasello, who argues that a sense of moral obligation is generated when persons engage in collective action. Tomasello's account complements MacIntyre's by explaining how participation in social practices generates a sense of moral obligation but it does not address the problem of relativism. As a result, it does not fully explain how and why participants in practices come to see themselves as bound by moral norms since the threat of relativism undermines the idea that moral norms are binding. This limitation further illustrates the role of a personalist moral psychology in MacIntyre's work: through the experience of cultural breakdown persons are able to view themselves as engaged in a shared inquiry concerning the good that transcends any specific culture. This provides the basis for a self-conscious sense of moral obligation that is not threatened by relativism.
Highlights
In the span of roughly 40 years, interest in virtue ethics, especially in its neo-Aristotelian form, has grown dramatically in moral philosophy (Hursthouse, 1999), business ethics (Moore, 2017), and organization studies (Tsoukas, 2018), amongst a number of other areas in the social sciences and applied ethics
Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (2007) both provided a major impetus to this movement and contributed a novel account of the virtues centered upon their functional role in sustaining social practices
While Tomasello’s account of moral obligation as based in group agency offers important insights for understanding MacIntyre’s account of moral psychology, it is inadequate on its own because it faces the problem of relativism: if moral obligations are grounded in joint agency, as Tomasello (2020) argues, moral obligation is relative to groups of agents engaged in such projects, for instance, members of specific cultures
Summary
Tomasello’s account complements MacIntyre’s by explaining how participation in social practices generates a sense of moral obligation but it does not address the problem of relativism As a result, it does not fully explain how and why participants in practices come to see themselves as bound by moral norms since the threat of relativism undermines the idea that moral norms are binding. It does not fully explain how and why participants in practices come to see themselves as bound by moral norms since the threat of relativism undermines the idea that moral norms are binding This limitation further illustrates the role of a personalist moral psychology in MacIntyre’s work: through the experience of cultural breakdown persons are able to view themselves as engaged in a shared inquiry concerning the good that transcends any specific culture.
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