‘Mapping’ Moral Engagement in the Solution-Focused Approach Through MacIntyre’s Model of Practice

Abstract

I attempt to answer Trish Walsh’s two questions about the ‘maps’ that might exist for moral engagement in the ‘helping’ professions and how these might relate to the Solution-Focused Approach (Walsh, 2010). I seek to do this by exploring the narrative of the emergence of the Solution Focused Approach from the perspective of Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of a ‘practice’ (MacIntyre, 1985) with the aim of providing the basis for ‘map’ for moral engagement by Solution-Focused Practitioners. To this end I attempt to interpret the Solution Focused Approach as a MacIntyreian ‘practice’ in which virtues (as ‘human qualities’) emerge out of collective activity through distinctive narratives and skills which are oriented towards the internal goods of the Solution-Focused Approach as a practice. Next, I evaluate the institutions that host and nurture the Solution-Focused Approach in the light of MacIntyre’s theory to gauge whether they have a positive or negative effect in promoting the internal goods of the practice. Finally, I consider how practice demonstrates MacIntyre’s ‘essential’ virtues of justice, courage and honesty in its initial development and in subsequent codes of practice developed by associations that promote the Solution-Focused Approach (SFA). My analysis and discussion should furnish a sketch for a ‘map’ for practitioners that will support them in their moral engagement both in ‘helping’ situations with clients and in building, relationships, alliances, and institutions with colleagues. I conclude with suggestions for further study and research around this topic, including a second article in which I intend to identify some virtues specific to the Solution-Focused Approach.