Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry

Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, Tradition by Alisdair MacIntyre, 236 pages

In the published edition of Alisdair MacIntyre's Gifford lectures of 1988, he identifies three primary schools of moral enquiry in the twentieth century.  The first is that which he identifies with Adam Gifford and his fellow toilers at the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, representing a model based on that of the natural sciences, emphasizing method above all else, and proceeding out of the Enlightenment.  The second he associates with Nietzsche, particularly his On the Genealogy of Morals, and the postmodern view of morality as a mask for power and privilege.  Finally, he presents the third school, Thomism, especially as renewed after the promulgation of Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris.  This approach, more broadly representing the classical and medieval understanding of philosophical work, emphasizes that the development of virtue - particularly humility - in the philosopher is necessary for moral understanding.  The traditional mode of enquiry conceives of philosophy as a craft, pursued in and through a community.

MacIntyre attempts to demonstrate that, while the first two schools are each incapable of engaging with the other on the other's terms, it is the particular advantage of tradition that it is able to synthesize and assimilate rival philosophies, and to engage with the world in a meaningful way.  Because of this, the philosophy of the past is also the philosophy of the future.