After Virtue Literary Elements

Philosophy, nonfiction

Modern Western society

This book is from the first-person point of view of the author, Alasdair MacIntyre, a contemporary philosopher and theologian.

Intellectual, systematic, logical

N/A

Alasdair MacIntyre is attempting to explicate his theories about modernity, the current state of morality, the path that led to the modern era, and the solution to the problems posed by modernity. The main source of the moral confusion of today, he argues, traces back to the Enlightenment, where the foundations of morality were undercut and began to erode.

MacIntyre closes the work with a hopeful exhortation: the way to live in such a moral dark age as the modern era is to create and preserve communities for moral and social solidarity, aiming to achieve a moral foundation in the vein of Aristotle.

MacIntyre's use of the scenario in A Canticle for Leibowitz, where science has been destroyed and only advanced fragments remain, foreshadows his application of this state to the modern moral dilemma.

"Yet the powerlessness of this kind of philosophy does not leave us quite resourceless." (Chapter 1: A Disquieting Suggestion)

Throughout the book, MacIntyre makes allusions to famous thinkers, politicians, and historical events. Some such references include those to Aristotle, Nietzsche, Marx, Charles II, Kierkegaard, Plato, and many others.

MacIntyre opens After Virtue with the scenario from the science fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. In it, the foundations of science have eroded away, and all that is left for the people of the post-apocalyptic earth is fragments of advanced scientific documents that appear mystical and religious to them. He uses this scenario as a metaphorical allegory for the current state of morality in modernity, so the imagery is recurrent and prevalent.

The Enlightenment claimed to be an era of great human progress, turning from the dark ways of the past to the bright new ways of the future. MacIntyre, however, demonstrates the paradoxical nature of the Enlightenment: it actually began to destroy the foundations of morality.

MacIntyre uses multiple parallels to describe the state of today's moral literacy, using both a science-fiction scenario (likely referring to Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz) and one from real life (the abolition of Polynesian taboo laws by King Kamehameha II).

"The task of supplying an epistemological basis for these false simulacra of natural science would not differ in phenomenological terms from the task as it is presently envisaged. A Husserl or a Merleau-Ponty would be as deceived as a Strawson or a Quine." (Chapter 1: A Disquieting Suggestion)

"Finally a Know-Nothing political movement takes power and successfully abolishes science teaching in schools and universities, imprisoning and executing the remaining scientists." (Chapter 1: A Disquieting Suggestion)