Philosophize This! Episode #244

... After Virtue — Alasdair MacIntyre (Why Moral Conversations Feel Unsatisfying)

Host: Stephen West
Release Date: February 11, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Stephen West explores Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential book, After Virtue, dissecting why modern moral conversations often feel empty and unsatisfying. Using MacIntyre’s historical “genealogy” of moral thought, West investigates the loss of shared teleology (ends or purposes) in ethical discourse—a loss that, MacIntyre argues, underlies today’s “hellscape” of emotivism. The show blends vivid metaphors, accessible history, and pointed critique to explain how our debates about morality have become fragmented and fruitless, and what MacIntyre proposes as a path forward.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Metaphor of the Crisis in Science (00:39–03:07)

• West opens with MacIntyre’s thought experiment: Imagine a world where faith in science and its methods collapses, but people retain scientific vocabulary, now severed from their original foundation and meaning.
• Quote:

  “Gravity, they might say, just means something different for me than it does for you. Atoms behave differently for you than they do for me.” (01:45)

• MacIntyre uses this as a metaphor for today’s moral discourse: morality’s words and traditions persist, but the foundational logic and stories binding them have been lost.

2. A Genealogy of Moral Thought: From Homer to Aristotle (03:14–15:50)

• Early Morality:

  • In Homeric Greece, “virtue” meant excelling in social roles (warrior, king, friend) as portrayed in stories—moral exemplars without abstract theorizing.
  • Quote:

    “To call someone a virtuous person back then was the same thing as saying that they're doing well at some role that they play in the world.” (04:12)

• Greek Tragedy and Moral Complexity:

  • Tragedians like Sophocles and Aeschylus exposed conflicts between virtues and roles, highlighting moral ambiguity and dilemmas.
  • Quote:

    “A person usually occupies many different roles in their life, and in each of these roles, a totally different behavior might be required of you.” (06:52)

• Plato and the Unification of the Good:

  • Plato responds with the idea of a universal Good from which all virtues flow, aiming to help resolve moral conflicts.

• Aristotle and Teleology:

  • Aristotle introduces the idea that living things and objects have a telos—an end or purpose—providing objective standards for what counts as a virtue.
  • Quote:

    “A good knife is one that performs the function that a knife is designed to perform.” (10:52)

  • For humans, virtues are the “excellences” that help them flourish according to their nature.

3. The Enlightenment and the Loss of Moral Foundations (15:51–26:32)

• Christian and Islamic ethics incorporate Aristotle, keeping teleology central for centuries.
• The Enlightenment, seeking to secularize morality, jettisons teleology and tries to build ethics purely rationally or through sentiment, utility, or rights.
• MacIntyre argues these efforts either fail or sneak teleology back in without admitting it—a “simulacra of morality.”
• Quote:

  “What the Enlightenment thinkers end up producing is what MacIntyre calls a simulacra of morality. They keep using terms like good and justice and virtue, but they cut out the moral tradition…” (19:19)

Failed Enlightenment Attempts (Kant, Utilitarians, Sentimentalism):

• Kant: Attempts to base morality on pure reason, but (per MacIntyre) cannot create concrete moral answers without hidden assumptions about human ends.
• Utilitarianism: Grounds morality in happiness but cannot adjudicate between conflicting goods (e.g., career vs. family).
• Sentimentalism: Reduces morality to dominant societal sentiments, leading to arbitrariness.

4. Emotivism: The Hellscape of Modern Moral Talk (26:32–32:44)

• The Enlightenment legacy, capped by Hume’s "is-ought" distinction, leaves us with emotivism: moral sentences are only expressive (boo/yay) shouts, not claims about truth.
• Quote:

  “Saying 'murder is wrong' is the equivalent of someone saying 'boo, murder.' Saying 'charity is good' is the equivalent of 'yay, charity.'” (28:43)

• The consequence: moral arguments are incommensurable and often amount to power struggles, persuasion, or coercion, rather than reasoned dialogue.

5. Illustrative Examples: Rawls vs. Nozick (32:45–38:32)

• MacIntyre illustrates the problem using two major 20th-century philosophers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, whose conflicting definitions of justice cannot be rationally adjudicated in the absence of shared teleological ends.
• Quote:

  “How do we ever adjudicate … between these two ideas of justice? … Using an Enlightenment style method like this makes answering that question impossible.” (37:29)

6. The Rise of Social Roles in Emotivist Culture: Managers, Therapists, Protesters (38:33–47:53)

• Managers:

  • Become valued for translating moral disputes into ostensibly value-neutral technical problems. Their authority is based on bureaucratic efficiency, not moral wisdom.
  • Quote:

    “I'm not here to judge, alright? I'm just trying to get us back to making fishing poles.” (40:20)

• Therapists:

  • Provide self-management and coping, steering clear of discussing what a good life is. Their impact is on individual adjustment, not shared moral direction.
  • Quote:

    “I'm just here to help you get what you want out of life.” (43:25)

• Protesters:

  • Mobilize public sentiment to force change—protest becomes the most impactful mode of moral discourse in a culture where persuasion by reason is pointless.
  • Quote:

    “From an emotivist perspective, a crowd of people saying 'murder is wrong' is … just a crowd of people saying 'boo, murder!'” (46:58)

7. MacIntyre’s Diagnosis and the Path Forward (47:54–57:30)

• West acknowledges the listener’s skepticism: If teleologies are gone, is return to Aristotle possible? MacIntyre responds: Rather than returning to ancient views, we must revive teleology’s function through modern practices.

Shared Practices & Communities

• Shared Practices:

  • Activities like farming, medicine, or chess have internal goods and standards for excellence—built-in teleologies, independent of grand metaphysical beliefs.
  • Quote:

    “Planting turnips is not a practice. Farming is.” (53:38)

  • Virtues become traits that make someone excel in these practices (e.g., patience or humility in chess).

• Internal vs. External Goods:

  • Practices are hollowed out if pursued only for external rewards (money, candy, fame) rather than for the internal goods (excellence, mastery, contribution).
  • Example: Playing chess for candy alone doesn’t cultivate virtue; playing for genuine skill does.

• Communities:

  • Practices rely on communities to sustain and teach them—communities are “living arguments” that preserve, evaluate, and transmit virtues and traditions.
  • Quote:

    “Communities … become a kind of living argument. They become an embodiment of the moral tradition that's necessary to carry the practice of virtue moving forward.” (56:59)

8. Looking Ahead

• MacIntyre offers a stark choice: Nietzsche (radical individualism and will to power) or Aristotle (revived context-dependent virtue).
• West teases a future episode on MacIntyre’s fuller solution.
• Quote:

  “He asks, how do we want [our moral conversations] to look? He says it's either going to be Nietzsche or it's going to be Aristotle.” (57:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Modern Moral Discourse:

  “He thinks we live today in something like a hellscape of emotivism, in a world where conversations about morality are rarely productive, never satisfying.” (02:38)

• On Kant’s Project:

  “…once you’ve thrown out any shared picture of what human beings are actually for, then Kant’s method can’t actually create any moral answers for us…” (21:41)

• On Emotivism in Public Life:

  “Moral discourse … becomes something that's not unlike a crowd at a sports stadium where opposite sides cheer for their respective teams.” (29:41)

• On Practices as Teleological Communities:

  “Farming is a shared practice between people with things that are internally good to being able to do it well. … If you participate in farming well, maybe you innovate within the practice and come up with something new.” (54:10)

Key Timestamps

• 00:39: MacIntyre’s thought experiment/metaphor on science and the breakdown of moral meaning.
• 03:14–10:52: Genealogy: From Homeric virtue, Greek tragedy, Plato, to Aristotle and teleology.
• 15:51–19:19: The Enlightenment: The break with tradition and foundations.
• 19:20–26:32: Analysis of failed Enlightenment strategies (Kant, Utilitarian, Sentimental).
• 26:33: Rise of emotivism and collapse into expressive moral “teams.”
• 32:45: Rawls vs. Nozick as case study in incommensurability.
• 38:33–47:53: The new social authorities: managers, therapists, protesters.
• 47:54–57:30: Shared practices and communities as a modern form of teleology.
• 57:20: MacIntyre’s closing “Nietzsche or Aristotle” challenge.

Conclusion

Stephen West delivers a rich, story-driven exploration of After Virtue. He clarifies why our moral debates seem so futile—rooted, per MacIntyre, in the Enlightenment’s failed attempt to ground morality without purpose or tradition. Through practical examples and communities of shared excellence, MacIntyre hints at a way forward: reviving virtue and teleology through everyday practices, even within a secular, pluralistic society.

For those interested in the fix to our “hellscape” of moral discourse, West promises to return soon with MacIntyre’s solutions—perhaps choosing, with him, between the legacies of Nietzsche and Aristotle.