After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Second Edition

"[I]t is something to have a book, devoted to certain quite central technical philosophical questions, which is likely to produce so passionate a response." —New York Review of Books "A remarkable synthesis . . . ." —Richard Rorty "A stunning new study of ethics. . . ." —Newsweek "The best book of philosophy in years." —John Gardner "To call this a good book is to be patronizing; it is an important book, one that will have to be followed up or answered. It may be a great one, as are all turning points in a tide of drama whose protagonists have thought their courses inexorable." —Choice, February 1982 When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized at once as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Now, in a new chapter, Alasdair MacIntyre responds to the questions and considerations raised by the many admirers and critics who made After Virtue such a widely read and discussed work of philosophy. Taking into account the dialogue generated by his book over the past three years, he elaborates his position on the relationship of philosophy to history, the virtues and the issue of relativism, and the relationship of moral philosophy to theology. In doing so, MacIntyre sustains the claims of his central conclusions to rational justification and demonstrates further the accountability of philosophy to the world and times it seeks to describe.