Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the key philosophers in contemporary revival of virtue ethics, and often labeled as a representative of communitarianism in liberal-communitarian debate. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a narrative of the development of MacIntyre's philosophy, from his early Marxist thought to the later virtue ethics, and to examine the continuities and discrepancies between different stages of his philosophy. This thesis argues that the central theme of MacIntyre's philosophy is a diagnosis of the crisis of modernity and the ways through which we can overcome the predicament of alienation. In other words, MacIntyre's critique of capitalism and liberalist individualism shows the sophistication of his political
thought and therefore cannot simply be described as "communitarian."
To demonstrate MacIntyre's analysis of the crisis of modernity, this thesis focuses on four sets of binary concepts that constitute the foundations of his critiques, that is, "is-ought", "theory-practice", "individualism-holism", and "philosophy-history". The key to his theory of overcoming alienation, in this interpretation, is to understand the dialectic relations within each set of binary concepts respectively. This thesis illustrates how young MacIntyre tried to combine Marxism and Christian theology to answer these problematics, as well as how the later MacIntyre turned to Aristotle and Aquinas for theoretical inspirations. Aside from re-articulating the role of virtues in ethics, other MacIntyre's important theoretical innovations include transcending modern instrumental rationality by elevating the significance of teleological rationality and reconstructing the dynamic
relations between rationality and traditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0222110-162238 |
| Date | 22 February 2010 |
| Creators | Nan, Kuang-yuan |
| Contributors | Chia-hou Hsu, Chao-sen Yao, Roy Tseng |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0222110-162238 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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