Alasdair MacIntyre on Education: In Dialogue with Joseph Dunne

Abstract

This discussion begins from the dilemma, posed in some earlier writing by Alasdair MacIntyre, that education is essential but also, in current economic and cultural conditions, impossible. The potential for resolving this dilemma through appeal to ‘practice’, ‘narrative unity’, and ‘tradition’(three core concepts in After Virtue and later writings) is then examined. The discussion also explores the relationship of education to the modern state and the power of a liberal education to create an ‘educated public’ very different in character from the electorates of contemporary democratic regimes. It concludes with some remarks on the role of education in combating prejudice against certain kinds of human difference.

Emotional Intelligence Meets Virtue Ethics: Implications for Educators

“…In our view, the above observations do much to address MacIntyre's concern (1999, MacIntyre & Dunne, 2002) that virtue ethics cannot be taught in a public education setting since apprehension of intrinsic good through reasons of the heart is available to anyone, regardless of traditions and worldviews, and can be augmented through contemplative practices. In addition, they appear to provide a more structured approach to the EI concept of developing one's life purpose.…”

“…Therefore, those working within institutions are subjected to the corrupting influence of these same institutions (MacIntyre, 1984). MacIntyre and Dunne (2002) provided an example in educational institutions whereby their activities are measured in terms of productivity (how many students graduated at what cost) instead of a concern, for example, for the cultural formation of the student. What will happen, for example, when individuals after beginning down the road of EI realize that their ideal selves and the internal goods they seek are not in alignment with the values and external goods sought by their employer?…”

“…Vokey (2005) argued it is important that people learn to recognize what a truly virtuous person, who acts based on intrinsic moral values, would do in particular contexts. He holds that MacIntyre's (1999, MacIntyre & Dunne, 2002) framework for moral education does not achieve this recognition because it relies soley on a discursive and intellectual approach whereas intrinsic value requires both an intellectual understanding and an embodied emotional understanding which are known as "reasons of the heart" (Vokey, 2001, pp. 257-309).…”

Johnson, MacIntyre, and the Practice of Argumentation

“…According to MacIntyre painting is a fairly prototypical example of a practice. On the other hand, he explicitly denies that teaching is a practice (MacIntyre & Dunne 2002). So the departure point for our investigation here will be whether argumentation is more like painting or more like teaching.…”

Grey Wisdom? : Philosophical Reflections on Conformity and Opposition between Generations

“…We can distinguish, as Nietzsche did, between the morality of the Homeric era and the slave morality first set out by Socrates and then incorporated, with modification, into an ethic of self-hatred and self-abnegation within the Christian tradition. According to MacIntyre, such ideas about morality exist within practices, which are themselves constituted by traditions of thinking and acting, whose telos is given by their internal goods, which are both the aims of those practices and the characteristic ways of achieving those aims (MacIntyre & Dunne, 2002). We can now see a problem that has preoccupied much of the work of Frieda Heyting, namely how one could be able to provide a rational critique of an authentic moral tradition if one doubted its worthwhileness?…”