ABSTRACT

In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre proposes a solution to what he describes as a disaster in contemporary moral discourse. In so doing, he offers a solution to the problem of the loss of moral knowledge, one that involves a return to the virtue ethics of Aristotle albeit reformulated into what he calls a 'tradition'. Fundamentally, Aristotle sees humans as beings who are to be oriented toward their telos, or end, of happiness. His Nichomachean Ethics (NE) stresses the development of the moral virtues to direct humans to that end. Most of Aristotle's discussion in his NE stresses the use of practical reason instead of its contemplative counterpart, since ethics is a practical discipline. Wittgenstein's key moves are reminiscent of Kant, albeit with significant modifications. In Brad Kallenberg's Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Kantian categories have become socio-grammatical ones, ones that have been established by particular linguistic communities and their conventions.