The Instigators of the Later Movement

Abstract Two philosophers instigated contemporary virtue ethics: Elizabeth Anscombe (in “Modern Moral Philosophy”) and Alasdair MacIntyre (in After Virtue), though neither advocated what I will call “pure” virtue ethics. Anscombe claimed that the concept of obligation dominant among ethicists was incoherent and proposed that philosophers pursue instead a “philosophy of psychology” that would eventually include the concept of a virtue and would yield something like a substitute for absolute (unconditional) obligation. MacIntyre argued that the concepts of a practice, a moral tradition, and the human self as having a narrative structure imply the concept of a virtue, which would resolve the interminable ethical disagreements characteristic of modern life.