Staying grounded: Overcoming circularity and conventionalism in MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics

Abstract

In After Virtue, MacIntyre provides a novel justificatory scheme for his ethical theory - what I have come to call the Tripartite framework. However, his extended discussion in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? opens this framework up to multiple potentially troublesome lines of criticism, some of which he addresses and some of which he ignores. While MacIntyre addresses relativist and perspectivist critiques in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (WJWR), I have noticed one concern that is left unacknowledged. On the basis of this concern, I will develop what I have called the conventionalist critique.