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

Abstract

In <i>After Virtue</i>, MacIntyre provides a novel justificatory scheme for his ethical theory - what I have come to call the Tripartite framework. However, his extended discussion in <i>Whose Justice? Which Rationality?</i> 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 <i>Whose Justice? Which Rationality?</i> (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.