MacIntyre, Alasdair

"Modern philosophy rests upon an impossible confusion about human nature and freedom."

"We become virtuous by practicing virtue, through repetition and habit."

"A social institution provides a structure within which goods can be pursued."

"The concept of justice has a history, and it is only intelligible in its historical context."

"Tradition is a sustained argument about goods and their place in human life."

"To understand ourselves we must understand the traditions which have shaped us."

"The contemporary rejection of teleology represents a profound loss in moral understanding."

"We speak and think within a language which is itself a cultural inheritance."

"Virtues are not arbitrary cultural inventions but are necessary for human flourishing."

"A craft is only learnable and teachable within the context of a tradition."

"The narrative I live by does not emerge from my private choices alone."

"Justice requires understanding the good of the whole community."

"Modern man has been left without the resources to understand his own nature."

"To be virtuous is to have a unity of purpose throughout one's life."

"The authority of a tradition comes not from force but from continuing recognition of its goods."

"My life is always embedded in the particular social and institutional relationships I inhabit."

"A practice is a form of human activity with its own internal standards of excellence."

"Moral language in modern culture becomes increasingly incoherent and contested."

"To reject tradition altogether is to cut oneself off from the sources of moral understanding."

"The virtues are excellences which enable us to achieve the goods which are peculiarly human."

"We are always already embedded in a web of social relationships and practices."

"A virtue is a quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods."

"The loss of belief in progress has left modern culture morally adrift."

"To understand my life I must understand it as part of a larger narrative."

"Traditions are the bearers of standards of excellence and the vehicles of human flourishing."

"The concept of moral education presupposes an account of human flourishing."

"We become the kinds of people we are through our choices, but only within constraints we do not choose."

"A society which lacks shared understanding of the good becomes prone to conflict."

"Virtues can only be understood within the context of a tradition of practice."

"The modern rejection of Aristotelian thought has left us without adequate moral concepts."