References for Theme: Dependent Rational Animals
- MacIntyre, A C
- Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (1999)
(p.42) Good is ascribed, that is, both to what benefits human beings as such and to what benefits human beings in particular roles within particular contexts of practice. A good human being is one who benefits her or himself and others (much more will of course need to be said about this) both qua human being and also characteristically qua the exemplary discharge of particular roles or functions within the context of particular kinds of practice, as someone may benefit her or himself and others both qua conscientious and cheerful human being and qua shepherd or nurse.
- Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (1999)
(p.60) It is then the characteristic human condition to find ourselves occupying some position, and usually a series of positions over time, within some set of ongoing institutionalized relationships, relationships of family and household, of school or apprenticeship in some practice, of local community, and of the larger society, which present themselves under two aspects. Insofar as they are relationships of the kind of giving and receiving that I have described they are those relationships without which I and others could not become able to achieve and be sustained in achieving our goods. They are constitutive means to the end of...
- Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (1999)
(p.64) When a network of such familial, neighborhood, and craft relationships is in a flourishing state, when, that is, there is a flourishing local community, it will always be because those activities of the members of that community that aim at their common good are informed by their practical rationality. But those who benefit from that communal flourishing will include those least capable of independent practical reasoning, the very young and the very old, the sick, the injured, and the otherwise disabled, and their individual flourishing will be an important index of the flourishing of the whole community. For it is...
- Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (1999)
(p.90) The answer that I have sketched is that in order to flourish, we need both those virtues that enable us to function as independent and accountable practical reasoners and those virtues that enable us to acknowledge the nature and extent of our dependence on others. Both the acquisition and the exercise of those virtues are possible only insofar as we participate in social relationships of giving and receiving, social relationships governed by and partially defined by the norms of the natural law.
- Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues (1999)
- MacIntyre, Alasdair
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