The recent deaths of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and historian John Charmley have led me to consider how I came to discover their works and how both, in different ways, have influenced my thought. I was introduced to After Virtue during my theological formation for ordination in the late 1990s. Like very many others, it became for me a foundational text, with ramifications considerably beyond moral philosophy. In the words of James Orr on Unherd : By any measure, the impact of After Virtue (MacIntyre 1981) on Anglophone moral philosophy was electrifying. A scathing critique of modern moral philosophy, which he had come to view as a post-apocalyptic shadow of the richer and more coherent moral traditions that had preceded the dawn of liberalism, the book remains an extraordinary demonstration of the degree to which the thought of the past can catalyse thought in the present. After MacIntyre, no one can deny that the most convincing expressions of post-liberalism will always be those...
Old High - Burkean - clerk in holy orders