Can the virtuous person exist in the modern world?
If there is a single theme running through these essays it is the importance of our commitment to truth. Not just to the truth about ourselves and our relations with others, or to the truth about the world: our commitment must be to the concept of truth as central to human wellbeing. This, of course, runs counter to one of the philosophical clichés of our time: that there is no such thing as objective truth, that truth is a superstition we no longer need and would be better off without. Alasdair MacIntyre’s original volume of selected essays, published 35 years ago, had the title Against the Self-images of the Age. The idea that we can live without truth is the current self-image he has set himself against. MacIntyre’s writings about truth, relativism, and the purpose of moral philosophy have been required reading for decades, not only among philosophers but throughout the humanities and social sciences. His style is at once pugnacious yet sympathetic to those with whom he disagrees; i
