Title: After Virtue - Why the West Risks Collapse Without Heeding MacIntyre's Moral Wake-Up Call

Guest: Tom Angier

Recorded: October 2025

A couple of years ago, an algorithm on a book-selling website recommended a title to me—I can't recall exactly where, but it doesn't matter. It arrived amid 30 other books and sat untouched on my shelf for nearly two years, gathering dust in my ever-growing pile of "must-reads." I'm a slow reader; on a good day, I manage 30-40 pages. My appetite for books far outpaces my ability to finish them, hence the dusty towers in my office.When I finally opened it earlier this year, it felt like discovering a map explaining our modern world's deep polarization and fractures. The material seemed fresh, though rooted in the works of philosophical giants like Aristotle and Aquinas. The book is After Virtue, written by Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre in 1981. MacIntyre, a Scottish-American philosopher born in Glasgow in 1929 to a family of doctors, was a restless thinker. Instilled with a sharp intellect and questioning spirit by his parents, he began as a Marxist, critiquing capitalism's alienating effects. He evolved through encounters with Wittgenstein, Aristotle, and Thomism, converting to Catholicism in the 1980s. By the late 1970s, he saw modern moral philosophy in crisis—debates reduced to emotive outbursts, lacking shared foundations or civility. This led to After Virtue, where he argued the Enlightenment's pursuit of universal reason shattered traditional ethics, leaving "emotivism": "good" reduced to personal preference shouted loudest.

Upon release, After Virtue sparked a sensation in academic circles. Communitarians and conservatives praised it—thinkers like Charles Taylor and Michael Sandel lauded its revival of virtue ethics and critique of individualism as a lifeline for community morality. Catholics and traditionalists hailed its nods to Aristotle and Aquinas. Liberals criticized it as pessimistic and anti-progressive for dismissing Kant and Nietzsche.

MacIntyre revives virtue ethics, emphasizing traits like justice, courage, and honesty cultivated through social practices, not rules. Morality emerges from narratives and traditions, offering meaning amid relativism. He warns Western society resembles post-Roman Europe: civilized but morally bankrupt, heading to barbarism without intervention.

I finished After Virtue as news broke of MacIntyre's death on May 21, 2025, at 96. May his soul rest in peace. I'd normally interview the author, but instead found someone insightful to discuss it. The book helps navigate our hyper-complex world, so I wanted to share its message. My guest is Tom Angier, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town. Tom's research focuses on Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian ethics and politics. Recent works: monograph on Natural Law Theory; edited The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics (2019) and The Cambridge Handbook to Natural Law and Human Rights (2023); upcoming Human Nature, Human Goods: A Theory of Natural Perfectionism (February 2026).

Links and interview references:

After Virtue

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/after-virtue-9781780936253/

Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

https://www.amazon.com.au/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-MacIntyre/dp/0268019444

Human Nature, Human Goods, A Theory of Natural Perfectionism - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/human-nature-human%20goods/CA87A9BFF30D8516D271DF5D7C08CAD4

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-natural-law-ethics/066446693DDE09647A73FA19FEF2142F

The Cambridge Handbook to Natural Law and Human - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-natural-law-and-human-rights/B1E1CEC2C502A8CA72DBB9F33FE29D90