will address the path that MacIntyre feels we must pursue in order to understand the “good” in modern society.
In his work, After Virtue, MacIntyre provides us with three particular examples that represent modern day moral dilemmas: valid war versus peace; an unborn’s right to life versus a woman’s right over her body; public welfare as equality correction versus individual enterprise provisions. While it may be true that there are no moral dilemmas in actuality, just value decisions, MacIntyre argues that previous forms of moral ethics and interpretation gives each of these arguments what he terms interminability. This is because previous modes of moral argument do not assist us in our modern day morality where dilemmas like the above are concerned:
Every one of the arguments is logically valid or can be easily expanded so as to be made so; the conclusions do indeed follow from the premises. But the rival premises are such that we possess no rational way of weighing the claims of one against another. For each premise employs some quite different normative or evaluative concept from the others, so that the claims made upon us are of quite different kinds. In one argument, premises which invoke justice and innocence are at odds with premises which invoke success and survival; in the second, premises which invoke rights are at odds with those which invoke universalisability; in the third it is the claim of equality that is matched against that of liberty.
The reason MacIntyre feels that modern morality needs criticized is because of the interminability of the above arguments. This is because, in a world where there is no conclusion evidence to support any of the moral premises or conclusions, all we can do is debate in a circular fashion. In this way, regardless of what moral ethic we adopt, all we are really doing in the face of an established doctrine that is universal is imposing our will upon others dependi...