Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the VirtuesOpen Court Publishing, 1999 - 172 pages In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre compares humans to other intelligent animals, ultimately drawing remarkable conclusions about human social life and our treatment of those whom he argues we should no longer call "disabled." MacIntyre argues that human beings are independent, practical reasoners, but they are also dependent animals who must learn from each other in order to remain largely independent. To flourish, humans must acknowledge the importance of dependence and independence, both of which are developed in and through social relationships. This requires the development of a local community in which individuals discover their own "goods" through the discovery of a common Good. |
Contents
Title Page Preface | |
Vulnerability dependence animality | |
Humans as contrasted with humane as included in the clasps of animals | |
The intelligence of dolphins | |
Can animals without language have beliefs? | |
How impoverished is the world of the nonhuman animal? | |
Reasons for action | |
Vulnerability flourishing goods and good | |
How do we become independent practical reasoners? How do | |
Social relationships practical reasoning common goods | |
The virtues of acknowledged dependence | |
The political and social structured of the common good | |
Proxies friends truthfulness | |
Moral commitment and rational enquiry | |
Other editions - View all
Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues Alasdair MacIntyre Limited preview - 1999 |
Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues Alasdair MacIntyre No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
ability able achieve acknowledged dependence activity adequate adults affliction Aquinas Aquinas’s argument Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s ascribe ascription attitudes behavior beliefs bottlenose dolphins capacities characteristics characterized child chimpanzees commitments conception contexts course culture deliberation desires disabled distinctions dolphins engage environment evaluate example exercise expression extent failure generosity giving and receiving gorillas Heidegger Heidegger’s human flourishing important independent practical reasoners individual insofar judgments justice kind Lakota language language-using matter Mencius misericordia moral philosophy nation-state nature networks of giving Nicomachean Ethics nonhuman animals norms of giving one’s ourselves parents particular PAUL CARUS perceptions philosophical phronesis political possess possible prelinguistic presuppose question range rational enquiry reasons for acting reasons for action recognition recognize relationships of giving relevant responses rules sentences shared social relationships someone sometimes speak species speech acts Summa Theologiae types understand virtues of acknowledged vulnerability