MacIntyre's Theory of Practice

Philosophical Ethics: MacIntyre’s Notion of a Practice and the Idea of Virtues (Q4) When it comes to notion of practice and the idea of virtues, MacIntyre’s explanation provides one with a sense of how the two go together. Practice is the art by which an object is pursued, and virtue is the quality that both enables and facilitates practice and is developed or reinforced through practice. This paper will discuss the link between practice and virtue, according to MacIntyre’s theory.

MacIntyre’s notion of a practice is split between two kinds of practice—that with external goods and that with internal goods.

The external goods of practice are those external rewards that come by one’s practice, and usually these are of a sort that a person can possess—i.e., money, power, fame, or candy as in MacIntyre’s example of the child who is motivated to practice chess by the promise of the reward of candy, which is the external good that motivates the child.

The child can learn the skills and techniques of chess and become a good player who is motivated to win at the game by the external good; however, there is no guarantee in this type of practice that the child will not stoop to cheating to win, since the main objective has been to obtain the external good and thus whatever means are necessary to obtain that external good are necessary.

In this type of practice, the child has not learned the true practice of chess but rather a superficial practice that is predicated more on superficial personal satisfaction—i.e., some pleasure or material possession that the person feels enhances his existence. There is no sense of the obtainment of the external good actually being good for anyone other than oneself. There is no sense of the person being developed in a better way so as to have a more positive effect on others.

There is, in other words, no sense of a development of the virtues that should correspond with practice when it is taken up to obtain an internal rather than an external good. An internal good is related to the practice itself—such as the discipline, critical thinking skills, knowledge, and virtues that are developed as a resulted of pursuing the practice for its own end—i.e., to be practiced.

In the chess, example, MacIntyre indicates that the child who participates in the chess practice is going to gain internal goods because he is motivated by the practice for its own sake rather than by money, candy or some other external good. MacIntyre calls them internal goods because they can only be obtained by participation in the practice and they are specific to the practice that is being performed.

Thus, chess practice will have its own internal good; religious practice will have a separate internal good; just like meditation will, dance, karate, construction, and so on. MacIntyre’s notion of a practice thus sheds light on the idea of the virtues by showing how virtue itself is developed. As he states, “A practice involves standards of excellence and obedience to rules as well as the achievement of goods.

To enter into a practice is to accept the authority of those standards and the inadequacy of my own performance as judged by them. It is to subject my own attitudes, choices, preferences and tastes to the standards which currently and partially define the practice.”[footnoteRef:2] Practice enables one to acquire the virtue of humility, the virtue of obedience, and the virtue of perseverance.

It focuses and trains the mind according to a standard that has been recognized as helpful in the development of certain ways of thinking and acting. It focuses the person’s attention on bettering the self through the adherence to a rule.

This betterment is not only for the self but also for the community as the virtues that are developed are beneficial for the common good—i.e., they have at their root the expression of otherness rather than selfishness that is consistent with practice only undertaken for an external good. For practice to lead to virtue, it has to be undertaken for the internal good. [2: Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue. Third edition, (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 190.] One has to adopt a spirit of humility to obtain virtue.

MacIntyre explains this by way of analogy: “If, on starting to listen to music, I do not accept my own incapacity to judge correctly, I will never learn to hear, let alone to appreciate, Bartok's last quartets.

If, on starting to play baseball, I do not accept that others know better than I when to throw a fast ball and when not, I will never learn to appreciate good pitching let alone to pitch.”[footnoteRef:3] To obtain the virtue from practice, one has to be willing to understand and appreciate that others have come before him who know more about the subject and art than he does.

Michelangelo started off as an apprentice and through his great gift and skill became a master—but he too had to study and trained under the tutelage of a master before he could reach that height. Virtue does not come to the proud or to the arrogant. Arrogance is a wall to virtue that keeps it out.

[3: Ibid 190.] Practice for the purpose of obtaining the internal good is conducive to the development of virtues and sheds light on the idea of the virtues in the sense that it explains how and why individuals pursue virtues in the first place. Virtues enable a person to be better, and that means for one’s society—not just for one’s self. Selfishness is not compatible with virtue because it does not place an ideal behavior or common good among one’s own self-interest.

One could, for example, cheat to win—but one would not be acting virtuously in doing so. On the other hand, one could play well and still lose but lose virtuously and still be counted as an asset to one’s community based on the deportment with which one carries oneself, the graciousness that one exhibits even in defeat, and the honor that one brings simply by way of competing.

MacIntyre defines a virtue as “an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods.”[footnoteRef:4] Yet, while practice may allow one to acquire more virtue, virtue at some level is already necessary in order for practice to be pursued for the internal good: without virtue, “the goods internal to practices are barred to us, but not just barred to us generally, barred in a very particular way.”[footnoteRef:5] Recognition and performance of one’s duty, humility that allows one to see one’s own inadequacies and listen to one’s superiors, and obedience that enables one to adhere to a standard or rule so as to obtain the internal good of practice—these are just a few examples of the kind of virtues required for practice to be beneficial and for internal goods to be obtained.

[4: Ibid 191.] [5: Ibid 191.] Virtues also unite people, because they keep them under the same umbrella, so to speak. As MacIntyre puts it, “Every practice requires a certain kind of relationship between those who participate in it.

Now the virtues are those goods by reference to which, whether we like it or not, we define our relationships to those other people with whom we share the kind of purposes and standards which inform practices.”[footnoteRef:6] Virtue is something that has to be accepted by people in society—it has to be recognized as a common good to facilitate interaction between people.

For instance, if humility were not recognized as a common good, it would not play a part in the pursuit of the internal good of practice. One would not be required to enter humbly into practice or to recognize the mastery of practice that one’s trainer or tutor has. One would be admonished for coming to practice in a humble spirit in a community that did not view humility as a virtue.

The method of learning a practice would invariably be completely different in such a community, as it would most likely.