MacIntyre's Conservative Problem

In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre lays out his argument about internal/external goods, practices, and virtues. First, he contrasts internal and external goods. External goods are always some individual's property or possession, such as fame or money(190). The more someone has, the less there is for others. On the other hand, internal goods are good for the whole community. It can only be achieved through practice and can be appreciated only by someone with genuine competence in the practice. An example of an internal good would be the excellence a portrait painter achieves by mastering a new quality of perception. This would benefit the entire community and not take anything from others. 

A key point in the definition of an internal good is that it can only be achieved through a practice. How then can one enter a practice? MacIntyre answers this by saying that entering a practice requires submission to standards and accepting the inadequacy of one's own tastes. He says this must be so because practices have history. Current standards exist because of the wisdom of all that came before you. He gives an example saying, “if when playing baseball I do not accept that others know better than me when to throw a fastball better than me, I will never learn to pitch” (190). He then talks about virtues, saying that virtues are necessary for practice. For example, one needs to have the virtue of courage to expose oneself to the possibility of judgment, or one needs to have the virtue of honesty to acknowledge one's own inadequacies. 


However, there is a tension within his argument. MacIntyre states that entering a practice requires accepting the authority of its current best standards. For example, his baseball example states that one will not know how to pitch unless they defer to those who already know how. Yet at the same time, when giving his example of an internal good being achieved, he presents a painter who transformed the practice of painting. This, therefore, begs the question, at what point is submission to standards limiting the “excellence” that MacIntyre celebrates?


I acknowledge that MacIntyre briefly states that standards are open to criticism. However, he never states how or in what instances standards can be challenged. What is the distinction between failure of submission and a legitimate critical challenge of standards?

Comments

  1. Andy CheungApril 1, 2026 at 11:35 PM

    Interesting point Michelle. I think MacIntyre actually provides a little clarity on this. Submitting to established standards and transforming those standards aren't really in opposition to each other; rather, they happen sequentially. When he says that "we cannot be initiated into a practice without accepting the authority of the best standards realized so far," the "so far" seems to indicate that historical standards can be revised and improved. On the same page (and as you acknowledge in your post), he writes that practices of course have a history ... thus the standards are not themselves immune from criticism." Rembrandt didn't reject naturalistic representation arbitrarily, he transformed it through a deep understanding in painting. This suggests that the a legitimate challenge to standards is through mastery and participation, with virtues of justice and honesty governing this. I do agree though that this only provides color on your first question on whether standards can be challenged, but MacIntyre himself doesn't really seem to address how or when standards can be challenged - would be interesting to discuss in seminar.

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  2. Asher CarrieroApril 2, 2026 at 2:07 AM

    The tension here is real but I think it kind of dissolves once you look at what submission to standards actually does in MacIntyre's argument. The painter who transforms portraiture doesn't do so by ignoring existing standards but rather he does so by having internalized them so thoroughly that he can see where they fall short. That's his whole mechanism. You submit to standards not because they're beyond criticism, but because you can't see what's wrong with them until you've worked within them long enough to understand what they're trying to do. Without the ability to accept the authority and then grow would it not follow that no one can become more skilled at anything? Skill development in any practice presupposes that there are standards worth deferring to and people who embody them. If you deny that, you're left with no mechanism for distinguishing someone who is actually getting better from someone who is just doing something different.

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  3. Paul HurleyApril 2, 2026 at 8:02 AM

    Interesting post and insightful responses. One way to develop Michelle's thought further is to wonder whether something like this conservativeness issue arises again in his claim that practices, and the way that they are integrated into an excellent human life, require the appeal to existing traditions. Do such traditions reintroduce such a conservativeness element at the highest level, or can they be addressed the way Andy and Asher suggest?

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