When "After Virtue" was first published 25 years ago, it was immediately obvious that Alasdair MacIntyre had produced an important and highly controversial re-evaluation of contemporary moral philosophy. MacIntyre drew on more than 500 years of history to explore the causes of the current crisis in moral description and showed how attempts to formulate moral principles had grown progressively more difficult in the period after the Enlightenment. With extraordinary vigour and range, MacIntyre convincingly explains what has driven moral philosophy into its current quagmire and suggests ways out of it. This edition includes a new preface in which Professor MacIntyre responds to some of the central questions raised by the first edition, and reflects on the progress or otherwise of moral philosophy in the intervening quarter-century. The status of "After Virtue" is now assured. This new edition gives us a chance to assess its impact and to reach out to a new generation of readers.
