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45 results

Page 1 of 3

Human Nature, Human Goods
  • A Theory of Natural Perfectionism
  • Tom Angier
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • Is there a human nature? Can knowledge of it help us live better lives? This book synthesises ancient and modern philosophical ideas and draws on scientific research to answer yes to both these questions. It develops an innovative normative theory on the basis of commonsensical, naturalistic, premisses; and it defends an Aristotelian normative theory -- whereby we should understand human goods as realisations or perfections of human nature -- against both traditional and emerging challenges to perfectionist ethics, including evolutionary biology and transhumanism. The result is a ground-breaking theory of 'natural perfectionism', which both returns perfectionistic ethics to its Aristotelian roots and shows how this is compatible with evolutionary biology and cognitive science. At a time when the very idea of human nature is viewed as something that can be readily transcended, this work recalls us to a realistic, sober and better-founded vision of it.

  • 1 - After Virtue and Virtue Ethics

  • from Part I - After Virtue and Ethical Theory
  • Edited by Tom Angier, University of Cape Town
  • Book:
    MacIntyre's <i>After Virtue</i> at 40
    Published online:
    12 October 2023
    Print publication:
    26 October 2023, pp 13-30

  • Summary

    This chapter makes the argument that After Virtue is not an exercise in virtue ethics, contra a common view. Rather, it subordinates virtue to other concepts, such as practice, tradition and narrative. These are in fact MacIntyre’s core concepts, and they provide a structure within which virtue finds its role.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Tom Angier, University of Cape Town
  • Book:
    MacIntyre's <i>After Virtue</i> at 40
    Published online:
    12 October 2023
    Print publication:
    26 October 2023, pp 1-10
    • Chapter
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  • Summary

    A summary of the book and critical overview of MacIntyre’s authorship.

MacIntyre's After Virtue at 40
  • Edited by Tom Angier
  • Published online:
    12 October 2023
    Print publication:
    26 October 2023
  • Since its publication in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has been recognised as a classic. Primarily a work of moral philosophy, it also draws on sociology, classics, political science and theology to effect a unique intellectual synthesis, and its combination of erudition and challenging, even provocative argument has made a significant impact throughout the humanities disciplines. This volume of new essays unpacks the influence of After Virtue on ethical and political theory, sociology and theology, and offers a multi-faceted exploration of its significance. The essays offer a way into MacIntyre's philosophy, and demonstrate how, rather than waning in influence over the past forty years, his most seminal text has found an ever-wider audience and continues to inspire controversy and debate in the humanities.

  • 8 - Ontological and Epistemological Foundations of Human Rights

  • from Part II - Natural Law Foundations of Human Rights Obligations
  • Edited by Tom Angier, University of Cape Town, Iain T. Benson, University of Notre Dame, Australia, Mark D. Retter, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Natural Law and Human Rights
    Published online:
    03 November 2022
    Print publication:
    17 November 2022, pp 119-132

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on Maritain’s analysis of the ontological and epistemological foundations of human rights, and his wider hope for ‘practical agreement’ on the content of those rights. On the ontological front, I argue that such agreement is not forthcoming on the basis of natural teleology or eternal law. Neither of these secures assent across the world’s major religious or philosophical traditions. On the epistemological front, neither rationalism nor naturalism holds great promise. While Maritain upholds the naturalist alternative, his efforts devolve into a performative contradiction. For he hopes to rest agreement about human rights on ‘natural inclinations’, which, at the same time, he confines to the realm of the non-conceptual, non-rational and pre-conscious. This constitutes a markedly weak, even incoherent basis for agreement. The stage is set, therefore, for ‘new’ natural law theory, which proposes a non-ontological, purely rationalist foundation. I conclude that this too is an unpromising basis for agreement on rights. Instead, we need a new approach, one that privileges the deliverances of the social sciences and does not strive for universal consensus.

Page 1 of 3