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‘The Essential Theatricality of Virtue’: A Review of Jennifer Herdt's Putting on Virtue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2012

John Perry
John Perry*
Affiliation:
Christ Church, University of Oxford, St Aldate's, Oxford OX1 1DP, [email protected]
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Extract

One of Alasdair MacIntyre's colleagues at Notre Dame once told me that of all the passages in all his books, there is one of which MacIntyre is most proud. It is found, of course, in After Virtue:

Consider the example of a highly intelligent seven-year-old child whom I wish to teach to play chess, although the child has no particular desire to learn the game. The child does however have a very strong desire for candy and little chance of obtaining it . . .

Keywords

AugustineErasmuseudaimonismHumehypocrisyLutherMacIntyrevirtue
Type
Article Review
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 212 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2012

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References

1 MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (2nd edn. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 188Google Scholar.

2 Herdt, Jennifer, Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008), p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Subsequent references are given parenthetically.

3 Augustine, , Letters, tr. Parsons, Wilfrid (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1953), vol. 3, p. 50Google Scholar.

4 Augustine, De Doctrina, book 1, para. 41.

5 We might try comparing Augustinian pagans to children who move beyond playing chess for candy, learning to play for their own pride, but without seeing that there is a deeper good still. As we shall see, this is the view of Hume, not of an Augustinian pagan. In MacIntyre's terminology, Hume happily denies the existence of goods-internal-to-practices, whereas the Augustinian pagan (presumably) does not. For this reason, I think we need a different image, and my argument is that Augustine provides it in the misguided or delayed journey.

6 Studies in Christian Ethics 23/1 (2010), pp. 97–102.