The New Natural Law Theory and Alasdair MacIntyre’s Moral Philosophy: A Rapprochement

Abstract The New Natural Law Theory and the moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre have both contributed to the revival of Aristotelian–Thomistic moral philosophy in the twentieth century, and to bringing the Aristotelian–Thomistic tradition into conversation with contemporary analytic moral philosophy. While New Natural Law Theory and MacIntyre both seek to defend a robust understanding of practical rationality against the emaciated view of practical rationality typical of Hume and his modern heirs, many (including, sometimes, MacIntyre himself) tend to see the two approaches as fundamentally at odds with one another, at least in some respects. In this essay, I would like to challenge this perception, and argue instead that these two approaches are essentially compatible and complement one another in important ways.