The Reality of Nature

Alasdair MacIntyre is a rare link between reality and our personal perceptions. His work focuses on acknowledging the unknowns in human life and validating natural instincts. He critiques previous ethic theories and combines ideologies to create a more accurate approach to life.

“…What the agent is able to do and say intelligibly as an actor is deeply affected by the fact that we are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of our own narratives.” I interpreted this as we are deeply affected by societal standards that cloud our ability to fully make our own decisions. We will continuously be guided by societal rules and guidelines that are rooted into our sense of self through nurturement. Our sense of self is largely determined by internal factors and external factors such as, family, peers, society, etc.

MacIntrye suggests that we have no true sense of the meanings of “right” or “wrong”, a few words associated with ethics. These words are building blocks to our moral development. They can also be detrimental to us when we acknowledge that societal differences make it harder to have a universal understanding. For example, even our verbal and nonverbal cues vary from country to country.

What Americans deem as normal in their homeland could quite possibly be questionable to others who live abroad and vice versa. In order for ethics to work, there has to be a true universal meaning to terms of ethics and human life. This is proven to be impossible due to there being a variety of societal groups and cultures liquified into categories that call for certain adjustments and adaptations.