The comparison between Alasdair Macintyre and Charles Taylor in the context of their contribution to contemporary moral philosophy

What are the notions on which the basic problems of modern moral philosophy manifest? What kind of moral philosophy did Alasdair Macintyre and Charles Taylor put forward against liberal reasoning thought? Is ethic an epistemological matter? Or else should the ontological basis of ethics be discovered? Can the conventional thought, which considers the value of the good, be revived in modern time? Today how can the Aristotelian ethical theory forms an alternative? Under the light of the point of view of all these questions the major purpose of this thesis is to rethink over the value of human being and the good. Besides, this study aims to replace the good in the center of moral thought against the thoughts of liberal individualism and objectivity. Taylor attempts to provide an ethical description of ontology depending on the basis of historical reading agains analytical philosophy, which considers ethic as a matter of epistomology. On the other hand, Macintyre develops firstly the Aristotelian and later the Thomist Aristotelian social, historical and metaphysical interpretation of ethics. In this way, both philosophers analyse the historical, metaphysical, phenomenological, and hermeneutical dimensions of ethics against the emotivist and individualist moral philosophy. Both of the philosophers give more emphasis on ethical basis of ontology rather than on the basis individual preference of ethics. On the other hand, they particularly differ in the way of taking account of liberalism and with regard to philosophers, whom they get impressed with. The focus of this thesis is to evaluate the contributions of the above mentioned similarities and differences towards the basic problems of modern moral philosophy. Hence, in this study it has been tried to take into consideration specially the ways of Taylor and Macintyre to overcome the problem of ethical ambiguity, which is common in the western world and western philosophy. Key Words: Ethics, good, epistemology, ontology, emotivism, individualism, liberalism