In the preface (p. xi) to Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (1999), Alasdair MacIntyre refers to a prayer by Thomas Aquinas ‘in which he asks God to grant that he may happily share with those in need what he has, while humbly asking for what he needs from those who have’. …
In recent years at UK universities such as the University of Edinburgh, the language of community and belonging has become increasingly visible. This is evident in institutional initiatives – task groups, staff and student guidance, and strategic plans – that foreground connection, inclusion, and student experience. One explanation is straightforward: universities are responding to identifiable …
In Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, MacIntyre writes that any answer to the question what are universities for? should begin with this: They are, when they are true to their own vocation, institutions within which questions of the form ‘What are x’s for?’ and ‘What peculiar goods do y’s serve?’ are formulated and answered …
Introduction A rich aesthete, a therapist, and a manager walked into a university… and made it their home. It is a poor punchline, but then this is no joke: these three characters have increasingly shaped the moral logic of many contemporary universities and show no signs of leaving. In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argues that …
Today there is almost constant talk in universities of excellence: excellence of institutions, of staff, and even of students. A quick search of the University of Edinburgh website yields teaching and research excellence (including the Research Excellence Framework), academic excellence, Exemplars of Excellence in Student Education, VLE Excellence, Tercentenary Awards for Excellence, the Centre for …
Few concepts are invoked more confidently in contemporary universities than ‘the Student Voice’. Yet the term – especially when framed in the language of ‘championing the Student Voice’ – can obscure an important distinction. Students are authoritative witnesses to their experience of teaching, assessment, services, and university life. They are not, simply by being students, …
Patient: Do you think I have low self-esteem? Therapist: No, it’s about right. How do we know whether our own evaluation of ourselves, and of our lives as a whole, is accurate or justified? How can we tell if we’re genuinely living a good life? MacIntyre (2016, p. 222) makes the bold claim that at …
Link to post on Teaching Matters blog: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/teaching-matters/the-good-life-of-the-university/ Introduction Study with us for an extraordinary future, says the University of Edinburgh’s webpage. But what kind of future does a university education promise – one of personal growth, or merely a means to an end? Universities themselves rarely address this question. When they do, their response …
I spent an hour or so with a student from Vietnam this week. I could tell from her accented English she was likely to be Vietnamese, but she was quick – keen even – to let me know. In fact, she began our tutorial by explaining that she was attending this writing tutorial because English …
It has become commonplace to describe all sorts of phenomena in positive terms. Take the word community. It is often applied to any group of people with something vaguely in common, however thin or ill-defined that thing might be. To call such a group a community immediately suggests coherence, shared recognition, and solidarity. Curiously, the …
