This chapter summary is part of my reading summaries series. Click here for more information on the series.
“Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues” is a revised and expanded version of three lectures Alasdair MacIntyre gave in 1997. It seeks to address two questions: “Why is it important for us to attend to and to understand what human beings have in common with members of other intelligent animal species?” and “What makes attention to human vulnerability and disability important for moral philosophers?” MacIntyre especially hopes that his work on the latter question will help correct the insufficient attention given to it within moral philosophy.
(You can order a copy here.)
Chapter 1: Vulnerability, dependence, animality
Chapter 2: Humans as contrasted with, humans as included in the class of animals
Chapter 3: The intelligence of dolphins
Chapter 4: Can animals without language have beliefs?
Chapter 5: How impoverished is the world of the nonhuman animal?
Chapter 6: Reasons for action
Chapter 7: Vulnerability, flourishing, goods, and ‘good’
Chapter 8: How do we become independent practical reasoners? How do the virtues make this possible?
Chapter 9: Social relationships, practical reasoning, common goods, and individual goods
Chapter 10: The virtues of acknowledged dependence
Chapter 11: The political and social structures of the common good
Chapter 12: Proxies, friends, truthfulness
Chapter 13: Moral commitment and rational enquiry
Chris Damian 
Pingback: Summary: Dependent Rational Animals chapter 1, Vulnerability, dependence, animality | Ideas of a University
Chris, Are there other chapter summaries available? I will be teaching this text in a community college setting and thought my students might benefit from having the summaries available.
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thanks
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hello , where are the rest of the summaries ?
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