Towards a Possible Education: between MacIntyre and Liberalism

Abstract

This work tries to identify the most important aspects of education in the thinking of Alasdair MacIntyre. First, it seeks to frame their ideas applicable to education within the framework of his moral philosophy for the development of virtue, which is the main object of their research. Also, the notion of «practice» allows MacIntyre take away from the means-ends present in the dominant liberalism in today”™s society apart. Recognized in liberal thought a great interest in the technical and regulatory aspects of human activity, that is, by the media, but relegates the purposes outside of rationality or arbitrary personal decision. In turn, this notion of «practice» allows us to deepen and better understand those activities, such as education, have their purposes outside themselves. According to him, liberalism impossible genuine development practices and, therefore, runs the risk of reducing education to a standardized, normative and technical activity. However, it is considered that this interpretation of liberalism must be discussed with the aim of identifying an alternative liberalism to be able to find resources within their own scheme of thought that establish, in the current education practices that maintain some ethical elements and politicians suggested by MacIntyre, but allow in turn create new models of understanding of education and new educational responses to conflictual situations present in the present world scene.