After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

by Alasdair MacIntyre

Many modern occupational roles—that of a dentist or that of a garbage collector, for example—are not characters in the way that that of a bureaucratic manager is; many modern status roles—that of a retired member of the lower middle class, for example—are not characters in the way that that of the modern leisured rich person is. In the case of a character role and personality fuse in a more specific way than in general; in the case of a character the possibilities of action are defined in a more limited way than in general. One of the key differences between cultures is in the extent to which roles are characters; but what is specific to each culture is in large and central part what is specific to its stock of characters. So the culture of Victorian England was partially defined by the characters of the Public School Headmaster, the Explorer and the Engineer; and that of Wilhelmine Germany was similarly defined by such characters as those of the Prussian Officer, the Professor and the Social Democrat.