After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

by Alasdair MacIntyre

Let me use a dangerous, but illuminating analogy. The rules which govern both action and evaluative judgment in the Iliad resemble the rules and the precepts of a game such as chess. It is a question of fact whether a man is a good chess player, whether he is good at devising end-game strategies, whether a move is the right move to make in a particular situation. The game of chess presupposes, indeed is partially constituted by, agreement on how to play chess. Within the vocabulary of chess it makes no sense to say ‘That was the one and only move which would achieve checkmate, but was it the right move to make?’ And therefore someone who said this and understood what he was saying would have to be employing some notion of ‘right’ which receives its definition from outside chess, as someone might ask this whose purpose in playing chess was to amuse a small child rather than to win. One reason why the analogy is dangerous is that we do play games such as chess for a variety of purposes.