Virtue at Work: Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

by Geoff Moore

MacIntyre’s point, to return to the example of physics, is that Fred as a physics school teacher is himself engaged in the practice of physics which is, in a sense, a lot ‘bigger’ than simply what goes on in the school classroom. Physics also, of course, takes place in university departments where not only is existing knowledge transmitted to students, but experimental and theoretical work takes place to extend the boundaries of that knowledge. In addition, the application of physics takes place in commercial, military, and other settings. Taken all together, this is the practice of physics. And what Fred does is to engage in that practice by ‘communicating craft and knowledge to apprentices’, in other words to those who are just setting out in understanding what physics is all about. Fred’s role is to encourage them to explore and understand at least parts of this particular practice and, perhaps for some, to inspire them to make it one of the significant practices in their own lives—to go on and make a career out of it, for example. This also, of course, implies that Fred should remain connected to the wider practice, maintaining contact with others engaged in the practice, reading to keep his own knowledge up to date, and so on. He is, in other words, first and foremost a physician (in its original rather than medical sense), and is only secondarily a teacher of physics.