Dependent Rational Animals Quotes

“I can be said truly to know who and what I am only because there are others who can be said truly to know who and what I am.”
― Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues

“To care is to acknowledge both the other’s dependence and one’s own dependence and to act accordingly. To care is not to surrender one’s autonomy but to recognize the importance of one’s relationship to another or to others and to respond in the light of that recognition. It is in this light that we should understand the derivation of the English word ‘care’ from the Gothic word Kara, which means ‘to lament.’ So caring is not what a powerful person gives to a weaker one. Caring is a matter of being there, lamenting right along with the person who laments. And we should notice too that the word lament includes not just expressions of distress, but also a deep concern for a threatened good.”
― Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues