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The Meaning of a Good Life

Following the sad news of Alasdair MacIntyre’s death recently, AmirAli Maleki argues that he and Miskawayh al-Razi shared a similarly Aristotelian vision of the way to live.

What does it mean to live well? Although separated by centuries and cultures, Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025) and Miskawayh al-Razi (c.932-1030) offer remarkably convergent perspectives on the nature of the good life. For both MacIntyre and Miskawayh – two thinkers deeply rooted in the Aristotelian tradition – living well is not simply about personal satisfaction or material success. Rather, it’s about the cultivation of virtue and the formation of moral character through the embedding of one’s life within a community that nurtures ethical flourishing. Both thinkers reject the individualism of modern moral philosophy and emphasize that virtue and human flourishing are inherently social pursuits. MacIntyre, in his critique of modern ethical frameworks, further argues that the fragmentation of moral discourse in the West has led to the loss of a shared understanding of human purpose. To counter this he revives a tradition-based approach to ethics, where the concept of virtue is central to achieving eudaimonia, which is Aristotle’s notion of human flourishing. Miskawayh, a Persian philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age, similarly drew upon Aristotelian ethics to outline a vision of self-cultivation, also arguing that the perfection of human character requires the integration of reason, discipline, and communal life.

Here I want to consider the striking parallels between MacIntyre’s and Miskawayh’s conceptions of the good life. By placing their ideas in dialogue, we also gain insight into how the ideas Aristotle developed over 2,300 years ago continue to offer an enduring framework for understanding the ethical life – one that transcends historical and cultural boundaries.

Alasdair MacIntyre & the Pursuit of a Good Life

How can one achieve a truly fulfilling and meaningful life? In an age of fractured moral discourse and rapid social change Alasdair MacIntyre offers a compelling answer: a good life is rooted in virtue, shaped by tradition, and embedded within a moral community. His revival of Aristotelian ethics includes arguing that human flourishing, or eudaimonia, is inseparable from the social structures that cultivate it.

Alasdair MacIntyre in 2009
© Sean O’Connor 2009 Creative Commons 2

MacIntyre’s critique of modern moral philosophy begins in his best-known book After Virtue (1981), in which he famously argues that contemporary (Western) ethics has lost its coherence, leaving us with emotivism – where moral claims are emotional preferences rather than the result of rational discourse. He also contends that the Enlightenment’s attempt to construct morality on abstract principles failed to provide a meaningful foundation for ethical life whilst severing our connection to the religious traditions that once anchored moral reasoning. Aristotelian virtue ethics, by contrast, offers a richer, more integrated vision, in which moral development happens within a tradition. So for MacIntyre, virtues are not merely personal attributes; they are social practices, cultivated through shared narratives and communal engagement.

Later, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), MacIntyre explores how different traditions shape our understanding of justice and rationality, arguing that moral inquiry must be rooted in historical and communal frameworks rather than in detached reasoning. Individuals do not simply invent their own moral frameworks: they inherit them, refine them, and pass them on. Moreover, in After Virtue, MacIntyre states outright that “to enter into a tradition is to inherit not only the practices and virtues associated with it but also the debates and conflicts that shape its evolution” (p.146). In this sense, virtue is not a static state, but an ongoing process deeply embedded in the historic fabric of human life.

Yet MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism is far from a nostalgic retreat into the past. It is, fundamentally, a radical critique of modern individualism. In Dependent Rational Animals (1999), he challenges the notion that human beings are purely autonomous agents, emphasizing our fundamental dependency on others, arguing that moral development requires relationships of trust, care, and mutual recognition: “The virtues necessary for individual flourishing are those that enable us to recognize our dependencies upon one another and, in so doing, form relationships of accountability and care” (p.78). A good life, then, is not one of isolated self-sufficiency, but one of participation in a community that fosters virtue.

MacIntyre’s work challenges us to rethink the nature of a good life – not as a solitary pursuit, but as a shared endeavour, shaped by history, sustained by tradition, and realized through virtue. This vision raises profound questions for contemporary ethics. Is tradition a necessary foundation for ethical life, or can morality be constructed independently of historical narratives? Can virtue survive in an age of moral pluralism? And perhaps most importantly: if human flourishing depends on communal structures, what happens when those structures erode?

Miskawayh al-Razi & the Vision of a Good Life

For Miskawayh ethical development also lay in virtue, the cultivation of moral character, and social harmony. Deeply influenced by Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Miskawayh presented a vision of the good life strikingly similar to MacIntyre’s modern revival of Aristotelian ethics. He too rejects the notion of isolated individualism, arguing instead that human flourishing is inseparable from communal life.

In Tahdhib al-Akhlaq (The Refinement of Ethics), Miskawayh offers a civil (rather than religious) interpretation of philosophy, emphasizing that man is inherently a social being: his perfection, both moral and intellectual, depends on his relationships with others. Again a good life is not merely a personal achievement but a shared endeavour – one in which the happiness of others ultimately contributes to one’s own happiness:

“Since the virtues and human goods are numerous, and no individual can fulfill all of them alone, it is necessary for many people to engage in practicing these virtues and striving for goodness. Therefore, a large community of individuals must support one another in the pursuit of perfection.” (pp.14-15)

Miskawayh’s ethical framework is also built on the idea that moral refinement is a gradual process, requiring discipline and education alongside active participation in society. As he further states in The Refinement of Ethics :

“Perfection is only possible through civic engagement, life within the city, and the support of virtuous individuals and sincere friends. These needs are numerous, and attaining them requires great effort. Therefore, one must not neglect this path but instead persevere with patience, avoiding the lure of comfort-seeking, which is among the greatest vices, and striving alongside the people of society. Those who fail to do so – like those who withdraw from society and live in mountains and deserts – fall into barbarism and remain untouched by civilization.” (p.168)

Like Aristotle, Miskawayh believes that virtues are developed through habituation – one becomes just by consistently acting justly, courageous by practicing courage, and wise through the pursuit of knowledge. Yet Miskawayh’s vision of the good life is not merely a repetition of Aristotelian thought, it is also deeply rooted in the intellectual traditions of Islamic philosophy. So while Aristotle emphasizes rationality as the foundation of virtue, Miskawayh integrates this with a spiritual dimension, arguing that the perfection of the soul is the ultimate goal of human existence:

“It must be understood that human beings, unlike pure souls – those free from bodily needs – do not require only physical happiness. Rather, they seek spiritual fulfillment, which consists of eternal intelligibles and is, in essence, wisdom itself. However, as long as a person remains human, their happiness cannot be complete unless both conditions – worldly and eternal – are attained together. These two states cannot be fully realized except through means that facilitate the attainment of eternal wisdom. Thus, the truly fortunate individual is one who possesses a balanced share of both aspects.” (pp.82-83)

So Miskawayh’s ethical system bridges the gap between Greek philosophy and Islamic moral thought, offering a synthesis that remains relevant in discussions of virtue ethics today.

The Endless Climb

Another thing MacIntyre and Miskawayh agree upon is that human happiness is never a static achievement but an ongoing process, a continuous striving toward moral perfection. To live well is not simply to reach a final state of virtue, but to remain engaged in the pursuit of it, refining one’s character, and adapting one’s moral framework to new circumstances.

In Alasdair MacIntyre’s Modernity (2015), Robert B. Pippin provocatively likens the ethical life to the myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned by Zeus to push a rock up a hill forever – a ceaseless effort, an endless push toward meaning, Sisyphus knowing full well that the rock will roll back down the hill again so that he’ll have to start again the next day. And indeed, MacIntyre and Miskawayh’s shared Aristotelian vision does suggest that the cultivation of virtue is a lifelong endeavor, never truly complete. But here’s the difference: Sisyphus had no goal. His task was meaningless repetition. The ethical journey, in contrast, is a purposeful striving shaped by evolving moral challenges and new dimensions of human experience. Virtue is not a singular destination but a shifting horizon, such that what it means to be good at twenty is not the same as at forty; nor is wisdom at sixty reducible to the lessons of youth. The good life is always being remade, always rediscovered in new contexts tied to the relationships and communities that shape our moral commitments. A life lived in pursuit of virtue is not futile, it is dynamic. So unlike Sisyphus, whose labor was doomed to emptiness, MacIntyre and Miskawayh see ethical growth as a meaningful progression, not a pointless cycle. The metaphor of Sisyphus doesn’t work here. Instead of endlessly rolling a boulder up the same hill, perhaps instead we are explorers, tracing new paths toward eudaimonia, never reaching an absolute summit, but always moving forward. And the virtue-seeker, unlike Sisyphus, believes in the journey – not as an act of despair, but as the very fabric of human flourishing:

“It is in the course of the quest and only through encountering and coping with the various particular harms, dangers, temptations and distractions which provide any quest with its episodes and incidents that the goal of the quest is finally to be understood. A quest is always an education both as to the character of that which is to be sought and in self-knowledge.” (After Virtue, p.186)

AmirAli Maleki is a philosophy researcher, he works in the fields of political philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and hermeneutics and is the Editor of PraxisPublication.com.