God and Morality: Reconceiving MacIntyre's Position

"How should I live?" is the question to which Maclntyre gives the central place in his moral inquiry. Maclntyre, throughout his famous book After Virtue (AV), criticizes modern moral philosophy for failing to provide a rational and justified answer to this question. His moral project is predominantly shaped by the quest for this answer. What he offered had great impact simply because he applied to religion or the idea of God to explain morality at a time when religion lost its charm among philosophers. However, Maclntyre never discusses this connection between religion and morality in a complete and detailed way. Therefore, any examination of his reference to religion for a theory of morality needs to synthesize his different statements from very different texts. In doing this, the article aims to provide a complete picture of his gradually-evolved understanding of the role of God in moral philosophy both at a theoretical and practical level with a critical outlook.