have different possible futures; that we can choose to do whatever it is we perceive is
best for us to do at any particular time given that we often face competing demands.
And it is the ability to do this that differentiates us from non-human animals. He says:
Human beings need to Ieam to understand themselves as practical reasoners
about goods, about what on particular occasions it is best for them to
do...Without learning this human beings cannot flourish...
(MacIntyre 1999 p. 67)
We also recognise our interdependencies insofar as our choices affect others, just as
others’ choices affect us. Further we have choices to make between projects and,
according to MacIntyre, we need the virtues (especially the virtues of independent
practical reasoning) if we are to choose well. That is, if we are to choose wisely not only
between those projects that contribute to and those that get in the way of our
flourishing; but also between competing flourishing-enabling projects. Noting that we
are vulnerable because our projects can be frustrated, he says:
...it is insofar as something tends to interfere with or to be an obstacle to the
achievement of... particular goods or of flourishing in general that it is
accounted a harm or a danger.
(ibid p. 64)
Thus we are vulnerable because our projects can be frustrated, and this suggests we can
only be said to flourish if we are not being prevented from pursuing completion of our
projects. According to MacIntyre:
What a plant or an animal needs is what it needs to flourish qua member of its
particular species. And what it needs to flourish is to develop the distinctive
powers that it possesses qua member of that species.
(ibid)
On this account it matters a great deal how far a member of a particular species can
develop the capacities constitutive of that species; for those who are prevented from
realising their capacities will find it harder (in degree related to the severity of the
impairment or obstacle) to flourish as members of that species. Thus, because practical
reasoning is an essentially human capacity, humans need to be able to develop practical
reasoning if they are to flourish. Moreover, it is possible as a matter of empirical fact to
recognise environments generally conducive, as well as environments generally hostile,
to human flourishing. Hostile environments are those in which not only is human-as-
animal survival compromised but also in which there is limited opportunity for the
development of human practical reasoning.
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