virtues by learning to engage in a practice for the latter appears to require the former but
this issue cannot be addressed here.
For MacIntyre, independent practical reasoning seems to function much as phronesis
does for Aristotle. Indeed, we might be forgiven for mistaking MacIntyre’s independent
practical reasoning for Aristotle’s phronesis. As such it seems that, like MacIntyre,
Aristotle has in mind only those with the capacity to develop practical wisdom as
candidates for eudemonia or human flourishing. If we are to accept the idea that there
are those whose potential for human flourishing is compromised or inhibited (those who
might be described as more-than-ordinarily vulnerable) then we need an account of
human flourishing that includes such persons.
I have argued against placing human beings into categories of more or less independent
practical reasoners (such as, humans-in-a-coma and so on) because this lends itself to
justifications of ‘moral apartheid’. However, it must be allowed that the capacity for
independent practical reasoning will be different for different individuals. As such, we
might say that, while independent practical reasoning is a feature of human beings, it is,
nevertheless, a feature that varies between and within individuals. This is to say, that not
only do individuals have a capacity for independent practical reasoning which may be
different from that of their fellows, but also that their capacity for independent practical
reasoning may vary from day to day, even from moment to moment, depending upon a
whole range of factors. In other words, our capacity for independent practical reasoning
is vulnerable to harmful influences from the internal and external world.
On this account, human flourishing can still be couched in terms of a capacity for
independent practical reasoning but will require qualification. If we allow that each
individual has a particular capacity for independent practical reasoning then we can say
that flourishing for a human qua human requires that the individual exercise their
capacity to the extent that it is possible for them so to do. This would mean that a person
whose capacity for independent reasoning is to some degree compromised could still
flourish qua human because they can flourish in those ways that their particular human
capacities allow. It also means that the care provided by nurses and other health care
workers can aim for the flourishing of the more-than-ordinarily vulnerable by assisting
such persons to realise whatever human capacities they have or by helping to remove
obstacles and impediments to the realisation of those capacities.
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