“Each of us achieves our good only if and insofar as others make our good their good by helping us through periods of disability to become ourselves the kind of human being—through acquisition and exercise of the virtues—who makes the good of others his or her good. . . .” I read this passage from Dependent Rational Animals twice and slowly before my Contemporary Political Theory class this past spring. The book is one of the most important I teach—and a favorite among students—because it offers something different from the atomistic individualism with which they are most familiar.

Alasdair MacIntyre was different in so many ways. He was a giant of the academy without having earned a doctorate. He was recognized by philosophers as one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, even as he rejected the very methods of most of contemporary academic philosophy. He was a true intellectual, as well read as anyone I ever met, yet he also knew the intricacies of Notre Dame football as well as any seasoned armchair quarterback. He was near impossible to pin down politically: He rejected easy ideologies and comfortable complacency, and one could always be certain that he rejected the offerings of both major American political parties. He wanted his students to be different, too.

While taking his “God, Philosophy, Universities” course, I distinctly remember sitting in a classroom with a group of vigorous notetakers trying to jot down his every word. MacIntyre asked a question. No one answered; heads remained down, hands scribbling away. He then said something to the effect of, “The next person to take a note fails the class.” The classroom sat in silence as he explained that by taking so many notes, we weren’t actually thinking about the material he was presenting. We should be engaging with ideas rather than trying to preserve everything that he was trying to say. Of course, we Notre Dame undergraduates had been conditioned to learn this way: Take great notes, receive great grades. This mold had served and would continue to serve us well our entire lives. But MacIntyre wanted to break us out of this “high achievement” mold so that we could actually learn, receive an education, be different.

Frankly, MacIntyre would have hated any tribute that draws attention to himself. I would much rather consider what difference his difference should make for Catholic educators and scholars. Like MacIntyre, if we are committed to different outcomes, we have to be willing to risk different inputs—in our thinking, teaching, and writing. If we understand his contribution to moral philosophy as a new chapter on “virtue ethics,” that he made a certain theory acceptable among theories, then we have missed the point entirely. What MacIntyre proposed was an entirely new way of thinking about ethics that is not merely a theory, but a way of life.

Does our own teaching reflect this radicality? If our classrooms are merely places where we present information to our students for their absorption, we have missed the point. MacIntyre sought to show us, as much as possible, the unity of an education rooted in the Truth that is God. This education begins not with an abstract theological principle, but with the truth that each of us is in debt. We owe our successes to others who nourished us and supported us along the way. This dependency leads us to ponder Truth Himself.

What about our scholarship? Does our writing serve the common good, or are we more concerned about impacting the academy—the one MacIntyre thought was largely incapable of even addressing the most pressing questions, let alone providing answers for them? Do we merely speak to other scholars, or is our work accessible and meaningful to a wider audience? MacIntyre broke molds, but not for the purpose of creating a mold of his own. I do not think he would want us writing about After Virtue, as important as it may be, so much as helping the world to see what is necessary for the living of a unified and meaningful life. 

For Catholic educators, a sign that we have not missed the point, it seems to me, is when we strive to make the good of others our own. Saint Thomas writes that misericordia, mercy, “is that aspect of charity whereby we supply what is needed by our neighbor.” It is a virtue rooted in friendship and prompted by compassion. For MacIntyre, teaching and writing was a work of misericordia; though we may not have realized it at the time, he was our friend. All those whose good was made MacIntyre’s own through his thinking, teaching, and writing, have incurred a debt. It is not one we can fully repay. But we can act as dependent rational animals by going and doing likewise. It would make us truly different.