Conclusion

Because it is so clearly indexed to Christian theological convictions, the account of humility developed in this book may appear irrelevant to the field of virtue theory broadly conceived. The Conclusion argues that this way of thinking fails to recognize that the rediscovery of the virtue tradition was originally animated—especially in the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre—by the realization that the moral life is more deeply tradition-dependent than reigning normative theories allow. This book should then be thought of as an exercise in general virtue theory insofar as it attempts carefully to display how one particular virtue, humility, is tradition-dependent all the way down. The Conclusion argues that attempts to specify the virtues in less tradition-dependent ways actually conceal ideological commitments to a liberal political agenda.