It shifts the focus from a clash of rigid ‘rights’ to a collaborative search for ‘goods’ within a shared practice. Mediator (‘M’) Tools using MacIntyre’s framework include: (1) ‘Moving Beyond Emotivism’ – MacIntyre argues that modern moral debates are often just expressions of personal preference (‘Emotivism’), leading to endless stalemates. M can help the Participants (‘P’s’) to see that arguing over abstract ‘rights’ or ‘ownership’ is a dead end. Instead, M can encourage the P’s to stop using ‘moral language’ as a weapon, and to start discussing the specific historical context of the artefact in dispute. (2) ‘Identifying the Internal Goods – In MacIntyre’s view, every practice, like archaeology, curation, or religious worship, has ‘internal goods’ that can only be achieved by participating in the practice. So, M can ask the P’s – ‘What is the best way for this artefact to fulfil its purpose?’ If the ‘good’ of e.g. an ancient statue, is its role in a living ritual, then a museum might agree that ‘external goods’, e.g. prestige and ticket sales, are secondary to that internal ‘spiritual good’. (3) ‘Locating the Narrative Unity’ – MacIntyre believes that individuals and objects only make sense within a story. So, instead of seeing a dispute as being a ‘snapshot in time’, M can frame the artefact as being part of a continuous and living narrative. This allows each P to see themselves as characters in the same story – one seeking to preserve; and the other to reclaim, and together they can then work toward a ‘chapter’ that honours both histories. (4) ‘Cultivating the Virtues’ – MacIntyre emphasizes virtues like justice, courage, and honesty, which are necessary to sustain any practice. M can model these virtues to create an environment of ‘moral apprenticeship.’ By requiring honesty about how an artefact was acquired, and courage to admit ‘historical wrongs’, M can transform the negotiation from being a ‘legal battle’, into a ‘virtuous dialogue’. (5) ‘Embracing Tradition’ – For MacIntyre, traditions are ‘extended arguments’ over time. So, M can ‘reframe’ the dispute as being a healthy part of the cultural tradition’s evolution, rather than as a ‘breach’ to be fixed. This may justify a creative ‘hybrid’ solution, e.g. ‘shared stewardship’ or ‘digital repatriation’, which respects the tradition of both the source community and of the Museum.

Comments added:

AI – ‘In his seminal work After Virtue (1981), Alasdair MacIntyre presents a framework that diagnoses modern moral discourse as a “state of disorder”. He argues that the Enlightenment’s rejection of teleology—the idea that human life has a specific end or purpose—stripped moral language of the context that made it coherent. 

To resolve this, he proposes a refashioned Aristotelian framework centered on three interlocking concepts: Social Practices, Narrative Unity, and Traditions. 

Diagnosis: The Failure of the Enlightenment Project MacIntyre contends that modern morality is composed of “conceptual fragments” from past traditions. 

Emotivism: He argues we now live in an “emotivist” culture where moral judgments are treated as mere expressions of personal preference or attitude rather than objective truths.

The Teleological Gap: In pre-modern ethics (Aristotelian/Christian), morality was a bridge between “man-as-he-happens-to-be” and “man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-telos”. The Enlightenment kept the rules but discarded the telos (end goal), making the rules seem arbitrary and unresolvable.

Nietzsche vs. Aristotle: MacIntyre frames the ultimate choice for modern man as either following Friedrich Nietzsche into moral nihilism or returning to an Aristotelian tradition of virtue. Wikipedia +6

2. The Solution: A Three-Part Moral FrameworkMacIntyre reconstructs the concept of virtue by grounding it in a sociological and historical structure: 

Social Practices: A Practice is any complex, socially established cooperative activity (like medicine, chess, or farming).

Internal Goods: These are achievements unique to the activity that can only be reached by following its standards of excellence.

The Role of Virtue: Virtues are the qualities (like courage, justice, and honesty) necessary to achieve these internal goods.

Narrative Unity of a Human Life: MacIntyre argues that virtues cannot exist in isolation; they must be situated within the Narrative Unity of an individual’s life. We understand our actions as part of a story with a beginning, middle, and end, striving toward a “good life”.

Moral Traditions: Individual narratives and practices are further embedded in Traditions, which MacIntyre defines as “historically extended, socially embodied arguments”. A tradition provides the shared standards and history that allow moral inquiry to be rational rather than arbitrary. 

3. Social and Political Implications

• Critique of Bureaucratic Management: He attacks the modern belief in “managerial expertise,” calling it a fiction used to manipulate others in a world that has lost shared moral ends.
• Local Communities: MacIntyre concludes that the modern nation-state is incapable of fostering a true moral community. He famously ends the book by suggesting we are waiting for “another St. Benedict”—small, local communities that can preserve the moral life through the “new dark ages” of modernity.’