Public Reason 3 (1): 103-113 © 2011 by Public Reason MacIntyre on Personal Identity Lia Mela University of Patras Abstract. MacIntyre’s interpretation of human life is infuenced by the medieval conception, which considers the human to be substantially in via. What allows MacIntyre to maintain that there is a specifc “narrative unity of human life” is the conception of life as “quest” or “journey”. Tus, the self is tied up to a character and his/her unity is given as the unity of the character which is demanded by the narration. Te construction of personal identity revolves around the question “what is a good life?”, adopting a structured narration as a basis for the forma- tion of personal identity. Nevertheless, although the unity of life demands an end, the recogni- tion of the fact of pluralism averts MacIntyre from any efort to defne positively what is good. However, given the fact that the possibility of understanding life is intertwined with a speci fc time, place and civilization, the quest does not blindly move in a vacuum, but within traditions, since we are bearers of a speci fc story. I will argue that (a) as long as the notion of the end remains beref of content, its capability of solving conficts of values becomes weaker, (b) in this context, the problem of the coexistence of individuality and social determination is raised. Key words: personal identity, practice, narrative, moral tradition, modernity, individualism, autonomy, community, teleology. MacIntyre’s theory is part of a wider discussion about the content, the limits and the perspectives of Modernity, which acquires the character of a confict that revolves around conceptual pairs such as substantial/procedural ethics, ideal of good life/rules of fair coexistence, teleology/deontology, communitarianism/liberalism. Vis-à-vis the ques- tion that concerns the possibility of inducing a universal core out of the pluralism of valid forms of life, the principal tendency of modern ethics argues that the claim of universality requires detachment of the contents associated with the ethos of speci fc communities. Te questions about life are posed as a mater of responsibility of the socialized individu- als, judged through the perspective of each one of them. MacIntyre’s updated account of the virtues works as a critique of the abstract char- acter of modern ethics in favour of an orientation towards the communal ethos. First it is a critique of individualism, which conceives the individual, that is a physically discernible and psychologically continuous rational and autonomous subject, as the basic ethical unit, ultimate source of value and bearer of justi fcation. For MacIntyre, the human individual has an inherent complexity which the individualistic point of view is unable to conceive. Te modern self cannot be held responsible in the way that pertains to a moral subject, as s/he faces alternative ways of life from an external point of view, provided that ex ypo- thesi it does not have any commitments. Nevertheless, its conficting desires are unable to comprise a base of choice and, as a consequence, it cannot form a rational history in its movements from one state of moral commitment to another. Te subject, if no defnitive teleology is presupposed, i.e. a notion of what is good, defnable by communal or species needs, lacks a guiding thread. Te capability for practical reason is not abstract, is not un- derstandable outside a social (Afer Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? ) or biological