## Metadata - Author: [[Alasdair MacIntyre]] - Full Title: Dependent Rational Animals - Category: #books ## Highlights - Aristotle goes on to remark that the magnanimous man is forgetful of what he has received, but remembers what he has given, and is not pleased to be reminded of the former, but hears the latter recalled with pleasure” ([Location 191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0042JSRWI&location=191)) - Human identity is primarily, even if not only, bodily and therefore animal identity and it is by reference to that identity that the continuities of our relationships to others are partly defined. Among the various ills that afflict us are those that disturb those continuities—loss of or damage to memory, for example, or disfigurement that prevents others from recognizing us—as well as those that disable us in other ways. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0042JSRWI&location=206)) - Modern moral philosophy has understandably and rightly placed great emphasis upon individual autonomy, upon the capacity for making independent choices. I shall argue that the virtues of independent rational agency need for their adequate exercise to be accompanied by what I shall call the virtues of acknowledged dependence and that a failure to understand this is apt to obscure some features of rational agency. Moreover both sets of virtues are needed in order to actualize the distinctive potentialities that are specific to the human rational animal. ([Location 211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0042JSRWI&location=211))