 MacIntyre tells us that applied ethics cannot be the sort of activity it is commonly supposed to be. He turns our attention to the complexities surrounding the notion of what it would mean to apply a moral rule. If applied ethics is in fact an application to cases of the rules of morality, we should expect to find that disagreements over moral rules reproduce themselves within debates on matters of practical ethics. But in a high proportion of cases these theoretical disagreements, of which there are plenty, are not in fact replicated. Large disagreement on what are the rules of morality turn out to be compatible with large agreement within the domain of applied ethics. Noting how common such situations are (situations in which clear disagreement exists on what are the rules of morality, while fairly easy agreement can be reached on concrete moral issues), MacIntyre holds that it cannot be the case that we first and independently comprehend the rules of morality and then secondly enquire as to their application under particular circumstances.