Alasdair MacIntyre has defined such practices as «any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to and partially definitive of that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence in human conception of the ends and goods involved are systematically extended.» (firstthings.com)
-- Aristotle had some great ideas which have been verified to be useful and beneficial to us; but you should read how he thought that human conception occurred (a real hoot) and he believed that thinking occurred in the region around the heart and not in the brain! (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
Look up what the often brilliant Aristotle posited about human conception - and how females were conceived! (religion.blogs.cnn.com)