R. M. Hare

R. M. Hare was a British moral philosopher who was White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford and later taught at the University of Florida. Against both naturalists and emotivists, he argued that moral language is prescriptive, guiding action as imperatives do, and universalisable, committing the speaker to the same judgement in all relevantly similar cases. In later work he argued that these logical features lead to a form of preference utilitarianism.

Key ideas

• Moral judgements are prescriptions: to accept one sincerely is to be committed to acting on it.
• Moral judgements are universalisable: one must judge alike all cases alike in their relevant features.
• Universalising one's prescriptions requires weighing the preferences of everyone affected.
• Moral thinking has two levels, everyday intuitive rules and critical reflection that tests them.

Major works

• The Language of Morals (1952)
• Freedom and Reason (1963)
• Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point (1981)

In the conversation

• Discussion “But what if it was you?” Trying Hare’s universalisability test on my children Thamarai Raman · 0 replies
• Question What did Bernard Williams mean by ‘one thought too many’? Thamarai Raman · 4 replies