Hare's Theory of Morals

Dissertation, Yale University (1982)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

R. M. Hare's two main contributions to contemporary ethical theory are his earlier analysis of the logic of moral discourse and his more recent account of moral argument. Of the two, it is the first which is both more fundamental and more viable, and the present study is a critical examination of it. Portions of that analysis, it is argued, are seriously defective and require to be recast, and two of particular importance are singled out for extended treatment. It is argued that Hare must abandon his claim that value judgments, to be action-guiding, must be held to entail imperatives, and that this claim, an important component of Hare's wider claim that value judgments are prescriptive, must be replaced by the proposal that value judgments be taken to entail "subscriptions to principle." It is also argued that Hare's prescriptivism underwrites an important assertion which Hare fails properly to acknowledge and develop, viz., that a value judgment may make reference not merely to an immediately relevant principle for choosing, but also to a number of other principles to which it is related. This segment of the present study has occasion to investigate Braithwaite's suggestion that in expressing one's subscription to a discrete moral principle, one at the same time expresses commitment to a larger set of principles which describes a way of life as a whole. Hare seeks to provide a logical foundation for his account of moral argument in his analysis of moral discourse, and it is argued that this foundation is left undisturbed by the several modifications of Hare's analysis that are proposed. The decisive defects in Hare's account of moral argument cannot be traced to Hare's analysis of the logic of moral discourse, but are instead to be located within the development of that account itself.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Hare's defense of utilitarianism.Thomas L. Carson - 1986 - Philosophical Studies 50 (1):97 - 115.
Il principio di universalizzabilità: Alcune critiche a Richard Hare.Luciana Ceri - 2005 - Annali Del Dipartimento di Filosofia 11:25-49.
Moral argument.Jonathan Bennett - 1960 - Mind 69 (276):544-549.
Mr. Hare and Naturalism.Brice Noel Fleming - 1954 - Analysis 15 (4):82 - 85.
A Metaethical Option for Theists.Kyle Swan - 2006 - Journal of Religious Ethics 34 (1):3-20.
Richard Hare en perspectiva.Olga Ramirez Calle & Olga Ramírez - 2010 - Telos: Revista Iberoamericana de Estudios Utilitaristas 17 (2):209-225.
Logic and Morality: The Ambiguities of Universal Prescriptivism.Helen Kalokerinou - 1988 - Dissertation, University of Exeter (United Kingdom)
Interests and Moral Ideals.R. N. Berki - 1974 - Philosophy 49 (189):265 - 280.
Moral Motivation and Christian Theism.Ryan Nichols - 2004 - Faith and Philosophy 21 (2):175-194.
Moral Judgment and the Moral Point of View.George William Harris - 1981 - Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin
Hare's Moral Thinking.A. Phillips Griffiths - 1983 - Philosophy 58 (226):497 - 511.
Hare on utilitarianism and intuitive morality.Tom Carson - 1993 - Erkenntnis 39 (3):305 - 331.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-02-05

Downloads
0

6 months
0

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references