Hare has written a clear, brief, and readable introduction to ethics which looks at all the fundamental problems of the subject.

Part I The Imperative Mood 'Virtue, then, is a disposition governing our choices '. ARISTOTLE, Eth. Nic. 36 Prescriptive Language. ...

Part I Describing and Prescribing He to whom thou was sent for ease, being by name Legality, is the son of the Bond-woman . . . how canst thou expect by ...

R.M. Hare is one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers. In this volume he has collected a number of essays, including one which is previously unpublished, which fill in the theoretical background of his thought. Each essay is self-contained, but together they give a connected picture of his views on such questions as the objectivity and rationality of moral thinking, the issue between the ethical realists and their opponents, the place in our moral thought of appeals to (...) common convictions, and how to tell whether a feature of a situation is morally relevant. (shrink)

I Imperative Sentences It has often been taken for granted by logicians that there is a class of sentences which is the proper subject-matter of logic, ...

This collection of thirteen original essays by such well-known philosophers as Thomas Nagel, Peter Singer, J.O. Urmson, David A.J. Richards, James Griffin, R.B. Brandt, John C. Harsanyi, T.M. Scanlon, and others discusses the philosophy of R.M. Hare put forth in his book Moral Thinking, including his thoughts on universalizability, moral psychology, and the role of common-sense moral principles. In addition, Professor Hare responds to his critics with an essay and a detailed, point-by-point criticism.

In this volume, R. M. Hare has collected a number of essays which fill in the theoretical background of his thought and which together give an overall picture of his views on a variety of questions. Each essay is self-contained, and topics covered include the objectivity and rationality of moral thinking, the issue between the ethical realists and their opponents, the place in our moral thought of appeals to common convictions, and how to tell whether a feature of a situation (...) is morally relevant. His central theme is the paradox that, if moral judgements were just statements of fact, relativism would be inescapable. We can treat moral thinking as a rational activity only because moral judgements are more than this. (shrink)

R. M. Hare, one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers, here presents his most important essays on religion and education, in which he brings together the theoretical and the practical. The main themes of the book are the relations between religion and morality and the question how children can be educated to think for themselves, freely but rationally, about moral questions.

Preface In this third volume of my collected papers I have included all but one of my main contributions, apart from my books The Language of Morals and ...

R. M. Hare has brought together in this volume the best of his uncollected essays in moral philosophy, several of them previously unpublished or revised for this collection. They span the whole range of his ethical interests, from the most abstract to the most down-to-earth. The volume provides a compelling demonstration of Hare's commitment to bringing together the theoretical and the practical in ethics.

These essays, all written within the last decade, represent Hare's thinking on a range of contemporary issues in political morality, including political obligation, terrorism, morality and war, rights, quality, and the environment. Three of the essays are previously unpublished.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

In planning the conduct of his affairs in relation to nature, man is faced with many problems which are so complex and so intermeshed that it is hard to say at first even what kind of problems they are. We are all familiar with the distinction between factual and evaluative questions, and I do not doubt that there is this distinction; but the actual problems with which we are faced are always an amalgam of these two kinds of question. The (...) various methods used by environmental planners are all attempts to separate out this amalgam, as we have to do if we are ever to understand the problems — let alone solve them. I wish in this lecture to give examples of, and appraise, two such methods. I shall draw from this appraisal not only theoretical lessons which may interest the moral philosopher, but also practical lessons which, I am sure, those who try to plan our environment ought to absorb. Though my examples come mostly from urban planning, because that is the kind of planning with whose problems I am most familiar, what I have to say will apply also to problems about the countryside. Whether we have to deal with the human nature of the man in the congested street, or the nature of the nature reserves or of the areas of outstanding natural beauty, the word ‘nature’ may bear slightly different senses, but the problem is still the same: to ascertain the facts about this nature, and then to think how we should conduct ourselves in order to make things better, or at any rate not worse, than they would otherwise be. (shrink)

In planning the conduct of his affairs in relation to nature, man is faced with many problems which are so complex and so intermeshed that it is hard to say at first even what kind of problems they are. We are all familiar with the distinction between factual and evaluative questions, and I do not doubt that there is this distinction; but the actual problems with which we are faced are always an amalgam of these two kinds of question. The (...) various methods used by environmental planners are all attempts to separate out this amalgam, as we have to do if we are ever to understand the problems — let alone solve them. I wish in this lecture to give examples of, and appraise, two such methods. I shall draw from this appraisal not only theoretical lessons which may interest the moral philosopher, but also practical lessons which, I am sure, those who try to plan our environment ought to absorb. Though my examples come mostly from urban planning, because that is the kind of planning with whose problems I am most familiar, what I have to say will apply also to problems about the countryside. Whether we have to deal with the human nature of the man in the congested street, or the nature of the nature reserves or of the areas of outstanding natural beauty, the word ‘nature’ may bear slightly different senses, but the problem is still the same: to ascertain the facts about this nature, and then to think how we should conduct ourselves in order to make things better, or at any rate not worse, than they would otherwise be. (shrink)

R. M. Hare, one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers, presents a selection of essays in which he brings ethical theory lucidly to bear on moral problems arising in politics. He examines our obligation to obey the law; the limits of legitimate lawbreaking, civil violence, and war; rights of various sorts and their supposed conflict with utility; justice, distributive and retributive; and care of the environment.

Founders of Thought offers introductions to three of the most influential intellects of classical antiquity: Plato, whose dialogues form the basis of the study of logic, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy; Aristotle, polymath, tutor of Alexander the Great and "master of those who know"; and Augustine, the Christian convert who asked God to make him good, "but not yet." Brief, accessible, and written by outstanding scholars, these studies offer readers an introduction to the ideas and achievements of the thinkers (...) whose works are essential to a full understanding of western thought and culture. (shrink)

I adopt Aristotle’s classification of kinds of justice into the generic and the particular, and of the latter into retributive and distributive justice.