Blackwell Reference Online

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Richard Mervyn Hare has written on a wide variety of topics, from Plato to the philosophy of language, religion, and education, as well as on applied ethics, but he is best known for his general moral theory. Hare's views on ethics have developed since his groundbreaking book, The Language of Morals (1952) , but the main thrust of his position has remained fairly constant. Hare defines the class of moral judgments to include any judgment that is prescriptive, universalizable, and overriding (1981: 53–7). Prescriptivity distinguishes moral judgments from judgments of natural science and history. Universalizability separates moral judgments from particular commands, such as by army sergeants, as well as from legal judgments (1963: 36). Overridingness divides moral judgments from aesthetic value judgments (1963: 139). Hare's definition of moral judgments is formal in that it does not require any particular content. It is possible, on Hare's definition, to make a moral judgment that one should never step on cracks in the sidewalk, even if such steps harm nobody, break no promise or law, and so on. Some critics find this implication unpalatable, but Hare responds that his definition still captures one possible and useful specification of the term “moral.” Many people seek to formulate and justify a system of judgments that are moral in Hare's sense. Hare's moral theory, then, starts ... log in or subscribe to read full text