R. M. Hare Quotes
Richard Mervyn Hare was a British analytic moral philosopher and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. After captivity in the Far East during the Second World War, he returned to develop a distinctive metaethical position known as universal prescriptivism, according to which moral judgements are universalizable imperatives. The quotes below are attributed to R. M. Hare, organized by topic.
Browse R. M. Hare by topic
R. M. Hare on Freedom
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“Freedom and Reason , 1965, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 89-90”
The rules of moral reasoning are, basically, two, corresponding to the two features of moral judgment...When we are trying, in a concrete case, to decide what we ought to do, what we are looking for...is an action to which we can commit ourselves (prescriptively) but which we are at the same time prepared to accept as exemplifying a principle of action to be prescribed for others in like circumsta
R. M. Hare on Knowledge
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“... what the principle of utility requires of me is to do for each man affected by my actions what I wish were done for me in the hypothetical circumstances that I were in precisely his situation ; and, if my actions affect more than one man...to do what I wish, all in all, to be done for me in the hypothetical circumstances that I occupied all their situations...”
Ethical theory and utilitarianism , 1982, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 26 -
“It is said that the prescription to keep all black people in subjection is formally universal, and internally consistent, and so is not ruled out by the Categorical Imperative. But the point is: can somebody who has fully represented to himself the situation of black people who are kept in subjection go on willing that they should be so treated? For if he has fully represented this to himself, he ”
Sorting Out Ethics , 2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 135 -
“I had a strange dream, or half-waking vision, not long ago. I found myself at the top of a mountain in the mist, feeling very pleased with myself, not just for having climbed the mountain, but for having achieved my life’s ambition, to find a way of answering moral questions rationally. But as I was preening myself on this achievement, the mist began to clear, and I saw that I was surrounded on th”
A Philosophical Autobiography, 2002, p. 269
R. M. Hare on Mind
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“[In the bilateral case]... if I have full knowledge of the other person's preferences, I shall myself have acquired preferences equal to his regarding what should be done to me were I in his situation ; and these are the preferences which are now conflicting with my original prescription. So we have in effect not an interpersonal conflict of preferences or prescriptions, but an intrapersonal one ;”
Moral Thinking , 1981, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 110
R. M. Hare on Time
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“The rules of moral reasoning are, basically, two, corresponding to the two features of moral judgment...When we are trying, in a concrete case, to decide what we ought to do, what we are looking for...is an action to which we can commit ourselves (prescriptively) but which we are at the same time prepared to accept as exemplifying a principle of action to be prescribed for others in like circumstances (universalizability)...[I]f we cannot universalize the principle, it cannot become an ‘ought’.”
Freedom and Reason , 1965, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 89-90
R. M. Hare on Virtue
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Attributed to R. M. Hare:
“Moral judgements are universalizable prescriptions.”
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Attributed to R. M. Hare:
“To call something good is to commend it.”
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Attributed to R. M. Hare:
“Universalizability is the formal property of moral judgements.”
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Attributed to R. M. Hare:
“Moral education is the cultivation of universalizable preferences.”
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Attributed to R. M. Hare:
“We must be ready to prescribe to ourselves what we prescribe to others.”