Hare's Account of Moral Reasoning

Abstract

IN BOTH of his books1 R. M. Hare raises the question: What is it to accept a moral proposition-either a general moral principle or a moral verdict about a particular situation? Hare's answer is that to accept a moral proposition entails acting, or at least attempting to act, upon it. As he puts it, to accept such a proposition is to prescribe something to oneself and to others, and prescribing to oneself logically involves acting or trying to act. But there is an alternative answer to the question which Hare does not consider. One might propose that to accept a moral proposition entails not acting upon it but reasoning with it. In the case of a general principle this would mean that one will heed it in arriving at a moral verdict or, if it has slipped from one's mind or has been repressed, that one will acknowledge its relevance when reminded of it. In the case of a moral verdict on a particular situation this will mean that one will draw the moral consequences of his judgment in terms of praise and blame and whatever else might be required. One virtue of this latter view is that it can frankly face the fact that we do not necessarily do what we believe is the morally required thing to do. But Hare, though clearly disturbed by this fact,2 is not dissuaded by it. Rather than explain acceptance in terms of moral reasoning, he has attempted to explain moral reasoning in terms of his prescriptive theory of acceptance. I want to argue that in this attempt he fails.