Prescriptivity is a term used in
meta-ethics
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normativ ...
to state that when an evaluative judgment or decision is made it must either prescribe or condemn. The word implies that these judgments (and the prescription and condemnation) logically commit us to certain ways of living. Contrary to popular opinion, prescriptivity does not just describe or categorize decisions - for example, "you ought to do this" (used evaluatively)
logically entails the imperative "do this."
Universal Prescriptivism
Prescriptivity is one of the five (prescriptivity, universalizability, overridingness, publicity, and practicability) axioms of Formal
Ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
. When combined with Universalizability, prescriptivity becomes
Universal prescriptivism
Universal is the adjective for universe.
Universal may also refer to:
Companies
* NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company that is a subsidiary of Comcast
** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of ...
. Universal prescriptivism combines these two methods of thinking, combining evaluative judgments (which commit us to making similar judgments about similar cases) and prescription and condemnation when the judgment is at last made. This enables us to think in a very powerful and
rational
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ...
way about ethical and moral issues.
See also
*
R. M. Hare
Richard Mervyn Hare (21 March 1919 – 29 January 2002), usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subseque ...
References
*
*
External links
Universal axioms
Metaethics
Concepts in ethics
Concepts in logic
{{ethics-stub