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Richard Mervyn Hare (21 March 1919 – 29 January 2002), usually cited as R. M. Hare, was a British
moral philosopher Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics ...
who held the post of
White's Professor of Moral Philosophy The White's Chair of Moral Philosophy was endowed in 1621 by Thomas White (c. 1550–1624), Canon of Christ Church as the oldest professorial post in philosophy at the University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate unive ...
at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
from 1966 until 1983. He subsequently taught for a number of years at the
University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
. His
meta-ethical In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or Value_(ethics), values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others ...
theories were influential during the second half of the twentieth century. Hare is best known for his development of prescriptivism as a meta-ethical theory, which he argues is supported by analysis of formal features of moral discourse, and for his defence of
preference utilitarianism Preference utilitarianism (also known as preferentialism) is a form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. Unlike value monist forms of utilitarianism, preferentialism values actions that fulfill the most personal interests for the entir ...
based on his prescriptivism. Some of Hare's tutorial students, such as
Brian McGuinness Brian McGuinness (22 October 1927 – 23 December 2019) was a Wittgenstein scholar best known for his translation, with David Pears, of the ''Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus'', and for his biography of the first half of Wittgenstein's life. He w ...
, John Lucas, and
Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English Ethics, moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessit ...
, went on to become well-known philosophers. Hare's son,
John E. Hare John Edmund Hare (born 26 July 1949) is a British classicist, philosopher, ethicist, and currently the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. Biography He received a Bachelor of Arts honours in Literae Huma ...
, also became a philosopher.
Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...
, known for his involvement with the
animal liberation movement The animal rights movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that advocates an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...
(who studied Hare's work as an honours student at the
University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...
and came to know Hare personally while he was an Oxford BPhil graduate student), has explicitly adopted some elements of Hare's thought, though not his doctrine of universal prescriptivism.


Life and career

Richard Hare was born on 21 March 1919 in
Backwell Backwell is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority area of North Somerset, in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. In 2011 it had a population of 4,589. The village lies about southwest of Bristol, south of the A370 to West ...
, Somerset. He attended
Rugby School Rugby School is a Public school (United Kingdom), private boarding school for pupils aged 13–18, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independ ...
in Warwickshire, followed in 1937 by
Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...
, where he read greats (classics). Having joined the officer training corps whist still at Rugby, on the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered to serve with the
Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
. Hare was taken as a
prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
by the Japanese from the
fall of Singapore The fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore, took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of Japan captured the British stronghold of Singapore, with fighting lasting from 8 to 15 February 1942. S ...
in 1942 to the end of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Hare's wartime experience had a lasting impact on his philosophical views, particularly his view that moral philosophy has an obligation to help people live their lives as moral beings. His earliest work in philosophy, which has never been published, dates from this period, and in it, he tried to develop a system that might "serve as a guide to life in the harshest conditions", according to C. C. W. Taylor. He returned to Oxford after the war, and in 1947, married Catherine Verney, a marriage that produced a son and three daughters. (Hare's son,
John E. Hare John Edmund Hare (born 26 July 1949) is a British classicist, philosopher, ethicist, and currently the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. Biography He received a Bachelor of Arts honours in Literae Huma ...
, is also a philosopher.) He was elected fellow and tutor in philosophy at Balliol from 1947 to 1966; honorary fellow at Balliol from 1974 to 2002; and was appointed Wilde Lecturer in Natural Religion, 1963–66; and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, 1966–1983, which accompanied a move to Corpus Christi. He was president of the
Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...
from 1972 to 1973. He left Oxford in 1983 to become Graduate Research Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
at Gainesville, a post he held until 1994. After suffering a series of
strokes Stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop ...
, Hare died in
Ewelme Ewelme () is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, northeast of the market town of Wallingford. The 2011 census recorded the parish's population as 1,048. To the east of the village is Cow Common and to ...
, Oxfordshire, on 29 January 2002. At his memorial service held at
St Mary's Church, Oxford The University Church of St Mary the Virgin (St Mary's or SMV for short) is an Church of England, Anglican church in Oxford situated on the north side of the High Street, Oxford, High Street. It is the centre from which the University of Oxford g ...
, in May of that year,
Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...
delivered (as he felt Hare would have wished) a lecture on Hare's "Achievements in Moral Philosophy" which concluded by giving three "major, lasting" ones, namely, "restoring reason to moral argument, distinguishing intuitive and critical levels of moral thinking, and pioneering the development of ... applied ethics".


Influences

Hare was greatly influenced by the
emotivism Emotivism is a meta-ethics, meta-ethical view that claims that ethical Sentence (linguistics), sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of anal ...
of A. J. Ayer and
Charles L. Stevenson Charles Leslie Stevenson (June 27, 1908March 14, 1979) was an American analytic philosopher best known for his work in ethics and aesthetics. Biography Stevenson was born on June 27, 1908, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was educated at Yale, receiving ...
, the
ordinary language philosophy Ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is a philosophical methodology that sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting how words are ordinarily used to convey meaning in ...
of J. L. Austin, a certain reading of the later philosophy of
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
,
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the ...
, and
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
. Hare took a view on religion in line with R. B. Braithwaite's ''An Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief'', which he cited as "the best thing on this subject ehad ever heard or read". Hare held that ethical rules should not be based on a principle of utility, though he took into account utilitarian considerations. His hybrid approach to meta-ethics distinguishes him from classical utilitarians like
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.
5 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S. 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...
– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of mo ...
. His book ''Sorting Out Ethics'' might be interpreted as saying that Hare is as much a Kantian as he is a utilitarian, but other sources disagree with this assessment. Although Hare used many concepts from Kant, especially the idea of
universalisability The concept of universalizability was set out by the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as part of his work ''Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals''. It is part of the first formulation of his categorical imperative, which states t ...
, he was still a
consequentialist In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from ...
, rather than a
deontologist In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: and ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ...
, in his normative ethical views. Hare himself addressed the possibility that Kant was a utilitarian like himself, in his "Could Kant Have Been a Utilitarian?"


Universal prescriptivism

In a series of books, especially ''The Language of Morals'' (1952), ''Freedom and Reason'' (1963), and ''Moral Thinking'' (1981), Hare gave shape to a theory that he called
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 ...
. According to this, moral terms such as 'good', 'ought' and 'right' have two logical or semantic properties: universalisability and
prescriptivity Prescriptivity is a term used in meta-ethics 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 cert ...
. By the former, he meant that moral judgments must identify the situation they describe according to a finite set of universal terms, excluding
proper names A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah (given name), Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a Class (philoso ...
, but not
definite description In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or ...
s. By the latter, he meant that moral agents must perform those acts they consider themselves to have an obligation to perform whenever they are physically and psychologically able to do so. In other words, he argued that it made no sense for someone to say, sincerely: "I ought to do X", and then fail to do X. This was identified by Frankena, Nobis and others as a major flaw in Hare's system, as it appeared to take no account of ''
akrasia Akrasia (/əˈkreɪziə/; from Ancient Greek ἀκρασία, literally meaning "lack of self-control" or "powerlessness," derived from ἀ- "without" + κράτος "power, rule") refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment� ...
'', or weakness of the will. Hare argued that the combination of universalizability and prescriptivity leads to a certain form of
consequentialism In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...
, namely,
preference utilitarianism Preference utilitarianism (also known as preferentialism) is a form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. Unlike value monist forms of utilitarianism, preferentialism values actions that fulfill the most personal interests for the entir ...
. In brief, this means that we should act in such a way as to maximise the satisfaction of people's preferences.


Importance of specificity

Hare departs from Kant's view that only the most general maxims of conduct be used (for example, "do not steal"), but the consequences ignored, when applying the
categorical imperative The categorical imperative () is the central philosophical concept in the deontological Kantian ethics, moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 ''Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'', it is a way of evaluating motivati ...
. To ignore consequences leads to absurdity: for example, that it would be wrong to steal a terrorist's plans to blow up a nuclear facility. All the specific facts of a circumstance must be considered, and these include probable consequences. They also include the relevant, universal properties of the facts: for example, the psychological states of those involved.


Applied ethics and political philosophy

While Hare was primarily interested in meta-ethics, he also made some important contributions to the fields of political philosophy and applied ethics. Among his essays within these fields those on the morality of slavery, abortion and the
Golden Rule The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. It is sometimes called an ethics of reciprocity, meaning that one should reciprocate to others how one would like them to treat the person (not neces ...
, and on demi-vegetarianism have received the most attention. Hare's most important work in political philosophy and applied ethics is collected in the two volumes ''Essays on Political Morality'' (1989) and ''Essays on Bioethics'' (1993), both published by Oxford University Press.


Works

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * For a more complete list of publications see the annotated bibliography by Keith Burgess-Jackson.


See also

*
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford The Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford was founded in 2001. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division. The faculty is located next to Somerville College on Woodstock Road. As of 2021, it is ranked 1st in the UK and 2nd in the English-s ...
*
Tanner Lectures on Human Values The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is a multi-university lecture series in the humanities, founded in 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, by the American scholar Obert Clark Tanner. In founding the lecture, he define ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* *


External links

*
R. M. Hare
– resources page containing Hare's writings, secondary literature, reviews, obituaries and a bibliography rchived by Wayback Machine">Wayback_Machine.html" ;"title="rchived by Wayback Machine">rchived by Wayback Machinebr>R. M. Hare in Conversation (on his 80th birthday)
[Archived by Wayback Machine] {{DEFAULTSORT:Hare, R. M. 1919 births 2002 deaths Military personnel from Somerset 20th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century English philosophers 21st-century English non-fiction writers 21st-century English philosophers Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Analytic philosophers Anglican philosophers Aristotelian philosophers British Army personnel of World War II Royal Artillery officers English ethicists English male non-fiction writers British World War II prisoners of war Burma Railway prisoners Consequentialists English Anglicans Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford People educated at Rugby School People from Backwell Philosophers of religion English political philosophers Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Royal Artillery personnel British social philosophers University of Florida faculty Utilitarians White's Professors of Moral Philosophy Wittgensteinian philosophers World War II prisoners of war held by Japan