Table Of ContentNew Studies in Practical Philosophy
ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD
New Studies in Practical Philosophy
General Editor: W. D. Hudson
The point of view of this series is that
of contemporary analytical philosophy.
Each study will deal with an aspect of
moral philosophy. Particular attention
will be paid to the logic of moral discourse,
and the practical problems of morality.
The relationship between morality and
other 'universes of discourse', such as art
and science, will also be explored.
Published:
R. M. Hare, Practical Inferences
R. M. Hare, Essays on Philosophical Method
Among the titles in preparation are:
R. M. Hare, Essays on the Moral Concepts
R. M. Hare, Applications of Moral Philosophy
ESSAYS ON
PHILOSOPHICAL
METHOD
R. M. HARE
White's Professor of Moral Philosophy
in the University of Oxford
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
ISBN : 0-520-02178-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-182286
© R. M. Hare 1971 except where stated
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without permission.
Printed in Great Britain
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Editor's Foreword vii
Preface viii
I Broad's Approach to Moral Philosophy (1959) 1
2 Philosophical Discoveries (i960) 19
3 A School for Philosophers (i960) 38
4 A Question about Plato's Theory of Ideas (1964) 54
5 Plato and the Mathematicians (1965) 80
6 The Practical Relevance of Philosophy 98
7 The Argument from Received Opinion 117
Acknowledgements
P. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, Tudor Publish-
ing Co., New York, 1959. Mind, LXIX, N.S., no. 274, i960.
Journal of Philosophy, LIV, 1957. Ratio, 11, no. 2, i960. Mario
Bunge (ed.), The Critical Approach: Essays in Honor of Karl Popper,
Free Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1964. Renford Bambrough
(ed.), Mew Essays on Plato and Aristotle, Routledge & Kegan
Paul, London, 1964.
Editor's Foreword
Philosophy is a discipline which has a long history yet is as lively
now as it has ever been. What is true of the subject as a whole is
true in particular of that branch of it which is called ethics or
moral philosophy. In this volume one of the foremost of modern
philosophers sets his reflections on philosophical method within
the context of both classical and contemporary philosophy.
Professor Hare is the leading exponent of that type of ethical
theory known as prescriptivism. The two books in which he
expounds it, The Language of Morals (1952) and Freedom and
Reason (1963), have had a wide influence and occasioned heated
agreement and disagreement. The most interesting controversy
among moral philosophers at the present time is between those
who consider Hare's views to be substantially correct and those
who advance against him a type of theory which is coming to be
known as descriptivism. The present volume is one of four
whicl: together present a comprehensive collection of Hare's
writirgs throughout his professional career. They form a back-
ground to the views expressed in his two books and acquaintance
with their contents is essential for anyone who wishes to under-
stand prescriptivism. The present volume, like each of the other
three, contains some papers which have not previously been
published. Of those papers which are reprinted from other
journals or collections, some are no longer easily accessible else-
where.
W. D. HUDSON
University of Exeter
Preface
This volume is the second of a set in which I am collecting the
more considerable of my published papers, together with some
hitherto unpublished work. I have included in it a number of
pieces which seemed to fit well together, though written for
many different purposes and occasions. They all treat of various
aspects of the questions, 'What can philosophy (and in particu-
lar moral philosophy) achieve ?', and 'How does (or how should)
it set about achieving it ?' Though several of them have histori-
cal-sounding titles, their point is not merely historical.
In the first volume of the set, Practical Inferences, I included
a bibliography of my published writings, in which the contents of
the other volumes can be discovered. In preparing the papers for
the present volume I have kept alterations to the minimum that
was editorially necessary; the fourth essay has, however, been
restored, more or less, to the state it was in before the original
publishers (not having commented on the typescript) 'improved'
it too radically for complete remedy at the proof stage.
The sixth piece, which has not appeared before, was given as
my inaugural lecture at Oxford, and is printed in the form it
would have had if I had followed the usual uneconomic and
inconvenient practice of publishing it separately. The seventh
piece is new. The original publishers of the rest are identified in
the Acknowledgements; I am grateful to them for giving their
permission where necessary. I must also, as before, express my
sincere thanks to the General Editor and publishers of the
present series for their moral and material support in a venture
on which I would otherwise have lacked the effrontery to
embark.
R. M. HARE
Corpus Christi College,
Oxford
1970
i Broad's Approach to
Moral Philosophy
When, as a student beginning moral philosophy, I first read Five
Types of Ethical Theory (then as now one of the most-used text-
books in the subject), I remember being scandalised, as were
many of my contemporaries, by its concluding passage:
We can no more learn to act rightly by appealing to the
ethical theory of right action than we can play golf well by
appealing to the mathematical theory of the flight of the golf-
ball. The interest of ethics is thus almost wholly theoretical,
as is the interest of the mathematical theory of golf or of
billiards. And yet it may have a certain slight practical appli-
cation. It may lead us to look out for certain systematic faults
which we should not otherwise have suspected; and, once
we are on the look out for them, we may learn to correct
them. But in the main the old saying is true: JVbre in dialectica
complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum. Not that this is any
objection to dialectic. For salvation is not everything; and to
try to understand in outline what one solves ambulando and
in detail is quite good fun for those people who like that sort
of thing.1
We had just returned from a war during which we had been
personally confronted with a number of moral questions which
did not admit of an easy answer. Many of us hoped that philo-
sophy might be of assistance to us in answering these questions.
Indeed, that was what made us study this subject, rather than
others more obviously relevant to practical problems. We were
no doubt wrong to object to Broad just because his idea of fun
differed from our own. But could it be that when people found
the money to pay the stipends of philosophical professors,
From The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, ed. P. Schilpp, Tudor Publishing
Company, (New York, 1959).
1 FTET, p. 285.
2 ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD
their main object was to enable these professors to amuse
themselves ?
The dislike of a priggish undergraduate for his prescribed
reading may seem a matter of no importance; yet I have men-
tioned it because it is one of the purposes of this paper to show
how unjust, in many respects, this criticism was. It was founded
upon ignorance - ignorance of both the historical and the
logical reasons which had led Broad to write in this way. It is
worth while to examine these reasons; for moral philosophers
have often found themselves subjected to criticism of this sort,
especially in the present century. The criticism takes many
forms, but the cause of the dissatisfaction is usually the same. I
shall endeavour to show that the tendency in modern ethics
which has provoked this dissatisfaction owes its origin to the
work of the intuitionist school, of which Broad is an able rep-
resentative. This fact should be obvious to anyone who has
understood what has been happening in ethics during the past
fifty years; but it is worth while to draw attention to it, since it
is commonly thought that more recent writers are to blame for
the tendency.
A proper treatment of the problem requires a survey of the
development of philosophers' views on the point at issue during
the first half of this century, together with an attempt to set
the question in its true light. Since both these tasks will take
me some distance away from Broad's own writings, I wish to
explain that my object in this paper is not directly to discuss
(let alone to criticise) what little he has written about the scope
of moral philosophy. It might indeed be said that on this, as on
other questions, Broad has been very chary of expounding his
own views; his fame rests on his admirably clear discussion and
criticism of the views of others. But since his writings give
evidence of a consistent attitude to this question; and since the
attitude is a widely-held one and the question itself of funda-
mental importance, this seems too good an opportunity to miss
of raising the question, and thus compelling Broad, in his
reply, to say, more fully than he has done, what he thinks
about it.
In a volume devoted to Broad's philosophy, a historical survey
of recent developments might appropriately have started with
Sidgwick; but for reasons of space I shall not go so far back. I
