Hare and moral thinking

Abstract

This thesis is a critical study of R.M. Hare's recent work "Moral Thinking" and an attempt to develop some of the ideas in it. Hare's book contains illuminating discussions on many ethical and metaethical issues, but two central themes can be isolated. One is his suggestion that there are two levels of moral thinking, the critical and the intuitive; the other is his detailed argument that preference-utilitarianism operates at the most fundamental level of moral thinking, the critical level, to ultimately determine what we ought to do.Hare's argument for utilitarianism will be studied in depth. In particular his appeal to linguistic intuitions, his assertion that 'ought' is prescriptive and the argument of chapters 5 - 6 of "Moral Thinking" will all be assessed, as will his claim that prudence rules out amoralism.Hare admits that his book leaves some important issues less than fully discussed: I attempt to see what implications these have for Hare'stheory. Most of these relate to the concept of 'preference'; in particular to the question of whether 'irrational' preference should be excluded.I also try to see what connection there is between Hare's preference-utilitarianism and happiness based theories. These issues are of independent interest as they affect the feasibility of preference-utilitarianism in general, not just Hare's version of it. Finally, Hare's suggestion that there are two levels of moral thinking will be assessed, as well as his proposal that this allows both for a defence of utilitarianism and a reconciliation between it and deontological theories.