426 - Freedom and Reason

Freedom and Reason
By R. M. Hare
228 pp. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963. 15s.

This book is a major addition to the growing list of works which prove (by the doing) that analytical philosophy can be both rigorous and helpfully relevant to the "big" issues of human existence. Mr. Hare, who has written this volume "for all who are seriously troubled by moral questions," constantly touches on such eminently concrete problems as Nazism, homosexuality, drug-addiction, contractual obligations, neighborly consideration, criminal law, truth-telling, toleration, war, and the like; and he devotes his final chapter to a currently topical examination of the moral issues of racial discrimination. What he has to say about these topics is seldom startling, at least to those of liberal views, but his remarks are unfailingly illuminating. Such new light as is cast on these problems, furthermore, is largely generated by the philosophical position that is worked out with considerable care in these pages.

The position thus thoughtfully developed and practically applied represents a natural outgrowth from the analysis of moral terms presented in Hare's earlier book, The Language of Morals (1952), where the concepts "good" and "ought" were shown to combine a prescriptive (roughly, an "imperative") force with a descriptive content. Now, in Freedom and Reason, the same author moves on to an examination of the logic of moral judgments which employ concepts functioning with such meaning. Once again Hare offers us a bi-polar analysis: because of the prescriptive element in this domain of discourse we cannot simply deduce moral judgments from facts alone, which means that we are responsibly free to form our own moral opinions logically uncoerced (the "Freedom" of the title); but because of the descriptive element always present in this language our moral judgments are always universalizable, which means that moral disputes are not at all merely private or unarguable (the "Reason" of the title). In this way Hare hopes to thread his way between, on the one side, the fallacy of the "descriptivist" who threatens our sense of personal accountability for the morality we adopt by his neglect of the element of commitment in all value judgments, and, on the other side, the arbitrary irrationalism of the "emotivist" who makes our moral judgments trivial by his reduction of them to idiosyncratic expressions of individual taste. For his intermediary position Hare aptly chooses the label of "universal prescriptivism."

From this standpoint it will be admitted that it is a logical possibility for men to want (prescribe) anything at all, but it will also be recognized that in point of fact nearly all men want fairly similar things: namely, to live, to have their interests respected, and so on. The exceptions are the

427 - Freedom and Reason

fanatics, with whom argument may, indeed, be fruitless. But since (true) fanatics are extremely rare, clear-headed moral argument should normally be able to achieve agreement, Hare believes, concerning what "ought" to be done. If people are thus sufficiently clear-headed about the nature of their moral reasoning, they will see that accepting a moral judgment entails a willingness to commit oneself to the universal principle implicit in the judgment, even in the imagined event of a complete change in one's own circumstances. In like manner, inadequate moral judgments may be "falsified" according to a rational procedure: "If, when we consider some proposed action, we find that, when universalized, it yields prescriptions which we cannot accept, we reject this action as a solution to our moral problem-if we cannot universalize the prescription, it cannot became an 'ought"' (p. 90).

Universal prescriptivism, as Hare presents it, is an attractive alternative within contemporary ethical theory. It avoids, as the author intends, the unsatisfactory extremes which have tended to fragment moral philosophy. It is rich with applicable insights: theologically oriented readers will be interested, for example, in Hare's account of St. Paul's moral dilemma and in the brief but suggestive references to the logic of Christian ethics. Universal prescriptivism, further, goes a long way toward reconciling Kant and Mill by accepting the formal requirements of the one together with the humanitarian content of the other. And, most striking in an age of stale cynicism and moral deadlock, universal prescriptivism stirs a fresh breeze of hope for the day when even the most intractable moral conflicts among men may be harmlessly isolated, at least, and remaining discord may be worked out by normally reasonable men of average good will.

There are, quite naturally, a number of points with which this reviewer would wish to argue with Mr. Hare: Is it, for example, an acceptable consequence of universal prescriptivism that what one privately thinks (as when a Nazi thinks that Jews are inferior specimens of humanity) is morally indifferent, like an aesthetic taste, just as long as no attempt is made to put such thoughts into gruesome practice? (See pp. 167 ff.) Is it, indeed, even a true consequence-as Hare himself seems to believe--of his ethical theory? Might we not condemn such thoughts (still within Hare's theory) as violating an "ideal" of human excellence? Certainly Christian ethics, which Hare seems to wish to show compatible with universal pre. scriptivism, cannot rest content with any privileged mental sanctuary from moral scrutiny.

Beyond all such criticisms, however, we are left with the conviction that an important contribution has been made to ethical theory. Ethical theory itself, of course, has sharp limitations, as Hare himself acknowledges.

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Moral philosophy can doubtless aid men to do their moral reasoning more adequately, but it cannot pretend to make men want to reason (or to live) morally. The latter is a problem of motivation for psychology, literature, religion. It might be said of Hare's book that it underestimates the depth of human depravity, or unreasonableness, or both; but this criticism, while perhaps cogent, mistakes Hare's purpose and the logic of the enterprise he is engaged in. Ethical theory can never hope single-handedly to make men good. But if men are ready to inquire into what they ought to do, the moral philosopher can offer increasingly powerful logical tools to aid and to shape that inquiry. These are precisely what this acute and concerned author has provided in his highly civilized book.

Frederick Ferre
Dickinson College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania