Meta: 12/13. Prescriptivism

Question 1

What is prescriptivism?

Answer 1

Moral language is not emotive but prescriptive

Question 2

What is Hare’s prescriptivism?

Answer 2

• Hare: in expressing a moral judgment, I am prescribing what you (and I) ought to do.
• Not to express feelings or influence you
• Moral language about ‘good’ relates to standards for people – what we expect from a ‘good’ person
• A good action will be one that a good person does
• Calling someone or something ‘morally good’ is intended to guide action
• Moral standards are standards we adopt – not objective truths we can discover
• Because moral principles are about guiding action - including ours –the way we act is the best guide to our moral principles. Moral thinking inherently involves consistency

Question 3

What does Hare think about the terms ought and right?

Answer 3

• These terms work similarly:
• The are meant to guide people’s actions
• ‘you ought to pay back the money’ (in a particular situation) = ‘pay back the money’; ‘stealing is wrong’, (in general) = ‘don’t steal! Neither will I’
• The standards underlying these claims relate to being a good person again

Question 4

What does Hare’s emotivism think about universalisation?

Answer 4

• There is a rational aspect to moral judgements – they have a basis in standards
• So it is contradictory to say that one act is wrong, and the same act in a similar situation is right (e.g. if I think it’s wrong for you to steal from me, that implies it’s wrong for me to steal from you)
• Thinking morally involves being willing to ‘universalize’ moral judgements – as a matter of rational consistency

Question 5

How may we challange Prescriptivism account of moral language?