Abstract

R. M. Hare’s last book is a collection of his essays from the 1980s and 1990s. There is a unity and structure to this collection that is not entirely captured in Hare’s introductory remarks in the preface. The essays fall into three main categories. One group is purely theoretical, developing and motivating Hare’s moral theory, objective prescriptivism. A second group is polemical in nature and aimed at philosophers and philosophical methodologies hostile to objective prescriptivism. The third group applies Hare’s preferred brand of moral reasoning to various contemporary moral issues including racism, urban planning, and moral problems relating to the medical sciences and business. Common unifying themes run throughout the essays including the role of maxims in moral reasoning and the requirement that rationally acceptable maxims be universalizable. While the theoretical essays are intended for the serious student or scholar of philosophy, most of the later essays are accessible to a wider audience. All are written in Hare’s enjoyable and charming prose.