Can a moral philosophy survive the horrors of a prisoner of war camp?

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Richard Mervyn Hare sought a moral system that could guide life in the harshest conditions. After enduring years as a prisoner of war in Singapore, he developed universal prescriptivism, a theory arguing that moral judgments are not just descriptions, but commitments to act that must apply to everyone equally.

Born in 1919, Hare’s philosophical trajectory was irrevocably altered by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War. He equated this period with slavery, and his earliest, unpublished work focused on creating a guide for moral survival under extreme duress. This practical urgency remained central to his career as White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, where he sought to restore reason to moral discourse.

Hare’s core theory, universal prescriptivism, posits that moral terms like 'good' or 'ought' possess two logical properties: prescriptivity and universalisability. Prescriptivity implies that if you sincerely claim you ought to do something, you are logically committed to performing that act if physically and psychologically able. Universalisability requires that moral judgments identify situations through universal terms, excluding proper names. Together, these principles drive his preference utilitarianism, which advocates for actions that maximize the satisfaction of people's preferences.

His framework faced significant criticism, particularly regarding the problem of akrasia, or weakness of the will. Critics like Frankena and Nobis argued that Hare’s system failed to account for the reality of people failing to act on their moral obligations. Furthermore, while Hare utilized Kantian concepts like universalisability, he remained a consequentialist. He rejected the rigid Kantian focus on general maxims, arguing that ignoring consequences—such as failing to stop a terrorist attack—leads to moral absurdity. Instead, he insisted that all specific facts, including psychological states and probable outcomes, must be weighed in moral decision-making.

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