Criticisms

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Prescriptivism has been widely criticized and has few adherents today. Many ethicists reject Hare's claim that moral language is not informative—that the purpose of moral talk is not to express moral truths or moral facts. Numerous critics also question Hare's contention that providing guidance is always the main purpose of moral talk. Hare seems to implicitly assume that moral language is always used in a context of discussion, debate, or command in which one person is telling another person, or persons, what to do. This, it is claimed, ignores the fact that moral talk is a "language-game" that is used for a wide variety of purposes. Finally, many critics have argued that prescriptivism conflicts with the commonsense distinction between good and bad reasons for moral beliefs. According to Hare, a racist "fanatic" who claims that all minority-group members should be deported, and is willing to stick with this consistently (e.g., even if the racist herself were a member of the minority group), cannot be faulted for either irrationality or falsehood. Ethics, for Hare, is thus ultimately a matter of non-rational choice and commitment. Many of Hare's critics object that reason does and should play a larger role in ethics than he recognizes.