Concept

Universal prescriptivism

Overview

Universal prescriptivism (often simply called prescriptivism) is the meta-ethical view that claims that, rather than expressing propositions, ethical sentences function similarly to imperatives which are universalizable—whoever makes a moral judgment is committed to the same judgment in any situation where the same relevant facts pertain.

This makes prescriptivism a universalist form of non-cognitivism. Prescriptivism stands in opposition to other forms of non-cognitivism (such as emotivism and quasi-realism), as well as to all forms of cognitivism (including both moral realism and ethical subjectivism).

Since prescriptivism was introduced by philosopher R. M. Hare in his 1952 book The Language of Morals, it has been compared to emotivism and to the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant. Unlike Kant, however, Hare does not invoke universalizability as a test of moral permissibility. Instead, he sees it as a consistency requirement that is built into the logic of moral language and helps to make moral thinking a rational enterprise.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

Hence, in the conclusion of a syllogism we restrict a predicate to a certain object, after having thought it in the major in its whole extent under a certain condition. This complete quantity of the extent in relation to such a condition is called universality (universalitas). To this corresponds totality (universitas) of conditions in the synthesis of intuitions.
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Universal prescriptivism is; the author is tied to Universal prescriptivism in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
Principles of self-love may, indeed, contain universal precepts of skill (how to find means to accomplish one's purpose), but in that case they are merely theoretical principles; * as, for example, how he who would like to eat bread should contrive a mill; but practical precepts founded on them can never be universal, for the determining principle of the desire is based on the feeling pleasure and pain, which can…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
States what Universal prescriptivism is; the author is tied to Universal prescriptivism in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
Almost without effort there grows up in him, or flows in upon him, a belief and a system of beliefs as to the order and values of things. Every judgment, even in logic, rests on such an order of truth.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
States what Universal prescriptivism is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Universal prescriptivism

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Metaethics

Place in the tradition

Part of Analytic philosophy.

Explore Universal prescriptivism in the interactive graph →