On the Analysis of ‘Good’

―The Critical Consideration of the Theory of R. M. Hare―

Abstract

The ethical theories of R. M. Hare are divided into early and later stages. In the early stage, more concretely, in his The Language of Morals (1952), he pointed out properties of prescriptivity and universalizability which moral terms such as ‘good’, ‘right’, and ‘ought’ had. According to him, moral terms, especially ‘ought’, have prescriptive meaning as commands or imperatives, and such prescription can be universalized. In Part 2 of his book, Hare pointed that the primary meaning of ‘good’ was commendation. In this paper, I consider Hare’s analysis of ‘good’. First, I outline his analysis of moral terms (§1, §2, §3).Next, I explore the consideration of ‘good’ given by P. T. Geach and J. L. Mackie, by which it turns out that Hare’s analysis of ‘good’ should be actually considered in level of illocutionary acts that was introduced by J. L. Austin in his How to Do Things with Words (1955) (§4 and §5). Finally, I give the new analysis of other several uses of ‘good’ from the point of view of the speaker’s intention (§6).