The Content of Morals

Abstract

We turn now to a group of questions of a very different kind, though still concerned with, or arising out of, the question how moral discourse is related to conduct. These questions may be conveniently introduced by way of further, and this time more critical, consideration of the dictum, already quoted, from which Hare’s argument begins: ‘If we were to ask of a person “What are his moral principles?” the way in which we could be most sure of a true answer would be by studying what he did.’