Hare's defense of utilitarianism

R. M. Hare's Nora/ Thinking is surely one of the most compelling defenses of utilitarianism to appear in many years. Hare defends utilitarianism at some length against the objection that it has consequences that are inconsistent with our common-sense or intuitive moral judgments. Hare also offers a positive argument for utiTitarianism. In this paper I shall only concern myself with the latter argument. In the first part of the paper, I shall set out Hare's argument in some detail. In the second part of the paper, I shall suggest criticisms of Hare's argument. I shall argue that two of the assumptions upon..