Abstract

IN Freedom and Reason, R. M. Hare identifies the requirement of universalizability as "that of finding some action to which one is prepared to commit oneself, and which at the same time one is prepared to accept as exemplifying a principle of action binding on anyone in like circumstances." In Ethics and Action, Peter Winch describes universalizability as the criterion "which would have it that a man who thinks that a given action is the right one for him to perform in certain circumstances is logically committed to thinking that the same action would be right for anyone else in relevantly similar circumstances." And in a recent issue of Mind, Michael E. Levin says that the "original question" concerning the universalizability-criterion is "whether a man X can intelligibly judge that he ought to do A while refusing to commit himself to the claim that anyone else ought to do A."