Abstract

According to Hare, there is a “gap between the moral demand on us and our natural capacities to live by it”. This gap is overcome, according to the “core teaching of traditional Christianity”, by the doctrine of God’s assistance, together with the notions of repentance and forgiveness. Thus, traditionally, morality has a three part structure: “Morality... is, first, something I ought to be practicing [the moral demand]; second, something for which my natural capacities are inadequate [our defective natural capacities]; and, third, something that I should treat as the command of some other at least possible [compassionate, helpful, and forgiving] being who is practicing it [the authoritative source of the demand]”. However, it is characteristic of modern moral philosophy to reject the last idea. This, on Hare’s view, leads to the problem that people cannot fulfill the demands that morality places on them. This “... produces a constant and inevitable sense of failure”, which, in turn “makes the feeling of guilt and the desire to avoid its pain into a primary motivator of the moral life”. This is not only unfortunate in itself, but, Hare hints, it might indicate a deeper philosophical problem in modern morality that is connected with the Kantian principle that “ought implies can.” Therefore, Hare argues, “if we keep morality as demanding as Kant says it is, and if we want to concede what Kant says about our natural propensity not to live by it, and if we want at the same time to reject these traditional Christian doctrines, then we will have to find some substitute for them”.