"It is said that the prescription to keep all black people in subjection is formally universal, and internally consistent, and so is not ruled out by the Categorical Imperative. But the point is: can somebody who has fully represented to himself the situation of black people who are kept in subjection go on willing that they should be so treated? For if he has fully represented this to himself, he will have formed a preference that he should not be so treated if he is a black person; and this is inconsistent with the universal form of the proposed maxim. There is of course the problem of the fanatical black-hater who is prepared to prescribe that the maxim should be followed even if he himself were a black person. I have discussed the case of this fanatic at length in my books...and I think I have shown that my theory can deal with him. At any rate the Kantian move can be used in arguments with ordinary non‐fanatical people."
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Philosophers from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandAnglicans from the United KingdomUniversity of Oxford alumniUtilitarians
Original Language: English
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Sources
Sorting Out Ethics, 2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 135
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._M._Hare
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R. M. Hare
Richard Mervyn Hare (21 March 1919 - 29 January 2002) was a British philosopher and Professor at the University of Oxford and University of Florida. His meta-ethical theories, particularly prescriptivism, were influential during the second half of the twentieth century. Hare was a preference utilitarian.
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