People


H. A. Prichard 1871–1947 England 

English philosopher whose posthumously-published essays influenced a generation of Oxford philosophers. Prichard defended moral intuitionism in "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1921) and Moral Obligation (1949). Price also offered support for perceptual realism in Knowledge and Perception (1950). Garth Kemerling.

Encyclopedia Entries

Prichard, Harold Arthur (1871 - 1947) Oxford Companion to Philosophy


Questions of 

Knowledge, or being certain, was an infallible state of mind, which its possessor could know that he possessed, though it had to be distinguished from merely feeling certain, or thinking without question. Moral philosophy, he suggested, rested on a mistake in that it tried to justify moral obligation by reducing it to something else, such as interest, but any such analysis could only succeed by destroying what was supposed to be analysed; like knowledge, moral obligation presented itself directly to our intuitions. Prichard's moral philosophy therefore contains obvious analogues both to Moore's view of good as unanalysable and to Kant's view of duty as entirely independent of interest. OCP


Reading

 


Writing available on the net

Also

H. A. Prichard, Kant's Theory of Knowledge (Garland, 1994)

Moral Obligation (1949)

"Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1921) 


Commentaries

PRICHARD ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY Michael Huemer


Quotations