Harold Arthur Prichard

Harold Arthur Prichard (30 October 1871 – 29 December 1947) was an English philosopher.

Biography He was born in London in 1871, the eldest child of Walter Stennett Prichard (a solicitor) and his wife Lucy.

Harold Prichard was a scholar at Clifton College from where he won a scholarship to New College, Oxford, to study mathematics. But, after taking first-class honours in mathematical moderations (preliminary examinations) in 1891, he studied Greats (ancient history and philosophy), taking first-class honours in 1894. He also played tennis for Oxford against Cambridge. On leaving Oxford, he spent a brief period working for a firm of solicitors in London before returning to Oxford, where he spent the rest of his life, first as a Fellow of Hertford College (1895–98) and then of Trinity College (1898–1924). He took early retirement from Trinity in 1924 on grounds of ill health, but recovered and was elected White's Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1928 and became a fellow of Corpus Christi College. He retired in 1937.

Philosophical work Prichard gave an influential defence of ethical intuitionism in his "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" (1912), wherein he contended that moral philosophy rested chiefly on the desire to provide arguments, starting from non-normative premises, for the principles of obligation that we pre-philosophically accept, such as the principle that one ought to keep one's promises or that one ought not steal. This is a mistake, he argued, both because it is impossible to derive any statement about what one ought to do from statements not concerning obligation (even statements about what is good) and because there is no need to do so since common sense principles of moral obligation are self-evident. The essay laid the groundwork for ethical intuitionism and provided inspiration for some of the most influential moral philosophers, such as John Rawls.

Deriving moral obligation H. A. Prichard is an ethical intuitionist, meaning he believed that it is through our moral intuitions that we come to know right and wrong. Further, while he believes that moral obligations are justified by reasons, he does not believe that the reasons are external to the obligation itself. For instance, if a person is asked why one ought not to torture chipmunks, the only satisfying answer that could be given is that one ought not to torture chipmunks.

Therefore, Prichard concludes, just as observation of other people necessitates that other people exist, observation of a moral obligation necessitates that the obligation exists. Prichard finishes his essay by answering a few obvious problems. Most notably, he explains how people should guarantee the accuracy of their moral intuitions. Clearly, observations can be misleading. For instance, someone who sees a pencil in water may conclude that the object in the water is bent. However, when the pencil is pulled from the water, it is seen to be straight. The same can occur with moral intuition. If one begins to doubt one's intuition, one should try to imagine oneself in the moral dilemma related to the decision. If the intuition persists, then the intuition is accurate. Prichard further supports these claims by pointing out how it is illegitimate to doubt previously believed moral intuitions:

Writings Kant's Theory of Knowledge (Oxford, 1909) – online "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" Mind 21 (1912): 21–37. Reprinted in Moral Obligation. Moral Obligation, Essays and Lectures (London, 1949; 1968) Knowledge and Perception, Essays and Lectures (London, 1950)