Der 16. Weltkongress für Philosophie

Volume 2, 1983

Sektions-Vorträge I - Résumés des sections I - Section Papers I

Hans-Ulrich Hoche
Pages 650-657

Verifikation und Falsifikation in der Normenbegründung

Hare believeded to have good reasons for stressing tho role of falsification in justifying a moral judgment. Taking this seriously, we cannot accept the objection that he should have tailored his creditor example in terns of pemission rather than in terms of prescription. Difficulties, howerer, are due to the fact that, according to Hare, respectively my volitional reaction to a fictional situation is part and parcel of moral reasoning; for this kind of evidence (if we can use it at all) turns out to he no less 'verifying' than 'falsifying'. So it seems that the distinction between verificationism and falsificationism, though useful in metascience, cannot properly be transferred to metaethics.