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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
In his inaugural lecture ‘Duty and interest’ delivered in 1928, Prichard singled out for criticism a theme which, he believed, pervaded many ethical theories, both in ancient times and in his more immediate predecessors. Among philosophers, wrote Prichard, Plato is far from being alone in presupposing that an action, to be right, must be for the good or advantage of the agent (2002: 26). After spending a few sentences on Cook Wilson and Butler, he resumes:
Nevertheless, when we seriously face the view that unless an action be advantageous, it cannot really be a duty, we are forced both to abandon it and also to allow that even if it were true, it would not enable us to vindicate the truth of our ordinary moral convictions. (2002: 27)
Later in the same lecture, he writes that he will now take it as established
that (1) both Plato and Butler in a certain vein of thought are really endeavouring to prove that right actions, in a strict sense of right actions, will be for the agent's advantage; (2) that their reason for doing so lies in the conviction that even where we know some action to be right, we shall not do it unless we think it will be for our advantage; and (3) that behind this conviction lies the conviction of which it is really a corollary, viz. the conviction that desire for some good to oneself is the only motive of deliberate action. (2002: 35)
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