The question of fanaticism, which Hare raises in his book, Freedom and Reason, seems to indicate that in some essential manner the thesis of universal prescriptivism fails to give an adequate account of moral reasoning. As the case of the fanatic Nazi demonstrates, if universality and prescriptivity are the only features of a moral principle or ideal which are subject to debate, then the principle, "All Jews ought to be exterminated," is a perfectly defensible one to uphold, provided only that its advocate is sincerely prepared to prescribe it to all persons, himself included, who are found to be of Jewish extraction.
The Nazi is, of course, an extreme example of fanaticism. Nevertheless, "the fortunate contingent fact that people who would take this logically possible view, after they had really imagined themselves in the other man's position, are extremely rare, ''1 does not help to substantially mitigate the difficulty which this type of example raises for Hare. This difficulty lies in the fact that moral principles are typically taken as guides for action. The requirement of prescriptivity, in fact, is intended to account for this feature of moral principles and ideals. In Hate's view, a principle isn't a moral principle unless its advocate is sincerely committed to governing his behavior in accordance with it in the situations to which the principle universally applies. The significance this has in the case of the fanatic but sincere Nazi is obvious. His principle "All Jews ought to be eliminated" is not only morally coherent and inaccessible to moral reasoning, it is also precisely because it is a moral principle that the Nazi is required to act on it.
It seems to be, then, the very formulation of moral reasoning in terms of universality and prescriptivity which creates the possibility of morally defensible fanaticism of any sort. By shifting the ground for moral reasoning and judgment to the logical realm of universality and prescripfivity, Hare has effectively precluded an appeal to the moral reasonability of the substantial content of the Nazi's principles. In light of this, Gettner concludes that the clash between ideals and interests para-digmaticaUy represented in the standoff between liberal and fanatic is misleading, in that it oversimplifies the nature of moral disputes. He agrees with Hare that moral ideals play an important, if not even substantive, role in moral reasoning and argumentation. Because of this, however, he contends that moral disagreement