H. A. (Harold Arthur) Prichard

Born in London in 1871 and later active in Oxford, he became one of the leading figures in the Oxford intuitionist school of moral philosophy. Reference works describe him as an English philosopher whose writing focused especially on ethics and the nature of moral obligation.

He is chiefly remembered for ethical intuitionism: the view that moral obligation is not something we can fully explain away in terms of pleasure, usefulness, or other consequences. Instead, his work argues that the force of duty has its own distinctive character, and that right and wrong are grasped through moral thought in a more immediate way.

Prichard’s influence lasted well beyond his lifetime. His essays were collected after his death in Moral Obligation: Essays and Lectures, and later editions of his writings helped keep his ideas in circulation for new readers interested in ethics, realism, and the question of why we ought to do what is right.