  At the heart of Hare’s ethical theory, therefore, lies a vision of human beings as unable to live up to a way of thinking towards which they are nonetheless ineluctably drawn. He perceives there to be a drama inherent in the human condition to which no fully integrated and unified system could do justice. His philosophy is currently somewhat out of fashion, in part through a reversion to various forms of cognitivism in ethics, in part through changes in the style of philosophy, which now pursues the clarity that he desired through a new complexity and professionalization. At least in the short term, it is probable, and in accord with the “strange dream” from which we started, that his thinking will come to be viewed from a distance, as playing a once important role within the non-cognitivist strain in ethics that was dominant through much of the 20th century. And yet it may yet come to hold the attention of a new audience through its recognition of the tensions inherent in any practical thinking that responds without complacency to the aspirations of our ethical ideals, and the limitations of our moral capacities.