Postscript

Summary

I have endeavored in this book to develop and defend a certain analysis of the concept of moral obligation, an analysis that can be put to good use in the resolution of a number of philosophical issues. In the Preface, I made mention of several questions and claimed that they would receive answers in the ensuing pages. And so they have, although some of the answers have been somewhat tentative. My hope is that these answers will have served collectively to set the concept of moral obligation in high relief. Such clarification is valuable not just for its own sake. Although the account of obligation that I have presented is, appropriately, neutral regarding competing substantive theories of obligation, it should provide a useful framework within which these theories can be developed and assessed. Thus the exercise in metaethics undertaken in the foregoing pages has significant implications for normative ethics. Of course, it has not been my purpose to expound on these implications. Undoubtedly, too, my account has implications in the area of applied ethics, but tracing these is a very complex matter, and I offer no suggestions on how best to carry out this task. To repeat what was said in the Preface, then, anyone seeking solutions to such problems as those besetting the unfortunate Indianapolis would be ill advised to look for them in this book. I trust that by now that much is clear.