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Moral Requirement and the Need for Deontic Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

E. J. Bond
E. J. Bond
Affiliation:
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario.
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Extract

In Part I of this paper I attempt to present, in more or less summary fashion, some well-known difficulties in the concept of deontic morality (i.e. the moralty of duty, obligation, what is morally wrong, and what one morally ought to do), as shown by certain features of deontic moral discourse. I make no great claims for originality here, although perhaps there may be some virtue in the presentation and ordering. In any case, Part I is a necessary preliminary to Part II, where I attempt to defend the rationality of and the necessity for deontic language against some recent (direct and indirect) attacks.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 157 , July 1966 , pp. 233 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1966

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References

page 233 note 1 This is not to say that we may not have a moral obligation to obey the law, in addition to our legal obligations as defined, by the law. And, of course, this moral obligation is as general as any other moral obligation. Nevertheless legal obligation only exists where and when a law is in force. It is, in this sense, local, whereas moral obligation is not. One may also have a moral obligation to do what the law I requires in addition to the legal obligation, yet which is independent of any general moral obligation to obey the law. Take stealing, for example. Here we may distinguish three distinct obligations: the moral obligation to obey the law in general, the moral obligation not to steal, and the legal obligation not to steal. The first two are general; the last is not.

page 236 note 1 ‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’ Moral Obligation (Oxford, 1949), pp. 1–17. See especially pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

page 236 note 2 ‘Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrat y to it.’ (Sermon XI, Paragraph 20.)

page 237 note 1 This need not, of course, apply with respect to every description under which the act may fall. The act of visiting Smith, or of visiting my father in the hospital, is not as such obligatory. However, that the act falls under the description ‘keeping a promise’ or ‘repaying a kindness’ does constitute, for anyone who holds that these are obligatory, a reason for doing it that normally is sufficient.

page 237 note 2 See especially, Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy, XXXIII (01, 1958), 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foot, P. R., ‘When is a Principle a Moral Principle?’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 28 (1954), 95–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Moral Beliefs’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LIX (1958–1959), 83–104Google Scholar. Also Geach, P. T., ‘Good and Evil’, Analysis, 17 (1957), 33–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 238 note 1 Anscombe, , op. cit., p. 1.Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 Ibid., p. 6.

page 239 note 1 Anscombe, , op. cit., p. 5.Google Scholar

page 239 note 2 Ibid., p. 8.

page 241 note 1 ‘Good and Evil’, Analysis 17 (1957), pp. 33–42.Google Scholar

page 241 note 2 Geach, , op. cit., p. 39.Google Scholar

page 241 note 3 Geach, , op. cit., p. 40.Google Scholar

page 241 note 4 ‘Geach: Good and Evil’, Analysis, 17 (1957), 103–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 242 note 1 Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b (trans. Thomson, J. A. K.).Google Scholar

page 242 note 2 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 242 note 3 ‘Moral Beliefs’, p. 99.Google Scholar

page 242 note 4 Ibid., p. 101.

page 243 note 1 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 244 note 1 ‘Moral Beliefs’, p. 104.Google Scholar

page 244 note 2 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, p. 16.Google Scholar

page 247 note 1 The Right and the Good, p. 61.Google Scholar

page 247 note 2 ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, p. 16.Google Scholar

page 248 note 1 ‘Good and Evil’, p. 61.Google Scholar