Moral Concepts in Practice II

Abstract

This chapter continues the exploration of important concepts in ethics. These are ideas that most of us will find to be of crucial value at some point, and many of them will find routine use. The first concepts defined and explored in this chapter are voluntary and nonvoluntary responsibility. It is argued that the more holistic notion of a responsible person is preferable to a focus on separate responsible acts. The other concepts discussed are justice and the measures of impartiality used in justice, liberty, moral rights, conscience, and death. It is argued that conscience is an important facet of moral judgments, but not a final or unassailable authority. Death, it is argued, is an enabler of ethics, and a feature of moral life that gives it intensity and meaning.