Each of the arguments we're going to advance in the field of ethics rests on the single fact of moral responsibility. The entirety of ethics can thus be revealed by explaining moral responsibility and examining its conditions. The main condition we'll consider is the moral law and its consequences.

Undeniably, man is a responsible creature. He judges his actions, declaring them good or bad, and recognizes that others also have the right to judge them. This is the essence of responsibility, which has also been called imputability.

Let's consider this idea further. Someone who's responsible is accountable to a law. For when we feel we have to account for our actions, we do so by considering whether they've violated some law. In such a circumstance, we feel dependent on the authority of this law.

Yet responsibility also has another characteristic. In twenty or thirty years, I'll still feel responsible for an action I commit today. It's true that civil law recognizes that we're no longer culpable after a certain amount of time. But when it comes to the moral law, there's no such recognition. Moral responsibility survives the act in perpetuity. The act may take only a moment to complete, but we'll be held accountable for the rest of our lives. So there are two components to moral responsibility:

1. We're responsible, accountable for our actions before a law;

2. This responsibility is perpetual.

What are the conditions of moral responsibility?