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Conclusion

from Part IV - Reasons, Values, and Obligations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

Robert Audi
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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Summary

This book represents ethics as concerned not just with what we should do or even with that conceived as done for the kinds of reasons that, morally, befit what we should do. Ethics concerns our overall conduct. The ethical theory presented here stresses the three major dimensions of conduct: its matter – its act-type – the agent’s motivation for acting, and the manner in which the agent does the thing in question. This theory has the important implication that moral obligation encompasses adverbial obligations, particularly those regarding the salient manners of what we do. The adverbial dimension of ethics deserves more explication than it has received, and this book is intended in part as a contribution to remedying that imbalance. The motivational dimension of moral conduct is also important, and it cannot be reduced to matters of obligation – by treating actions for reasons as act-types that are objects of obligation – nor can manners of action be fruitfully represented as act-types. Acting for a reason is not a manner of action but a compound phenomenon entailing both an action and an explanatory basis of it, and actions so conceived admit of indefinitely many manners of performance.

Type
Chapter
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Of Moral Conduct
A Theory of Obligation, Reasons, and Value
, pp. 287 - 291
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Conclusion
  • Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Of Moral Conduct
  • Online publication: 08 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009266987.019
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  • Conclusion
  • Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Of Moral Conduct
  • Online publication: 08 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009266987.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book: Of Moral Conduct
  • Online publication: 08 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009266987.019
Available formats
×