A moral imperative is a strongly-felt principle that compels that person to act. It is a kind of
categorical imperative
The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 '' Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of eva ...
, as defined by
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of
pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to reason. Later thinkers took the imperative to originate in conscience, as the divine voice speaking through the human spirit. The dictates of conscience are simply right and often resist further justification. Looked at another way, the experience of conscience is the basic experience of encountering the right.
An example of not following a moral imperative is making a promise that you do not intend to keep in order to get something.
Global Economic Moral imperative
Toby Ord
Toby David Godfrey Ord (born July 1979) is an Australian philosopher. He founded Giving What We Can in 2009, an international society whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to effective charities, and is a key figure in the ...
Explores a moral imperative driven by a utilitarian view in relation to economics and global health. A hypothetical example he gives is that a group has $40,000 to spend on blindness. The money could be spent to provide one U.S. person with a seeing eye dog and training or could be used to reverse the effects of 2,000 cases of trachoma in Africa through surgery. The utilitarian answer would be to help more people.
Toby also provides some real-world examples. Some real-world examples provide data on the cost to prevent or treat AIDS. Analyzing the cost-effectiveness of these methods of treatment and prevention is a moral imperative because the most effective use of funds can save more lives.
Gary Locke
Gary Faye Locke (born January 21, 1950) is an American politician and diplomat serving as the interim president of Bellevue College, the largest of the institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system. Locke se ...
and
Angel Gurria stated cases for economic moral imperatives related to corruption and anti-bribery laws. Water provides 40 percent of the world's food requirement and in developing countries there can be a 30 percent premium on water.
Thomas Pogge
Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge (; born 13 August 1953) is a German philosopher and is the Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. In addition to his Yale appointment, ...
argues that this corruption is strongly encouraged by the existing international rules as the rulers of these countries have much to gain from these larger countries and corporations.
See also
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Deontological ethics
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ...
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Teleology
Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
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Ethical dilemma
In philosophy, ethical dilemmas, also called ethical paradoxes or moral dilemmas, are situations in which an agent stands under two (or more) ''conflicting moral requirements'', none of which ''overrides'' the other. A closely related definition c ...
References
Concepts in ethics
Intention
Imperative
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