Moral Blackmail
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Terrance C. McConnell, Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: As moral agents we must deal with the fact that many of our ethical
decisions are made under imperfect conditions, and these imperfections
may alter our actual obligations. If a person has done something wrong,
he may incur a duty of reparation or a contrary-to-duty imperative; if an
agent knows that he is weak-willed and will fail to do the morally ideal
thing, his actual obligation may be altered so that he is only required to
do the best that he can; and if, because of nonculpable ignorance, an
agent cannot know that a certain act would be the morally ideal one, he
may have no obligation to perform that act.1 In each of these cases, the
imperfection that alters the agent's obligation is his own -the fact that he
has done a wrong act, the fact that he is weak willed and will not be able
to avoid temptation, and the fact of his own ignorance. It would seem,
though, that the imperfections of others might also alter one's obligations.
Surely others' moral weakness affects one's own obligations; for
example, one has an obligation not to leave confidential material lying on
one's desk lest others be overcome by incontinence and look at it.
Similarly, it would seem that the ignorance of others may affect one's
obligations. At the very least, one might have an obligation to eliminate
the ignorance by informing others.
Moral Blackmail
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Created on 1/1/1981
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Additional Information
- Publication
- McConnell, Terrance. “Moral Blackmail,” Ethics 91(4) (July 1981), pp. 544-567.
- Language: English
- Date: 1981
- Keywords
- Moral decisions, Limited information, Coercion