9.6 Chapter Glossary

Accordance with Duty – Acting according to one’s social duty or from obligations imposed by others.

Actual Duty – For Ross, the duty we must choose from among several that best applies to the specific circumstance at hand.

Categorical Imperative – Those imperatives which are not optional but morally binding, absolute and universal.

Contradiction of Conception – Part of the First Formulation’s test for universalizability, assessing whether the resulting universalized rule contradict the need for the rule itself.

Deontological Ethics – Any theory of ethics which does not consider the consequences of an action as relevant.

Duty – A binding moral obligation.

First Formulation – The Categorical Imperative test of universalizability, rationally willing that a maxim become a universal law.

Good Will – The willingness to do the right thing, the only motive for moral decision making that is good without qualification.

Hypothetical Imperative – Any imperative that is conditional, optional, and not universally binding.

Imperfect Duties – Moral duties which allow more flexibility in how they are followed.

Maxim – A subjective, personal rule of behavior.

Perfect Duties – Moral duties which are universal and binding.

Prima Facie Duties – For Ross, the notion that in many moral dilemmas we are confronted with many duties which “on the face of things” seem equally binding, setting up a conflict of duties.

Sake of Duty – Acting from the inner, moral imperative without consideration of external rewards or obligations.

Second Formulation – The Categorical Imperative test seeing persons as ends, rejecting any action that uses rational beings as instrumental towards some other good, rational beings are the highest intrinsic good.

Universal Law – A morally binding rule for all rational persons.

Universalizability – Shorthand for Kant’s First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative. Can we rationally will that a maxim become a universal law?