Oughtness

Quick meaning: Oughtness is a noun meaning (chiefly philosophy) In ethics, the quality which makes an action dutiful or morally obligatory.

Meaning

(chiefly philosophy) In ethics, the quality which makes an action dutiful or morally obligatory.

More Meanings

1. (rare) The state or characteristic of something's being as it ought to be; rightness.
2. (rare) The obligatoriness of future actions or future states of affairs which are morally worthy of being produced through human effort.

Example Sentences

Combining the reality of politics with a sense of "oughtness" creates a sense of duty to the collective.

Oughtness, may I suggest, consists in the power which a greater good has over a lesser good in compelling our choices.

I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

Every attempt to derive oughtness from rightness must, as we have shown, either end in an illogical system or destroy the possibility of a separate science of Ethics at all.

Word Forms

• oughtnesses

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include ought-not-ness, obligedness, duteousness, moralness, ethicalness, dutifulness.

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