Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state of being as it ought to be; rightness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare The state of being as a thing ought to be; rightness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun rare The
obligatoriness of futureactions or futurestates of affairs which are morally worthy of being produced through human effort.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The inescapable fact of "oughtness" is the bottom fact upon which our ethics must be built.
Problems of Conduct Durant Drake
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But every reform springs from a sense of "oughtness"; and the sense of moral obligation is itself the spontaneous expression of the consciousness of moral freedom.
Problems of Immanence: studies critical and constructive Joseph Warschauer
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"oughtness", he drew attention to the fact that the African-Americans were systemically excluded from The American Dream.
First Raymond Mhlaba Annual Memorial Lecture delivered by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki 2008
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"imagined political community" presented as The American Dream, which unites the US population around a common patriotism, saying - "And so it is marvellous and great that we do have a dream, that we have a nation with a dream .. to remind us of the" oughtness "of our noble capacity for justice and love and brotherhood."
First Raymond Mhlaba Annual Memorial Lecture delivered by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki 2008
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I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him.
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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.
Joe Cirincione: King's Struggle to Prevent "The Hell of Thermonuclear War" 2010
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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.
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The Deontic – the sense of “oughtness” – is seldom recognized in current Libertarian concerns.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Kay Hymowitz, Libertarianism, and Lifestyle Excesses: 2007
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Perhaps deontological properties such as requiredness, being obligatory and oughtness simply supervene on axiological properties of the kind Adams admits exist logically prior to God's commands.
Moral Arguments for the Existence of God Byrne, Peter 2007
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So somehow the "isness" of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts us.
hernesheir commented on the word oughtness
The Metaphysics of Oughtness, by Francis L. Patton. Mannipay, Strong and Asbury, Printers, 1887. 32 pp.
March 23, 2011