Topics Ethics

Question Is the obligation to behave ethically itself an ethical obligation? If not, what kind of obligation is it? It certainly doesn't seem logically necessary to behave ethically, since people do it all the time without becoming entwined in reality-shattering logical paradoxes, (although perhaps one could argue that people behaving unethically are, in a sense, schizophrenic...), and it isn't an explicit legal obligation, either.

Accepted:
October 20, 2011

Comments

I don't think it makes sense to say that there are meta-duties of the sort you contemplate. The duty to fulfill the duty to help children in need is nothing over and above the duty to help children in need. And the broader duty to fulfill one's moral duties is nothing over and above those moral duties.
Still, there are other meta-duties, esp. the duty to work out what one's moral duties are and the duty to fortify one's disposition to act as one's moral duties require. These are simply additional moral duties -- and ones that presumably any plausible morality would postulate.