used in auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety, or expediency
As for obligation—I doubt you are under any obligation other than to avoid the usual uncontroversially nasty behavior, along with any specific obligations you may have to specific people you know. You would know what those are much better than I would. I don’t really see how an ordinary person could be all that puzzled about what his obligations are.
As for propriety—over and above your obligation to avoid uncontroversially nasty behavior, I doubt you have much trouble discovering what’s socially acceptable (stuff like, not farting in an elevator), and anyway, it’s not the end of the world if you offend somebody. Again, I don’t really see how an ordinary person is going to have a problem.
As for expediency—I doubt you intended the question that way.
If this doesn’t answer your question in full you probably need to explain the question. The utilitarians have this strange notion that morality is about maximizing global utility, so of course, morality in the way that they conceive it is a kind of life-encompassing total program of action, since every choice you make could either increase or decrease total utility. Maybe that’s what you want answered, i.e., what’s the best possible thing you could be doing.
But the “should” of obligation is not like this. We have certain obligations but these are fairly limited, and don’t provide us with a life-encompassing program of action. And the “should” of propriety is not like this either. People just don’t pay you any attention as long as you don’t get in their face too much, so again, the direction you get from this quarter is limited.
As for obligation—I doubt you are under any obligation other than to avoid the usual >uncontroversially nasty behavior, along with any specific obligations you may have to >specific people you know. You would know what those are much better than I would. I >don’t really see how an ordinary person could be all that puzzled about what his >obligations are.
You have collapsed several meanings of obligation together there. You may have explicit legal obligations to the state, and IOU style obligations to individuals who have done you a favour, and so on. But moralobligations go beyond all those, If you are living a brutal dictatorship, there are conceivable circumstances where you morally should not obey the law. Etc, etc.
Three definitions of “should”:
As for obligation—I doubt you are under any obligation other than to avoid the usual uncontroversially nasty behavior, along with any specific obligations you may have to specific people you know. You would know what those are much better than I would. I don’t really see how an ordinary person could be all that puzzled about what his obligations are.
As for propriety—over and above your obligation to avoid uncontroversially nasty behavior, I doubt you have much trouble discovering what’s socially acceptable (stuff like, not farting in an elevator), and anyway, it’s not the end of the world if you offend somebody. Again, I don’t really see how an ordinary person is going to have a problem.
As for expediency—I doubt you intended the question that way.
If this doesn’t answer your question in full you probably need to explain the question. The utilitarians have this strange notion that morality is about maximizing global utility, so of course, morality in the way that they conceive it is a kind of life-encompassing total program of action, since every choice you make could either increase or decrease total utility. Maybe that’s what you want answered, i.e., what’s the best possible thing you could be doing.
But the “should” of obligation is not like this. We have certain obligations but these are fairly limited, and don’t provide us with a life-encompassing program of action. And the “should” of propriety is not like this either. People just don’t pay you any attention as long as you don’t get in their face too much, so again, the direction you get from this quarter is limited.
You have collapsed several meanings of obligation together there. You may have explicit legal obligations to the state, and IOU style obligations to individuals who have done you a favour, and so on. But moralobligations go beyond all those, If you are living a brutal dictatorship, there are conceivable circumstances where you morally should not obey the law. Etc, etc.