Modalities of moral responsibility

The paper proposes a comprehensive understanding of responsibility as the intersection of moral relations of care, dependence and freedom. The author defines three main modes of responsible acts. It is shown that traditional morality tended to preserve the object of care and to conserve existing relations, norms and virtues (responsibility for “is”). Modernity orientated subjects towards the complying with the requirements of universal duty and ideal patterns of behavior, determined by moral authority (responsibility for “ought to”). Since the mid-twentieth century public concern has been associated with the dilemmas of applied ethics depended on the free choice of moral subject (responsibility for “may be”).

moral responsibility, caring, freedom, dependence, modality, “is”, “ought to”, “may be”