Hard Determinism and the Moral "Ought"

In this brief paper, I shall be concerned with offering a partial answer to this charge by considering the effects of hard determinism on one of the more significant and fundamental concepts of traditional ethics, that of the moral 'ought.' By 'hard determinism' I refer to the thesis which maintains that all actions are caused and therefore no one is free with regard to his/her actions. By implication it follows that no one is morally responsible for his/her actions. In what follows, I shall demonstrate that (1) traditional assumptions regarding the moral 'ought' are, indeed, in conflict with hard