Rather, he draws on considerations regarding human nature and other aspects of the natural world in moving from general principles of morality to moral duties.
As in early Mohism, "benefit" (li) is the fundamental standard of what is moral or right (yi), which underlies moral duties and virtues: "Morality is benefit" (A8, B76).
Whose benefit counts in determining what morality (yi) is, and what are the scope of our moral duties?
But it seems to me that moral duties cut both ways.
"Get it in your heads that if you throw away your moral duties to your parents, you are thieves.
All people are not equally entitled to my time, affection, resources or moral duties — and only conjectural assumption can make them appear so.
"Professional life is ever harder, ever more stressful and unattractive, and on the other hand, there is an accumulation of new moral duties weighing on women".
Consider, for instance, John Lawrence's "Philosophical and Practical Treatise on Horses, and on the Moral Duties of Man Towards the Brute Creation," published in London in 1796.
What is wrong is the idea that this unexceptionable claim entitles us to think of the state itself as an agent possessed of moral duties.
To treat those fleeing war in Syria the same as Lithuanian builders is, as the shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pointed out, preventing Britain from fulfilling its moral duties at a time when they are most in need.
This article considers the moral duties owed by a state to asylum seekers requesting admission.
