Abstract

These various paradoxes can be viewed as variants of a ninth to the effect that men ought to do what is absolutely right, although none has sufficient power or knowledge for the purpose. It is to this last paradox that I shall devote the major part of my discourse. I will try to show that the paradox is inescapable, that a number of commonly accepted answers to it are unsatisfactory, and that an adequate answer to it will require a consideration of activities and categories which are outside the province of ethics. Only after these steps are covered will we be in a position to justify our basic contention that ethics and religion are independent and even sometimes incompatible enterprises.