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Moral certainty   /mˈɔrəl sˈərtənti/   Listen
adjective
Moral  adj.  
1.
Relating to duty or obligation; pertaining to those intentions and actions of which right and wrong, virtue and vice, are predicated, or to the rules by which such intentions and actions ought to be directed; relating to the practice, manners, or conduct of men as social beings in relation to each other, as respects right and wrong, so far as they are properly subject to rules. "Keep at the least within the compass of moral actions, which have in them vice or virtue." "Mankind is broken loose from moral bands." "She had wandered without rule or guidance in a moral wilderness."
2.
Conformed to accepted rules of right; acting in conformity with such rules; virtuous; just; as, a moral man. Used sometimes in distinction from religious; as, a moral rather than a religious life. "The wiser and more moral part of mankind."
3.
Capable of right and wrong action or of being governed by a sense of right; subject to the law of duty. "A moral agent is a being capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense."
4.
Acting upon or through one's moral nature or sense of right, or suited to act in such a manner; as, a moral arguments; moral considerations. Sometimes opposed to material and physical; as, moral pressure or support.
5.
Supported by reason or probability; practically sufficient; opposed to legal or demonstrable; as, a moral evidence; a moral certainty.
6.
Serving to teach or convey a moral; as, a moral lesson; moral tales.
Moral agent, a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong.
Moral certainty, a very high degree or probability, although not demonstrable as a certainty; a probability of so high a degree that it can be confidently acted upon in the affairs of life; as, there is a moral certainty of his guilt.
Moral insanity, insanity, so called, of the moral system; badness alleged to be irresponsible.
Moral philosophy, the science of duty; the science which treats of the nature and condition of man as a moral being, of the duties which result from his moral relations, and the reasons on which they are founded.
Moral play, an allegorical play; a morality. (Obs.)
Moral sense, the power of moral judgment and feeling; the capacity to perceive what is right or wrong in moral conduct, and to approve or disapprove, independently of education or the knowledge of any positive rule or law.
Moral theology, theology applied to morals; practical theology; casuistry.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Moral certainty" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the nerves,—say, when a man feels "shaky,"—it takes but little to convince him that anything which may possibly not be all right is to a moral certainty all wrong. To sleep another night in that room, with the windows open,—and who would shut his windows in July?—directly exposed to the exhalations of a rising forest of upas-antiars of Macassar, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... begun to sing from the day he was sure that the Archduke had given him up. Physical relief may have had something to do with that, but moral certainty had more. What made him fume or freeze was doubt. There was very little room for doubt just now but that his enemies would prove too many for Austria's scruples. His friends? He was not aware that he had any friends. ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... system the influence of efficacious grace can be conceived in but two ways. Either it is so strong that the will is physically unable to withhold its consent; or it is only strong enough that the consent of the will can be inferred with purely moral certainty. In the former alternative we have a prevenient necessity which determines the will ad unum and consequently destroys its freedom. In the latter, there can be no infallible foreknowledge of the future free acts of rational creatures on the part of God, because the Augustinians reject ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... and it is a part of my business to avail myself of all favorable circumstances in the community to make money." Who would not have been struck with the cold-blooded and inhuman avarice of such a man? And yet there was not half the moral certainty that those fire-arms would have been used for purposes of blood, that there is that ardent spirits will be employed to produce crime, and poverty, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... great men quarrel with you, and you revenge yourselves by starving them for the first half of their lives. Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original genius, is at present the increase of moral certainty that during his early years he will have a hard battle to fight; and that just at the time when his conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic—just at that most critical period, his heart is full of anxieties and household cares; he is chilled ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office. The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors ...
— The Federalist Papers
... restlessly, but she dared not ask him what was the matter. In vain did Silas rehearse to himself all through the night-hours how petty were the trifles in Joseph's demeanor which had disturbed him. They were of the sort of trifles which create that species of certainty known as moral certainty,—the strongest of all in the mind it occupies, although so incapable of being communicated to others. It mattered little how much evidence there was, if it sufficed to lodge the faintest trace of ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... probably increased by the circumstance that a ship arrived in a very short passage from New York, which spoke our prize; all well, with a smacking southerly breeze, a clear coast, and a run of only a few hundred miles to make. This left the almost moral certainty that la Dame de Nantes had arrived safe, no Frenchman being likely to trust herself on that distant coast, which was now alive with our own cruisers, going to or returning from the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... contrary, and that the Spaniards remained as unguarded, and as little apprehensive as ever; perhaps even the fate of this expedition may have made them less so, insomuch, that were a new project of the same kind to be put in execution, either at public or private expence, there seems next to a moral certainty that it would succeed. Another expedition might, and probably would be attended by fewer difficulties; at least, it certainly might be undertaken at much less expence; and, besides all the advantages resulting to such private persons as became proprietors, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr


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