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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



... intimates that when we have done with his services, he will step back and take that young man. Which in course of time he does: feeling at perfect ease about finding him, and knowing for a moral certainty that nobody in that region will ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... from day to day, Frank observed a gradual change coming over the elder of the two men. At first he had been excited, and at times irritable; but as each day showed increased returns, and it became a moral certainty that the claim was going to turn out extremely rich, the excitement seemed to pass away. He talked less, and spent less of his time in watching the work going on, sometimes not even coming down to watch the clear-up at the end of the day's work. Even the discovery ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... therefore proved satisfactorily, and with more than moral certainty, that an exception occurs to the general law of not speaking untruly, viz. when it is impossible to observe a certain other precept, more important, without telling a lie. Some persons indeed say, that in the cases of impossibility which are above drawn out, what is said ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... 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
... that the commerce of the kingdom was more extensive at this than at any former period; and that the public credit was strong enough to admit of an experiment, which he would not presume to hazard, except upon a moral certainty of its being firmly rooted beyond the power of accident and faction to shake or overturn. He declared, that his design of reducing the interest upon the funds was the result of the love he bore his country, and an opinion that it was the duty of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett


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