ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that moral imaginativeness and moral creativity are increasingly important, both for the present ethical thinking about the future and for ethics within possible futures. Moral imaginativeness explores surprising new ways to develop or extend one's existing store of moral concepts, values, norms, and idioms, while moral creativity puts moral imaginativeness into practice. The chapter introduces moral creativity using two historical examples. The first involves re-imagining morality in straightened circumstances, while the second extends the circle of moral concern. Moral creativity is distinct from morally relevant non-moral creativity, from ethical "business-as-usual", and from non-moral creativity about ethics; it is predominantly a collective, rather than an individual phenomenon; it is a practical activity with a theoretical dimension; and it undermines any attempt to predict the human future. Moral education often seeks to suppress imagination about ethics. Some possible futures highlight this potential danger.