Definition of "oughtness" [ought•ness]

• The obligatoriness of future actions or future states of affairs which are morally worthy of being produced through human effort. (noun)

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• "But every reform springs from a sense of "oughtness"; and the sense of moral obligation is itself the spontaneous expression of the consciousness of moral freedom."
• "The inescapable fact of "oughtness" is the bottom fact upon which our ethics must be built."
• ""imagined political community" presented as The American Dream, which unites the US population around a common patriotism, saying - "And so it is marvellous and great that we do have a dream, that we have a nation with a dream .. to remind us of the" oughtness "of our noble capacity for justice and love and brotherhood.""