Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

The Morality of Getting Divorced

Justin McBrayer considers when divorce is morally permissable, and when it isn’t.

It’s almost impossible to find someone whose life has not been significantly affected by divorce. Given this, the decision to end a marriage may be one of the most significant moral decisions a person ever makes. So under what conditions is it morally permissible to get a divorce?

To say that something is morally permissible means that there is no moral obligation requiring you to act differently. So getting divorced will be morally permissible only if you can do so while meeting all your moral obligations. So what are the moral obligations that might make ending a marriage morally problematic?

What Makes Marriage Morally Special?

Many ethicists agree that getting married generates special moral obligations that one would not otherwise have.

…