Phil 160
W.D. Ross, “The Right and the Good”
What makes Ross a Deontologist?
• Ross rejects classical Utilitarianism because he
rejects hedonism
• Further, he rejects the very idea of
consequentialism (the idea that the rightmaking characteristics of an action are its
consequences).
• Ross is a deontologist because he holds that
what makes an action right or wrong is
intrinsic to the action itself.
The concept of duty:
• Ross contends that the moral point of view
looks to the past and present, not to the
future.
• What is relevant to what you ought to do is
not what will happen as a result, but rather
what your duty is in some case, which
depends largely on what the past and present.
“Prima facie”
• This is where Ross departs substantially from Kant.
• For Kant all duties are categorically imperative. For
Ross, duties are ‘prima facie’.
• ‘Prima Facie’ means loosely “at first glance” and is an
epistemological notion. A truly prima facie duty is a
duty that looked at first like it was a duty, but was not
in fact a duty.
• What Ross means is that duties are ‘pro tanto’. A pro
tanto duty is a duty that is a duty, but that may conflict
with and/or be superseded by other duties.
Ross’s Prima Facie Duties:
• Ross maintains that there are a variety of
duties, and provides a short list that is not
intended to be an exhaustive list, but that
covers some of the duties that we have.
• Those duties are broken up into two
categories: duties we owe to others, and
duties we owe to ourselves.
Duties we owe to ourselves:
• These are the duties of Prudence:
– Self-improvement, physically, mentally, morally,
etc.
– Note that these aren’t duties to do whatever you
want, they are duties to do what is best for you.
Duties we owe to others…
…based on past actions:
• Fidelity (keeping promises
we have made, maintaining
personal relationships we
have entered into
• Reparation (compensating
people for wrongs we have
done them)
• Gratitude (doing good to
those who have done good
to us)
…not based on past actions:
• Beneficence (helping others
in need when we can)
• Non-malevolence (doing no
harm)
• Justice (giving everyone
what they deserve, and not
withholding what people
deserve)
When duties conflict:
• When duties conflict, we must determine which
duty is more important.
• There is not a fixed hierarchy of duties. For
example, our duty of benevolence in saving a
child from drowning would outweigh our duty to
meet a friend for lunch if we happened to see a
child drowning on the way to lunch. However, a
promise to buy one’s child her ballerina slippers
for dance class would outweigh a duty of
benevolence in giving some money to a broke
traveler.
General tendencies
• Some of the “prima facie” (pro tanto) duties
have a tendency to be more stringent than
others.
• For example, the duty to do no harm to others
tends to be more stringent than many others.
We seldom owe anything to ourselves or
anybody that requires harming another
person.
Value Pluralism
• This approach of Ross’s brings into the picture a
concept called “Value Pluralism”
• Instead of having only one reason to act (for the
utilitarian, maximizing pleasure; for the Kantian,
acting in accord with the categorical imperative)
we have many reasons to act, some of which are
more important in some contexts than in others.
• Ross’s system pays for its plausibility with its
complexity and uncertainty.